“Dreamers” in Canada need protection, too

2020/06/24 Leave a comment

It would be helpful having more accurate estimates on the numbers rather than the anecdotal wide range. The numbers are important to assess what policy approach or approaches are more appropriate and or needed:

Thursday’s long-awaited U.S. Supreme Court decision rejecting the Trump administration’s bid to end the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program was met with sighs of relief on both sides of the border. The plight of so-called “Dreamers” — youth and young people who were brought to the U.S. as children who remained with no legal immigration status — is a well-known and heartbreaking story. Despite most often having had no role in the decision to migrate, nor having remaining connection to their previous country, these young people are vulnerable to deportation. Anti-immigration advocates accuse them of “cheating the system.”

While we gasp at this close call in the U.S., the truth is that Canada is no better on this issue. In fact, non-citizens brought to Canada as children are perhaps in a worse position. We have no DACA-equivalent legislation to provide protection from deportation or temporary work authorization to our “Dreamers.” We do not even have a public discourse on the issue.

While the term “Dreamers” invokes idealistic accounts of overcoming odds and happy endings, the people this term refers to are in fact real people living real lives. Like other children, they have gone to school, made neighbourhood friends, and developed views of the world based on their Canadian lives.

As the pandemic has laid bare, while migrants are essential to our communities, they are so often exploited and excluded. Migrants face barriers to health care, education, decent work, family unity and equal rights. While legalization theoretically enables “Dreamers” to access K-12 education, many require the intervention of lawyers and community advocates to enforce that right. As they grow up, they discover they cannot work legally, access supports such as OHIP and OSAP, enrol at most universities and colleges (or if they are admitted, face elevated international fees). Without SIN numbers, they cannot access CERB or CESB. Seeking professional support or calling the police, always a perilous choice for racialized groups, risks exposure to immigration authorities.

These barriers not only close doors to opportunities that other Canadians take for granted, they force these young people into precarious employment, housing and social situations that make them vulnerable to abuse. To protect themselves and their families, they work to “fly under the radar.” Living as an undocumented person carries huge psychological weight. In this case, that weight is carried by children and youth.

Consider “Marla,” who was brought to Canada at the age of 4. She has lived in the GTA for 18 years. An academic star throughout school, she was completely unaware of her insecure immigration status and what that meant until she was mid-way through high school. The revelation was harsh. While her friends entered university, she had to abandon her own university ambitions and instead enter precarious factory employment.

Since 2012, DACA has enabled approximately 800,000 young adults to work lawfully in the U.S.. How many undocumented childhood arrivals do we have in Canada? We do not actually know. Estimates of the number of people living in Canada without legal immigration status vary from 20,000 to 500,000, but there is no estimate of those who arrived during childhood. The existence of childhood arrivals is seldom even acknowledged.

Therefore, hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of young people across the country are living in marginalization and vulnerability. They also cannot contribute to our communities and economies in the ways they wish. And this despite the significant investments we have made in them (e.g., education, emergency health care) — and they in us.

Do we need quantifiable numbers before we act? No. Agencies working with migrants and young people know of enough people like Marla to know their predicament is real.

If the Canadian government finally decides to provide protections to this special group, we must not blindly accept a DACA-like model. Despite applauding Thursday’s decision, we know that DACA is insufficient. It defers removals but does not provide a pathway to citizenship, effectively leaving young people in limbo. It also creates a hierarchy of entitlement due to strict inclusion criteria. A made-in-Canada solution would need to address these glaring deficiencies and embrace childhood arrivals as equal and welcome members of our society.

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Trump administration extends work visa ban, creating uncertainty for Canadians

2020/06/24 Leave a comment

The Canadian angle (applies more broadly of course, with India likely being the country most affected):

The Trump administration said Monday that it is extending a ban on green cards issued outside the United States until the end of the year and adding many temporary work visas to the freeze — including those used heavily by technology companies and multinational corporations — tossing a cloud of uncertainty over thousands of Canadians, including cross-border workers and their families.

