This deck examines monthly changes due to COVID-19 on permanent resident admissions, temporary resident work permit holders, and study permit holders, broken down by category and program, region and top countries and province (Provincial Nominee Program and study permits).
Questions over whether thousands of international students could be deported from the U.S. under a new Trump administration policy are causing consternation among school officials and anxiety among Canadians studying south of the border.
The policy — which triggered a lawsuit from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on Wednesday — stipulates that international students who take a fully virtual course this fall will not be allowed to remain in the country.
Under the new guidelines, international students would still be able to take more online courses than normal, but will have their visa rescinded if they attempt to take a fully online course load.
According to a statement released by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency on Monday, international students will only be able to remain in the country if they are taking a mix of in-person and virtual classes.
While Canadians do not need a visa to study in the U.S., they are still required to produce a similar form, known as an I-20, signed by the school they are attending. That school will now need to offer hybrid courses in order for Canadian students to stay in the country.
Sarah Klassen, an accounting student at Wichita State University, said her school has not yet determined how it will deal with the policy.
But Klassen, 19, notes that being forced to leave the U.S. would likely be a death blow for her studies, as she relies on a bowling scholarship to pay her tuition.
“I’m scared even going down (to the border) now that I might not be able to get back in. There’s so many strict guidelines,” Klassen said over the phone from her family home in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.
Yvonne Kang, who is earning her law degree at the University of Connecticut, said being forced to move back home to Toronto would involve breaking a newly signed lease on an apartment and cost her thousands of dollars in unnecessary expenses.
Kang, 23, said says she doesn’t understand why ICE is targeting international students when they are such a major contributor to the American economy.
“We pay American landlords, we go grocery shopping in American stores, they charge international students double the tuition (of domestic students),” she said.
The Institute for International Education puts the number at roughly $45 billion in 2018, with more than $1.1 billion of that coming from Canadians. A report from the institute estimated there were 26,170 Canadians studying in the U.S. in 2018-2019.
The new guidelines have provoked backlash from universities across the U.S., with Harvard president Lawrence Bacow saying the order’s “cruelty” is surpassed only by its “recklessness.”
“It appears that it was designed purposefully to place pressure on colleges and universities to open their on-campus classrooms for in-person instruction this fall, without regard to concerns for the health and safety of students, instructors, and others,” Bacow said.
“This comes at a time when the United States has been setting daily records for the number of new (COVID-19) infections, with more than 300,000 new cases reported since July 1.”
Edward Alden, a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think tank, said the new policy creates an “onerous” task for students and institutions to undertake.
“Most schools are still trying to figure out what their mix (between online and in-person classes) is going to be,” Alden said.
“Now they’re going to have to scrape together a new program and reissue I-20s — and make it all happen in under a month.”
ICE is enacting the policy through a program that was introduced after 9/11 to handle the screening and verification of international students.
The program designates whether an individual qualifies for the F, M or J-class visas that are required to enter and reside in the U.S. as a student.
Normally, guidelines forbid international students from taking more than one course online per semester, but that restriction was relaxed when the COVID-19 pandemic caused a global lockdown in March.
International students who were outside of the country when the pandemic began and continue to take online courses from abroad will not have their status affected, nor will their visa be rescinded, according to documents from ICE.
But students who are currently living in the U.S. and whose schools are going fully online next semester will have only two options: leave the country or transfer to a different school.
The news from ICE, released on the same day Harvard announced that all of its 2020-2021 fall classes would be online-only, sent ripples of outrage across the country.
Dozens of colleges have said they plan to offer at least some classes in person this fall, but some say it’s too risky.
The University of Southern California last week reversed course on a plan to bring students to campus, saying classes will be hosted primarily or exclusively online.
Ontario significantly overstated the costs of providing services to asylum seekers coming into Canada from the United States, the province’s auditor general said Wednesday.
In a special report, Bonnie Lysyk said the $200 million estimate given by the governing Progressive Conservatives in 2018 represented the cost of providing services to all refugee claimants, not just so-called “irregular” border crossers.
She said the minister of social services at the time, Lisa MacLeod, was given inaccurate information by civil servants.
“The accuracy of information provided by the ministry to the minister for the public announcement was far off the mark,” Lysyk said in a statement Wednesday.
“Senior government officials need to ensure the accuracy of the information provided to government for public announcements and decision-making.”