The administration cast the effort as a way to free up jobs in an economy reeling from the coronavirus. A senior official who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity estimated the restrictions will free up to 525,000 jobs for Americans.

The ban, while temporary, would amount to major restructuring of legal immigration if made permanent, a goal that had eluded the administration before the pandemic. Long-term changes targeting asylum seekers and high-tech workers are also being sought.

Business groups pressed hard to limit the changes, but got little of what they wanted, marking a victory for immigration hardliners as Trump seeks to further solidify their support ahead of the November election.

The ban on new visas applies to H-1B visas, which are widely used by major American and Indian technology company workers and their families, H-2B visas for nonagricultural seasonal workers, J-1 visas for cultural exchanges and L-1 visas for managers and other key employees of multinational corporations.

There will be exemptions for food processing workers, which make up about 15 per cent of H-2B visas, the official said. Health care workers assisting with the coronavirus fight will continue to be spared from the green-card freeze, though their exemption will be narrower.

“In the administration of our nation’s immigration system, we must remain mindful of the impact of foreign workers on the United States labour market, particularly in the current extraordinary environment of high domestic unemployment and depressed demand for labour,” Trump wrote in his presidential proclamation.

Potential effect on Canadians

These moves could affect thousands of Canadians. They are far more severe than an earlier immigration announcement from Trump in April, which affected only applications for permanent immigration visas.

The new provisions touch work visas used by many Canadians. Canadians filed more than 4,000 H-1B applications in each of the last two years, and numerous others would get L1 business visas in a normal year, including executives working for cross-border companies.

Source: Trump administration extends work visa ban, creating uncertainty for Canadians

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A lesson learned early: How B.C. has avoided major COVID-19 outbreaks among migrant farm workers

2020/06/23 Leave a comment

British Columbia seems to have gotten virtually everything right compared to the other larger provinces:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was forced to grapple last week with the treatment of migrant farm workers after hundreds of agricultural labourers, mostly in Ontario, tested positive for COVID-19, prompting the Mexican government to suspend the annual exodus of its workers to Canadian farms.

But planeloads of temporary foreign workers from Mexico are still expected to arrive in British Columbia, because of a unique program the province implemented in April designed to avert the kind of outbreaks Mr. Trudeau now promises to address in other provinces.

An investigation by The Globe and Mail has shown that the living and working conditions of some of the country’s most vulnerable workers allowed the pandemic to spread.

As Mr. Trudeau promises to find ways to do better by the migrant workers who are essential to Canada’s food system, he could look to B.C. for at least part of the answer.

British Columbia, like Ontario and Quebec, relies heavily on temporary foreign workers for farm labour.

The difference is that B.C. responded to a single COVID-19 outbreak at a plant nursery early in March with a plan designed to prevent a repeat. The cost of the program is not known yet, but it is expected to be tens of millions of dollars.

Since April 13, the B.C. government has organized and paid for quarantine services for migrant workers who arrive in B.C. to take seasonal farm jobs. The employers must pay wages during this time. So far, 2,800 people have been housed in Vancouver-area hotels, where they are provided meals, health care and other supports during their two week isolation. Of those, 23 have tested positive for COVID-19 while in quarantine.

Because of the pandemic, new arrivals to Canada are legally required to self-isolate for two weeks. But housing on the farms is typically crowded, with shared kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms.

Providing these services is a tacit admission that those operations relying on migrant workers cannot effectively provide quarantine in their housing.

David Geen, owner of Jealous Fruits, a cherry producer in B.C.‘s Okanagan Valley, said he has invested millions of dollars in housing for the migrant workers who make up the majority of his workforce at harvest time. But even with that, he said, he could not imagine how to safely provide quarantine facilities.

“We were seriously contemplating sitting out the year. We could not figure out how to properly do this,” Mr. Geen said in an interview. “We’re farmers, we’re not epidemiologists.”

His cherry farms and packing facility employ 150 local and 500 migrant workers at peak times. “We have spread people out in the dorms, and in the fields, but if you have an infected person arrive in your dorms, it’s difficult to keep [the virus] out.”

So far this year, he has 155 temporary foreign workers on site, and another 130 are in quarantine. He expects another group later in June, and still more in early July. Even after their quarantine, the farm provides the workers with groceries and amenities so that they can remain isolated while working.

There have been no reports of COVID-19 cases on B.C. farms since the quarantine housing program began. Mr. Geen said B.C. deserves credit for that success, but he believes Ottawa should have stepped up to ensure farmworkers and farms across the country were similarly protected.

“I feel ill reading about the tragic situation in Ontario,” he said.

Still, the living and working conditions for migrant workers remain an ugly aspect of food production in Canada, including in B.C. The fact that many farms cannot recruit local workers, even as unemployment spikes due to the pandemic, is telling.

Weeks before B.C. unveiled its quarantine plan, the Dignidad Migrante Society, a Vancouver-based non-profit organization that provides services, support, representation and assistance to migrant workers, called attention to those working conditions.

Raul Gabica, a former farm worker who is now a Canadian citizen, said B.C.‘s response has been a very good step. “But the workers are still in overcrowded housing, with no space for social distancing.”

Typical accommodations on B.C. farms provide one bathroom and one kitchen for every 10 workers, he said, with two or three people in each bedroom. “The housing standards have to change,” he said.

The pandemic has exposed that putting cheap food on the table comes at a high price for some.

Source:    A lesson learned early: How B.C. has avoided major COVID-19 outbreaks among migrant farm workers    

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Editorial: Tightening Japan’s immigration regs no excuse to trample human rights

2020/06/23 Leave a comment

Of note:

A government expert committee has submitted its recommendations for dealing with the problem of foreign citizens being held for months, and in some cases years, at Japan’s immigration detention centers.

The committee has called for a system of penalties for foreigners who ignore deportation orders, as well as for the government to consider how to handle people who make repeated refugee claims. The proposed rules are notable for their severity.

As of the end of 2019, there were 1,054 people being held at Immigration Service Agency of Japan detention facilities. Of those, 462 had been locked up for six months or more. According to the agency, the long-term detentions are due to people refusing to be repatriated. However, most foreigners without a legal residency status have left Japan after being ordered to do so. In a great many cases where a person has refused to go, it is because their lives would be endangered if they went home, or because they have families in Japan.

In light of this, it is questionable whether imposing penalties for those refusing deportation orders would have a significant impact on repatriation. We rather worry that the move will result in shrinking support for foreigners who cannot go home.

The committee’s recommendation that measures be considered to deport refugee claimants mid-application in exceptional cases was apparently based on the recognition that there are quite a few people abusing the system by filing repeated claims to avoid leaving Japan. However, deporting a person who may be a refugee is forbidden under the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

We must wonder if, considering the scant few people granted refugee status here compared with global norms, this country’s refugee system isn’t too strict already. A total of 10,375 people applied for refugee status in Japan last year. Of those, only 44 were accepted. Perhaps the government had best rethink its evaluation process before talking about mid-application deportations.

Taking a foreigner to an immigration detention center is supposed to be preparation for them to be deported. Many other places have legal maximums for how long a person can be detained in this way. For example, the upper limit in the European Union is six months. There is no such rule in Japan. However, the expert committee report does not address limiting detention times in a concrete way. It does call for a review mechanism to be created for cases where a person has been held for a certain length of time, to evaluate whether continued detention is appropriate. However, we believe these reviews should not be conducted by the immigration agency or its parent, the Justice Ministry, but by the courts.

The United Nations has expressed concerns about Japan’s immigration system on multiple occasions. Last year, a Nigerian man who had been held at a detention center for three and a half years died of starvation following a hunger strike.

To avoid long-term detentions, the government should consider a flexible approach to granting temporary leave permission to detainees, allowing them back out into the world for a set time. Special consideration is also needed for those detainees with families and well-established lives in Japan.