MacLeod had formally requested $200 million from Ottawa to cover costs she said were incurred by the province and its municipalities as a result of an influx of asylum seekers arriving from the U.S.
Lysyk said her office found the Ontario government spent roughly $81 million on services for irregular asylum seekers between April 1, 2017 — when the federal government first started tracking their arrival — and July 31, 2018.
More costs were incurred until the border was closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Lysyk said.
She recommended Ontario seek an immigration agreement with the federal government that includes compensation for providing services to refugee claimants, including irregular border crossers.
The current deal does not, and the federal government has given $15.6 million in compensation to Toronto, Ottawa and Peel Region for their expenses during the April 2017 to August 2018 period, she said.
Quebec, which has a separate cost-sharing agreement with Ottawa, incurred $300 million in costs and has received $286 million in compensation, Lysyk said.
When asked about the report Wednesday, Premier Doug Ford said his government did not intentionally mislead the public and was simply relying on the information provided.
Ford blamed the federal government for leaving the province to shoulder the costs of what he called “illegal immigration,” and suggested the auditor general should do another report to examine more recent expenses related to the issue.
“Where’s the money? We need the money,” the premier said. “Every single day, it’s costing us more and more and more.”
Opposition legislators criticized the government for using inflated numbers to make policy decisions.
“The auditor general’s report makes clear that the claims Doug Ford and Lisa MacLeod made about the cost of accommodating asylum seekers in Ontario were pure fiction,” NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said in a statement.
“Shame on them for making stuff up to fan the flames of division instead of uniting us like they should have been.”
Liberal House Leader John Fraser said the Ford government has a record of “continually overstating, overstepping, and exaggerating.”
Ford previously came under fire for saying his government inherited a $15 billion deficit from the Liberals, and later revising that number down by about half, to $7.4 billion.
Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said the debate over the costs of services for irregular border crossers took place at a time when many governments were “playing politics with immigration.”
“The government inflated this number … to provide cover for what in this case is a divisive political agenda, which I think was to question immigration policy in this country. And I think it’s wrong,” he said.
Canada’s Safe Third Country agreement with the U.S. says asylum seekers are required to make their claims in the first “safe” country where they arrive, which means those who try to enter Canada at an official land crossing are sent back to make their claim in the U.S.
The agreement does not cover those who come in through unofficial crossings, known as “irregular” asylum seekers.
The auditor says 36 per cent of refugee claimants in Ontario in recent years entered at unofficial points.
Federal data show 26,415 asylum claims were filed in Ontario in 2019, which could include some filed by irregular border crossers.
The province provides services such as temporary housing, settlement services and language training.
One aspect that I found particularly of interest is that the numbers have largely remained the same over the past three years. Unfortunately, the OAG report did not include earlier years in its analysis:
Canada’s border agency has failed to promptly remove most of the people under orders to leave the country, and in tens of thousands of cases it has simply lost track of them, the federal auditor general says.
In a report tabled Wednesday in Parliament, the auditor said the Canada Border Services Agency’s efforts were hampered by poor data quality and case-management flaws, resulting in avoidable delays in thousands of cases.
Problems in information-sharing with immigration officials also slowed things down.
The border agency is responsible for carrying out removal orders to ensure public safety and the integrity of the immigration system.
The report noted the federal government had made significant investments over the last decade to improve the efficiency of the asylum system, including removals.
However, the level of enforceable removal orders — those involving people who have exhausted or waived all legal avenues to stay in Canada — remained largely unchanged, even for priority cases.
As of April 2019, there were about 50,000 people in Canada with enforceable removal orders. Two-thirds of these — 34,700 cases — involved individuals whose whereabouts were unknown. Of these, 2,800 had criminal histories.
Still, the border agency was often not conducting regular follow-ups to try to find them by opening each file at least every three years, or once a year for people with criminal issues.
Data integrity shortcomings limited the agency’s ability to know which removal orders to enforce, the report said.
“Without a reliable inventory of removal orders, the agency could not effectively prioritize removals according to risk and complexity. We also found cases in which the agency was unaware that removal orders had been issued,” it said.
“Many cases we examined were also stalled because officers had done little to overcome impediments like missing travel documents.”
The auditor noted that many countries, mostly in Europe, offer assistance programs that promote the voluntary return of foreign nationals to their countries of origin. Some operate through independent third parties and are not limited to failed asylum claimants, the report said.