Strengthening immigration management in this country cannot be made an excuse to obviate the human rights of foreign citizens.

Source: Editorial: Tightening Japan’s immigration regs no excuse to trample human rights

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UK: Home Office ‘uses racial bias’ when detaining immigrants

2020/06/22 Leave a comment

Of note. Haven’t seen comparative Canadian analyses but may have missed:

Black people are detained significantly longer than white people inside the UK’s immigration detention system, prompting fresh claims of “institutional racism”.

Although the Home Office does not record ethnicity data for detainees, analysis of nationalities of those recently held within the immigration detention estate found that citizens from countries with predominantly black and brown populations are held for substantially longer periods than those from predominantly white countries.

New data, released by pressure group Detention Action, found that during 2019 90% of Australian nationals were released before spending 28 days in detention compared with 40% of Jamaican nationals and 60% of Nigerian nationals.

Bella Sankey, director of the group, said that the disparity indicated a racial bias in the approach of the Home Office. “Our immigration detention and deportation systems are institutionally racist,” she said. “Indefinite detention was invented as part of an explicit government effort to reduce black and brown migration to the UK.”

Sankey added: “In 2020 black people are detained in wildly disproportionate numbers and for longer periods than white people. We urgently need a universal time limit on detention to end this endemic dehumanisation.”

The UK is the only European country that does not impose a time limit, with some held for years before being released. A parliamentary committee is one of many groups demanding that ministers introduce a 28-day time limit on immigration detention.

The new analysis found that of 44 Canadians detained, 40 were released from immigration detention within seven days compared with 17 of 100 Zimbabweans.

The Home Office uses detention centres to hold people before they are deported for immigration offences or released into the community. Although they are meant to be used sparingly, around 24,000 people were held in detention centres last year.

In a report issued last Wednesday, auditors also pointed out that the Home Office has not changed its estimated size of the illegal population for 15 years, and that nearly two-thirds of immigration enforcement detainees are released from detention without removal.

Source: Home Office ‘uses racial bias’ when detaining immigrants

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Howard Ramos: #Immigration to Canada May Not Return to Pre-Pandemic Levels

2020/06/20 Leave a comment

Good analysis and commentary by my friend, Howard Ramos, that asks some needed questions rather than assuming immigration will just bounce back, particularly the impact of Canada’s mixed handling of COVID-19 compared to immigration source countries:

After almost three months of lockdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada and other countries around the world are working to slowly re-open. As they do, immigration will be a key component to their economic recovery.

The question Canadian policymakers should be considering: will immigrants want to move and call Canada their new home? At the moment, it’s a theoretical question. However, a closer look at a number of trends suggests that a rebound in immigration to Canada is far from a guarantee.

A recent report by RBC underscores the extent to which the pandemic could derail Canada’s immigration-driven economy. With travel restricted and the pandemic still spreading in some parts of the world, quarantines and shutdowns are going to be a key part of the ‘new normal.’ The impact of closed borders and restricted movement on migration will not only interrupt movement but it will also create backlogs and other obstacles in immigration systems that most countries will have to wrestle with.

For Canada’s immigration levels to return to pre-COVID levels, Canadian governments will have to look beyond our borders to see how it has handled the pandemic relative to other countries.

Canada does not fare well compared to global counterparts

According to Worldometer, Canada ranks 17th worldwide in the most deaths per million, at 217, as of June 15, 2020. When this is broken down by region, as done by Andrew Griffith on the Multicultural Meanderings web site, death rates in Quebec are higher than the United States or Italy – and almost as high as the United Kingdom.

By this metric, Canada also does not fare well when it compares itself to the countries that are its most prominent sources of its immigrants. In 2019, the top 10 countries of citizenship of new permanent resident admissions to Canada were: India, China, Philippines, Pakistan, United States, Syria, Eritrea, South Korea, and Iran.

Among these, all but the United States had lower death rates, per million, from COVID-19 than Canada. And it wasn’t even close. China had a low of three deaths per million, while Iran had 107 deaths per million.

Policymakers would also be wise to consider that many of Canada’s hardest hit neighbourhoods by the pandemic were ones with a high concentration of recent immigrants. That reality undercuts many of the perceived advantages Canada presents to immigrants, such as its accessible and strong health care system or its quality of life.

When Canada is compared to other immigrant receiving countries such as Australia or New Zealand it does not fare well either. Australia ranks 129th in most deaths per million and New Zealand declared victory over the pandemic. Both managed the disease more efficiently and have a head start in reopening. As the world may experience a second or future waves of the pandemic, Canada does not look as attractive compared to competing immigrant receiving countries.

Multicultural ‘veneer’ tarnished by recent events

While Canada is recognized internationally for being open and multicultural, that veneer has been tarnished slightly by many reported incidents of anti-Asian discrimination. Polling shows that the majority of Canadians believe negative attitudes towards Asian-Canadians have increased since the pandemic and the Vancouver police report that anti-Asian hate crime has gone up in the city this year. Given that the top three source countries of newcomers last year were all Asian, this too makes the country less attractive.

The good news for Canada is that people have continued to apply for immigration and the country has continued processing applications during the pandemic. However, if the country aims to re-kindle its high level of immigration intake, it will need to reopen its borders. Canada cannot sit back and assume that people will want to come. Canadians will have to do the hard work of assuring newcomers that the country is indeed safe, healthy, and a welcoming place to build a future.

Source:  Immigration to Canada May Not Return to Pre-Pandemic Levels 

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Immigration slowdown to weigh on Canada’s economic recovery

2020/06/20 Leave a comment

More on the likely impact on the Canadian economy.

The slides below provide the monthly statistics since 2018 and capture the dramatic decrease in 2020:

Ramping up immigration without addressing Canada’s endemic productivity challenge means that any increase in GDP will not translate into an increase in GDP per capita, which economic and immigration should aim at:

Immigration to Canada has plummeted during the coronavirus pandemic, weakening a dependable lever of economic growth as the country mounts its recovery.

Canada’s population increased by about 76,000 people (0.2 per cent) over the first three months of 2020, the slowest growth in a first quarter since 2015, Statistics Canada said Thursday, warning a bigger impact will likely be felt in the second quarter.

The shift was severe for temporary immigration. The net increase of non-permanent residents in the first quarter was nearly 80 per cent lower than a year ago, largely because of fewer foreign students.

The dramatic slowdown is by design. In response to the pandemic, travel to Canada is heavily restricted. Those allowed entry include temporary foreign workers, along with foreign students and permanent residents who were approved before March 18. But for most people, the border is closed.

That is a complication for the recovery because the Canadian economy relies heavily on immigration to bolster output and consumption. Fewer immigrants will affect the labour supply, housing demand and university budgets, to name some prominent examples.

“If immigration falls by so much, then there’s a number of aspects of the Canadian economy that may be impacted pretty significantly,” said Andrew Agopsowicz, a senior economist at Royal Bank of Canada.

Before the pandemic, another record-setting year of immigration looked possible. The federal Liberals planned to welcome 341,000 new permanent residents in 2020, rising to 361,000 in 2022. The high-end estimate for 2020 was an intake of 370,000 permanent residents, which would have broken the 2019 record of about 341,000. Now, those targets look unfeasible.

For one, the Canada-U.S. border is closed to all non-essential travel through at least July 21, and with COVID-19 cases accelerating in some parts of the world, border restrictions may not ease substantially in the short term.

“We’re definitely not going to be growing very rapidly as a country this year,” said Robert Falconer, a research associate at the University of Calgary who studies immigration.

The early data suggest a massive slowdown in the second quarter. In April, about 4,100 people were approved for permanent residency, down 85 per cent from the previous April, according to the most recent data published by the federal immigration department. Most approvals were for people already living in the country.