“All recognize that voluntary returns are preferred to enforced removals, are more cost-effective, and facilitate rapid departures.”
The government will do a better job of ensuring the integrity of the system, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged at a news briefing Wednesday.
Public Safety Minister Bill Blair, the cabinet member responsible for the border agency, said the government accepts the auditor’s recommendations to fix the various problems.
In addition to improving its removals strategy, the border agency will enhance the way it tracks and triages cases to ensure priority ones are addressed promptly, Blair said in a statement.
“This includes continuing to implement a data integrity strategy to ensure that it can quickly identify the stages all cases are at so they can move forward in a timely fashion.”
The border agency is taking steps to find foreign nationals whose whereabouts are unknown by reviewing all outstanding cases, prioritizing criminal cases and focusing investigations on the most serious ones, Blair added.
Finally, the agency will develop an “incentive program” to increase voluntary compliance, he said.
The agency’s problems with managing removals date back more than a decade, long before the Liberals took the government reins from the Conservatives.
But Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said it was another example of the Liberal government being unable to ensure a fair, orderly and compassionate immigration system. “We need a government that takes this kind of thing seriously.”
NDP public safety critic Jack Harris said the Liberals must make sure the border agency “has sufficient resources to perform their duties.”
Interesting back and forth between the lawyers and academics quoted. Although I am not a great fan of consultants compared to lawyers, given the history of poor and, in some cases, fraudulent representation, the program is professionally designed given the people involved:
On Aug. 1, Queen’s University will launch a graduate diploma in immigration and citizenship law. The program will be the only English-language educational pathway to becoming a regulated immigration consultant.
Queen’s developed the program and won a competitive bid with immigration consulting’s national regulator and will be the sole accredited English provider of the program.
Ravi Jain, national chair of the Canadian Bar Association Immigration Law Section, says the program should not exist, arguing it lends credibility to an industry that has been marred by incompetence and misconduct since its inception.
“By continuing to facilitate immigration consultants to be engaged in the practice of immigration law, it does it does actual Queen’s law JD students a disservice,” says Jain, who is certified by the Law Society of Ontario as a specialist in immigration law and is partner at Green and Spiegel LLP, in Toronto.
“This program is a terrible idea. Graduates will claim that they have ‘gone to law school.’ The public will be even further confused. Most think that they are hiring lawyers when they hire immigration consultants,” says Jain. “Immigration consultants have a horrific history in Canada.”
Queen’s Law Dean Mark Walters says the problems known in the industry is one of the reasons his school launched the program.
“We all appreciate that at present, the profession of immigration consultant is not well regulated, and that there have been abuses in the system and concerns legitimately raised. And that’s, in fact, why we’re involved,” Walters says.
Associate Professor at Queen’s Law and expert in immigration and refugee law Sharry Aiken says the federal government decided long ago that there was a place in the immigration administrative process for consultants.
“It’s a profession that’s here to stay. And the key is to ensure that it’s properly regulated and that the people in that profession are professionals and trained as such,” she says. “It’s a massive system and non-lawyers can perform a really important role to ensuring that vulnerable people get proper advice and assistance as they work their way through elaborate administrative system.”
The program at Queen’s comes after the regulation of immigration consultants has gone through three different stages. In 2001, the Supreme Court of Canada case Law Society of British Columbia v. Mangat ruled it was not a breach of the Legal Profession Act for non-lawyer consultants to represent people in immigration hearings in B.C. Since then, the door has been open for the non-lawyer consultants to serve clients looking to relocate to Canada.
The first governing body — the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants — eventually attracted a parliamentary review in 2010 due to lack of policing and professional and ethical standards. The Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council followed but problems persisted, and another parliamentary review took place in 2017. The Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration produced a report: “Starting Again: Improving Government Oversight of Immigration Consultants.” The report showed misconduct was still prevalent, with international students, live-in caregivers and temporary foreign workers being the most vulnerable to abuse. The committee’s witnesses repeatedly accused the ICCRC of failing to deal with unauthorized practitioners, known as ghost consultants.
The 2017 report produced the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants Act, which turned the ICCRC into a new self-regulatory College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants — instituting a licensing regime, code of conduct, complaints and discipline committees and putting the board of directors under the guidance of the minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship.
While the argument in favour of including consultants in the immigration system involves the need to increase access to justice, Jain says that the immigration bar is uniquely accessible to the public they serve. Jain calls the access to justice argument “absolutely ridiculous.”
“I would ask the dean and others to point me to evidence that there are problems with respect to immigrants and refugees retaining lawyers,” Jain says. “The average income of an immigration lawyer is about $75,000. People go into it out of humanitarian instinct and there’s lots of pro bono work and low-bono work where there are very low fees. So, there’s no evidence of an access problem. None, whatsoever.”
He adds that the issue raises the question of why society deems immigrants and refugees, who are particularly vulnerable, to not need the help of a trained lawyer.
“Why should immigrants and refugees be told that they don’t need a proper lawyer? It’s only the marginalized and the racialized that are told that, in our society. It’s never the other areas of law. And so, I just find that argument to be highly problematic.”
Aiken says that many other areas of law also use paralegals and consultants play “a very important role in access to justice for vulnerable communities.” She adds that the new iteration of the regulatory body, past forms of which have been “plagued with structural deficits” has made positive changes, including an expanded regulatory authority to discipline members and other new enforcement powers.
Before setting up the Queen’s program, Aiken established a National Advisory Committee, which included members of the immigration bar including past chair of the Canadian Bar Association national section for Citizenship and Immigration Robin Seligman and Lobat Sadrehashemi past president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers.
“Members of the bar who are on our National Advisory Committee would not be there if they didn’t have confidence that we are part of the solution,” she says. “… I think that it speaks volumes in terms of the wider support across Canada for a new robust training program, that will go some way to addressing long standing concerns in relation to the sector.”
While Australian approach to immigration is more restrictive than Canada’s, Canada’s economic and immigration recovery may also be longer than expected. But like all projections and estimates, time will tell.
Australia has been one of the more successful countries in addressing COVID-19, with only 311 infections and 4 deaths per million (July 1):
Australia’s second-most populous state was poised to take the biggest economic hit from the COVID-19 pandemic even before a dramatic spike in cases over the past fortnight forced renewed shutdowns in large parts of Melbourne.
Key points:
Victoria’s gross state product is expected to fall 1.6pc in 2020-21
The state is vulnerable due to its reliance on immigration from overseas and interstate
Many of the smaller states are expected to see higher peak unemployment rates, despite comparatively better economic performance
The latest business outlook from consultancy Deloitte Access Economics tips Victoria to suffer the biggest fall in gross state product in the 2020-21 financial year, which just began.
Deloitte predicts Victoria’s domestic economy will shrink 1.6 per cent this financial year, also leaving it with the worst economic performance in the nation this calendar year.
“The largest downturn is likely to be felt in Victoria given its current spike in cases, as well as that state’s dependence on migration and on foreign students in an age of lockdowns and closed borders,” Deloitte’s Chris Richardson said in the report.
Most state economies are expected to shrink around 3 per cent this year due to the pandemic.(Supplied: Deloitte)
Mr Richardson said Victoria’s economy was particularly vulnerable due to the latest wave of coronavirus cases, which would see the state cut off from the rest of the country, once the border with New South Wales closed from Wednesday.
“Victoria has had the strongest COVID restrictions across the country and now, with the prospect of a second wave returning and the reintroduction of restrictions, the state is likely to see some prolonged misery in particularly hard-hit sectors,” he noted.
Melbourne’s construction sector facing ‘severe setback’
While travel-related sectors, such as tourism and education, and hospitality will be the most immediate casualties, Mr Richardson says the medium-term effects will be felt acutely in the state’s previously booming construction sector.
“Victoria’s construction sector was already showing signs of weakness before COVID hit,” he wrote.
“With high levels of uncertainty, and an unexpected drop in population growth, construction is likely to suffer a severe setback over the coming year.
“Demand for office and apartments in Melbourne, including those projects that are halfway through, are being reconsidered as the density of Melbourne’s CBD is now less attractive across people’s daily lives.”
Mr Richardson added that one silver lining for Victoria’s construction sector was that there was a lot of planned infrastructure investment, something which would also be seen in the second-most pandemic-affected state, New South Wales.
It will particularly target transport projects in Melbourne and Sydney.
However, that investment is not expected to wholly make up for the loss of overseas arrivals.
“Other things equal, keeping tourists, students and migrants away for longer means that Australia’s economy will be some 4 to 5 per cent smaller than it could otherwise be,” Mr Richardson said.