If travel restrictions and border closings last all summer, Canada’s intake of permanent residents will decline by up to 170,000 people in 2020, RBC said in a recent report.

“The disruption will reverberate across the economy, given our reliance on immigration for labour-force growth and to offset Canada’s aging demographic,” Mr. Agopsowicz wrote at the time.

Higher immigration has been a key part of the Liberals’ economic strategy. Newcomers tend to be younger than current residents, helping to slow the country’s aging toward a fiscal cliff caused by non-working seniors with few working taxpayers to support them. They also provide talent to companies, buy goods and services, and often pay higher tuition to attend Canadian universities.

Moreover, the country is stuck in a productivity rut. For years, labour productivity – output produced for every hour worked – has essentially stagnated, Statscan data show. Instead, Canada relies on population growth – that is, more workers – to juice overall growth.

For instance, Canada’s population grew by some 580,000 people last year, the largest annual gain since 1971, and driven mostly by immigration. In percentage terms, the population grew 1.6 per cent in 2019, or the same as gross domestic product when adjusted for inflation.

Still, productivity gains are needed. As it increases, so too does the value of labour, resulting in higher wages and better living standards.

Ottawa remains committed to high immigration levels and is still accepting most applications, although processing times have been significantly affected by the virus. The federal government recently posted a tender to its procurement website, marked “urgent,” that seeks to modernize an application system that still relies on paper documents and in-person interviews.

“It’s going to be key for the government to figure out an effective strategy to ramp back up to high levels of immigration,” Mr. Agopsowicz said.

Source:  slowdown to weigh on

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Canada has an unused card up its sleeve against China: our immigration system

2020/06/20 Leave a comment

Valid suggestions by Robert Falconer and to focus on Hong Kong asylum seekers and others from mainland China:

Canada is limited in the ways it can respond to the bully tactics of larger countries such as the People’s Republic of China. Yet as it confronts China’s heavy-handed attempt to quash the autonomy it had promised Hong Kong, Ottawa is not without levers of influence. One policy tool that Canada should immediately deploy is our immigration, refugee and asylum system.

As governments worldwide closed their countries’ borders, and as the United Nations suspended its refugee program, a more subtle trend emerged: an uptick in the number of Hong Kongers claiming asylum. According to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, 25 Hong Kongers have claimed asylum in the first three months of 2020; unofficial sources suggest the number may be as high as 46. While that’s still a relatively small number, it represents a six-year high for Canada in just three months. Regardless of the choices Canada makes, we are likely to see record-high levels of people from Hong Kong fleeing here to seek refuge when international travel fully resumes.

Our asylum system is particularly well-suited to receiving claims from Hong Kong. It includes the ability to streamline cases from countries with well-established human-rights abuses, where asylum seekers have reliable forms of identification, and where the evidence is not ambiguous regarding the risks they face for holding an adverse political opinion or for opposing the current government.

Choosing to welcome those seeking asylum is not only the right thing to do but has practical benefits as well. It might seem odd to make a utilitarian argument in favour of asylum, and indeed, if all policy-makers and politicians were angels, such a justification would not be necessary. But there is a compelling case to be made for a renewed Canadian foreign policy that considers the role immigration and refugee status plays in our national security and response to foreign competitors. As the People’s Republic seeks to impose its will on Hong Kong, an open refugee policy is one that permits Hong Kongers to vote with their feet between an oppressive China or an open Canada.

The decision to welcome Hong Kongers as part of a robust foreign policy is not without precedent. Conservative governments in the 1970s and ’80s understood that an open-door policy was one that would attract those with the greatest levels of dissatisfaction in the Soviet bloc. The arrival of refugees and immigrants during that time strengthened our economies and added linguistic diversity and cultural understanding to our law enforcement, military and intelligence communities.

The same applies to Hong Kongers and mainland Chinese fleeing oppression. Indeed, combatting the possibility of intellectual-property theft and industrial espionage is far more likely to be aided, rather than hampered, by recruiting from a population that shares similar cultural and linguistic characteristics and understands the methods of potential competitors. Above all, welcoming Hong Kongers aligns with Canadian democratic traditions – standing against tyranny and welcoming the oppressed.