Deloitte observed that New South Wales was similarly affected by the closure of international borders, with the state usually receiving more than a third of migrants who arrive in Australia from overseas.
However, in recent years, New South Wales has been losing existing residents to other Australian states, notably Victoria, a trend which Deloitte expects to have paused during the crisis, especially due to hard border closures.
The state’s comparatively better success in containing the virus so far has Deloitte tipping just a 0.1 per cent fall in New South Wales gross state product this financial year, as domestic activities continue to return to normal.
Some other states are expected to see a rise in their domestic activity — again excluding the large drop in exports, which includes foreign tourism and education — while the two territories are tipped to perform best.
“The lift in LNG-related exports from the Ichthys project will protect the Northern Territory, while its strong public sector base is a very welcome anchor in the storm for the ACT,” Mr Richardson explained.
Even though their domestic economies are expected to take a smaller hit than the bigger states, Deloitte is warning South Australia and Queensland will suffer the nation’s highest unemployment rates, above 9 per cent, while Western Australia and Tasmania will also have a weaker jobs market than Victoria.
Deloitte tips unemployment to be at its lowest in the ACT (5.7 per cent) and New South Wales (7.5 per cent).
COVID-19 infections ‘best’ economic indicator
Overall, Deloitte is forecasting a relatively fast recovery from the pandemic, tipping only a 0.4 per cent decline in GDP nationwide this financial year, following on from a 0.1 per cent fall in 2019-20.
It is predicting robust national economic growth of 5.3 per cent the following financial year, 2021-22.
However, this forecast is based on Australia keeping COVID-19 cases suppressed, a vaccine or good anti-viral treatments being widely available by the middle of next year, and international travel gradually recommencing, starting with trips to New Zealand at the end of this year and expanding to a general reopening of Australia’s borders by the end of next year.
Mr Richardson said a continued and widespread spike in cases would lead to much worse economic outcomes.
“That’s why opening up if virus numbers aren’t under control is risky.
“And, in a volatile environment, it is also why the best leading indicator of how an economy will perform is how that nation is going in its fight against the virus.”
Yet another Canadian advantage, short-lived should Trump be defeated:
Foreign students attending U.S. colleges that will operate entirely online this fall semester cannot remain in the country to do so, according to new regulations released Monday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
As college students across the United States and around the world contemplate what their upcoming semester might look like, the federal guidance limits options for international students and leaves them with an uncomfortable choice: attend in-person classes during a pandemic or take them online from another country.
And for students enrolled in schools that have already announced plans to operate fully online, there is no choice. Under the new rules, the State Department will not issue them visas, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection will not allow them to enter the country.
“Active students currently in the United States enrolled in such programs must depart the country or take other measures, such as transferring to a school with in-person instruction to remain in lawful status,” read a release from ICE’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program. “If not, they may face immigration consequences including, but not limited to, the initiation of removal proceedings.”
The agency said students already in the country and faced with a fully online course of study may take alternative measures to maintain their nonimmigrant status, “such as a reduced course load or appropriate medical leave.”
The rule applies to holders of F-1 and M-1 nonimmigrant visas, which allow nonimmigrant students to pursue academic and vocational coursework, respectively.
More than 1 million of the country’s higher education students come from overseas, according to the nonprofit Institute of International Education.
Typically, foreign students are limited in how many online courses they can take and are required to do the majority of their learning in the classroom, according to immigration lawyer Fiona McEntee. Once the pandemic struck, students were given flexibility to take more online classes — but only for the spring and summer semesters.
“It’s an unprecedented public health crisis, and I don’t think it’s too much to ask for the allowances that they made to continue, especially given the fact that we clearly, quite clearly do not have a handle on the pandemic here right now, unlike other countries that have,” McEntee said. “This makes no sense.”
McEntee said the decision is especially puzzling given the value of foreign students, which is quantifiable economically.
According to an economic analysis by NAFSA: Association of International Educators, international students studying at U.S. colleges and universities contributed $41 billion and supported 458,290 jobs during the 2018-2019 academic year.
McEntee added that losing foreign students is a huge blow to university budgets, something that will impact domestic students as well. Similarly, the decision to attend classes in person impacts all students present.
“If students can study online successfully from an academic point of view, why are we forcing them to come into a situation where they could put their health at risk and also the health of their classmates at risk?” she asked.