Granting asylum to Hong Kongers fleeing persecution from Beijing should not be a difficult task for this government, either. While the Trudeau government has shifted its tone regarding Canada’s relationship with China, it has faltered when asked whether Canada will accept refugee claimants from Hong Kong. In contrast, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced that Britain will allow 2.8 million Hong Kongers to live and work in Britain if China implements its national-security law on the former British colony. In response, the Chinese Communist Party regime has threatened Britain with vague consequences if it continues to meddle in an “internal affair.”

Granting asylum to Hong Kongers will force the federal government to recognize the well-established truth that China is a hostile actor, and doing so will signal to both the international community and China that Canada acknowledges that hard truth. Dealing with China is not a risk- or cost-free interaction. There are no other options, aside from total silence, that will not draw retaliation from Beijing, and it should be expected if Canada decides to grant asylum to claimants from Hong Kong. But the government needs to accept this reality, recognize the risks and rethink how to move forward. Granting asylum to Hong Kongers seeking to flee persecution is not only the right thing to do – it is the Canadian thing to do.

For a government that prides itself on the principles of championing human rights, our inaction on Hong Kong remains a persistent dark stain.

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Coronavirus has increased interest in immigrating to Canada

2020/06/20 Leave a comment

The optimistic view based upon an April World Education Services survey. Survey intentions, of course are intentions, we shall see over the next few quarters the extent to which they materialize:

The economic impacts of coronavirus have largely not changed people’s plans to immigrate to Canada. In most cases, prospective immigrants still expect that Canada will endure less economic hardship than their own country.

Of the 4,615 people who responded to a recent survey from World Education Services (WES), 38% say they are more interested in immigrating to Canada, 57% say that the pandemic does not impact their interest, and 5% say they are less interested. Researcher Joan Atlin said she was surprised to see such a small percentage of people who were less interested in immigrating to Canada.

“The research was done in April, so quite early in the pandemic, and I would have expected that number to potentially be a little bit higher,” Atlin told CIC News, “It was very encouraging to see.”

The survey was conducted by WES from April 15 to 21 in an effort to understand how COVID-19affected the intentions of prospective Canadian immigrants. The non-profit credential evaluation provider collected survey results from their clients, most of whom are in the pre-arrival phase and are on track to immigrate to Canada.

All respondents were outside of Canada at the time the survey was conducted. More than half of the people surveyed from the Philippines (64%), China (64%), and Nigeria (58%) said they are more interested in immigrating to Canada as a result of COVID-19. There was largely no impact on the desire to immigrate to Canada for respondents from Pakistan (58%), the U.K. (59%), the U.S. (57%), India (64%), and France (73%).

Just over half of respondents, 52%, do not expect COVID-19 to impact their ability to pay for the costs of immigrating to Canada; however, about 35%, do expect it to negatively impact their ability to pay the costs.

More than a third, 39%, say that personal and family economic hardships would make them more interested in immigrating.

Most are still interested despite worsening job prospects. The loss of job opportunities in a respondent’s occupation in Canada had the biggest impact on attitudes toward the move, with 31% saying it would make them less interested to come to Canada. Even so, the majority, 46%, said job loss would not impact them.

Most report that they would not be impacted by immigration obstacles such as increases in IRCC processing times, a reduction in immigration targets, or travel restrictions. The risk of contracting COVID-19 was the biggest hurdle with 36% reporting they would be less interested in immigrating to Canada, however 42% still reported that it would not impact their interest.

Just over a third, 35%, of respondents are considering delaying immigration to Canada to a future date, and 42% said they were unlikely to delay. The biggest reason for the delay was the risk of contracting coronavirus.

WES is conducting at least two more surveys on this topic. One is expected for this month and another is scheduled for August.

Source: https://www.cicnews.com/2020/06/coronavirus-has-increased-interest-in-immigrating-to-canada-0614757.html#gs.8cw8es

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With Stephen Miller pouring poison into Trump’s ear, the uncivil war rages on

2020/06/19 Leave a comment

Strong but accurate portrayal:

Does the Trump administration’s face of evil have a point?

Stephen Miller, the white supremacist who steers United States President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, and also serves as his xenophobic speechwriter, claims it is hypocritical for Democrats and progressives to decry the President’s planned political rally in Tulsa, Okla., on Saturday as a coronavirus superspreader.

How can they do that, he asks, when they’re the same people who are encouraging and participating in massive protest rallies against racism and police brutality? Thousands of demonstrators milling together on streets, many of them without masks. It’s hypocrisy on stilts, Mr. Miller says.

He cited Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, who extended her lockdown order at the same time as she was promoting mass street protests. And how about Florida congresswoman Val Demings, who is on presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s shortlist for a running mate? She joined a major protest while blasting the President for his planned rally.

“There is almost assuredly going to be a spike in COVID cases and it will also almost assuredly be put on red-state governors and the President holding rallies,” Mr. Miller wrote in The Spectator this week. “But Democratic activists and politicians themselves created this situation.”

It’s too early to determine whether protests are contributing to a spike in COVID-19 cases. But progressives have to be careful about rhetoric and activities that play into the hands of the 34-year-old Mr. Miller and his Oval Office master. Campaigns to defund police departments, for example, are a godsend to Mr. Trump’s law-and-order campaign, as are protests that descend into violence.

Mr. Trump tweeted on Monday that the news media was “trying to Covid Shame us on our big Rallies.” Unconcerned about a new wave of the coronavirus plague, he will hold these rallies, no matter how dangerous they may be. Re-election, as he sees it, depends on the country getting out of its crouching, virus-defensive posture and back on its economic feet.

Despite U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence’s assertion that fears of a renewed virus outbreak are overblown, a dozen or so states, including Florida, Texas and Oklahoma – which is a heavily pro-Trump state – are still seeing a surge in cases.

While the anti-racism protests have been outdoors, where the virus is less contagious, the Trump team was planning on holding its rally in a packed indoor arena. But last-minute plans were being made to shift it to an outdoor venue. Mr. Pence said this was to accommodate huge crowds, but there was also pressure to do so for health reasons.

The Tulsa rally will be the President’s first in three months. The city was also the site of a massacre 99 years ago, when a white mob attacked Black residents of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, killing as many as 300 people. The Trump rally was originally planned to be held on Friday, June 19, which is known as Juneteenth, a holiday when many Black Americans celebrate their emancipation from slavery. But owing to the outrage the plan provoked, it was moved back a day.

Even so, the event is likely to heighten racial tensions. It will play to Mr. Trump’s base, as all his other measures do. The police reforms he announced this week were toothless. He has rejected calls to rename military bases honouring Confederate generals.

Mr. Miller has had Mr. Trump’s ear since day one, and is still pouring poison into it. Mr. Miller is a blank-faced, cold and uncompromising bigot. In most everything written about him, the word evil or something synonymous can be found.

He is architect of the ban limiting travel to the U.S. from many Muslim countries, harsh anti-refugee policies and Trump speeches berating immigrants. Last November, leaked e-mails between himself and a former Breitbart editor showed him promoting white nationalist propaganda and materials from white supremacist sites. A group of 27 senators sent a letter to the White House saying Mr. Miller was motivated by white supremacy, not national security, and demanded he be fired.

Firing Mr. Miller is the furthest thing from Mr. Trump’s mind. His campaign priority is hardly to attract Black voters. With the help of Mr. Miller, he has pretty much lost them all.

As many have noted in the wake of George Floyd’s death, the Civil War of the 1860s in the United States has never really ended. Mr. Trump and Mr. Miller are shamefully keen to extend it into this campaign.

Source: With Stephen Miller pouring poison into Trump’s ear, the uncivil war rages on: Lawrence Martin

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