Students attending schools operating as usual will remain bound by existing federal regulations that permit them to take a maximum of one class or three credit hours online.
Students attending schools implementing a hybrid model can take more online classes or credits, though their school must certify “that the program is not entirely online, that the student is not taking an entirely online course load this semester, and that the student is taking the minimum number of online classes required to make normal progress in their degree program.”
The announcement comes as higher education institutions are releasing frameworks for reopening in the fall semester. Schools are preparing to offer in-person instruction, online classes or a mix of both.
Eight percent of colleges are planning to operate online, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, which is tracking the reopening plans of more than 1,000 U.S. colleges. Sixty percent are planning for in-person instruction, and 23% are proposing a hybrid model, with a combined 8.5% undecided or considering a range of scenarios.
Harvard University is one of the latest institutions to unveil its plans, announcing on Monday that all undergraduate and graduate course instruction for the academic year will be held online. Nevertheless, the university plans to bring 40% of undergraduates, including all freshmen, onto campus.
Harvard President Larry Bacow said in a statement emailed to NPR that the ICE policy is “a blunt, one-size-fits-all approach to a complex problem.”
“We must do all that we can to ensure that our students can continue their studies without fear of being forced to leave the country mid-way through the year, disrupting their academic progress and undermining the commitments—and sacrifices—that many of them have made to advance their education,” the statement said.
School reopening plans may be subject to change because of the evolving nature of the pandemic, especially with daily case totals continuing to break records in parts of the country.
In acknowledgment, the agency instructs schools to update their information in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System within 10 days of making the switch to online-only classes.
Immigration lawyer McEntee, a former international student herself, said leaving for school can be challenging enough, not to mention during a pandemic and in a landscape of near-constant immigration restrictions. She called the new rule, both in substance and timing, “not right.”
“This is not the America that I think foreign students come to live in,” she said.
The American Council on Education, a higher education lobbying group, also condemned the rule change in a statement issued Monday afternoon. ACE President Ted Mitchell said the guidance “provides confusion and complexity rather than certainty and clarity” and called on ICE to rethink its position.
“At a time when institutions are doing everything they can to help reopen our country, we need flexibility, not a big step in the wrong direction,” he wrote. “ICE should allow any international student with a valid visa to continue their education regardless of whether a student is receiving his or her education online, in person, or through a combination of both, whether in the United States or in their home country, during this unprecedented global health crisis.”
Interesting study and findings, including what appear to be reasonable explanations for these findings. Most health-related studies of immigrants tend to highlight health disparities between immigrants and non-immigrants and the adverse effects of Canadian diets on immigrants over time:
Anxiety disorders are among the most commonly diagnosed disabilities around the globe. Previous research suggests that the risk for anxiety disorders varies according to demographic, socio-economic, and health-related factors. Interestingly, despite the fact that immigrants face certain hardships and unique disadvantages compared to nonimmigrants, new research has found that immigrants show lower rates of anxiety.
“Our research team is interested in analyzing Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging data to examine factors which affect mental health,” said Karen Davison, North American Primary Care Research Group Fellow and Health Science Program Chair at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Surrey, who led the study.
“Given that anxiety disorders have such a high global burden related to disability, we were particularly interested in examining various social, economic, health, and nutrition-related factors and their relationships with the condition. This information could help to improve health practices, programs, and policies for adults.”
Davison and her team conducted a study to explore the relationship between immigrant status and anxiety disorders with a focus on older adults. They further explored nutritional and health-related factors that might mitigate the risk for anxiety disorders among all Canadians.
The researchers analyzed baseline data from the ongoing Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, resulting in a sample of 26,991 Canadian residents between the ages of 45-85. The survey measured self-reported lifetime anxiety disorder with the question, “Has a doctor ever told you that you have an anxiety disorder such as a phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder or a panic disorder?” The study also included various demographic, economic, health, and nutritional measures.
Across the sample, 8.5% of respondents reported being diagnosed with an anxiety disorder at some point in their lifetime. Interestingly, while 9% of Canadian-born respondents reported an anxiety diagnosis, only 6% of immigrants did. When accounting for age and sex, this represented 30% lower odds of being diagnosed with anxiety for immigrants.
The authors offered several explanations for what researchers call the “healthy immigrant effect.” Canada uses a points-based immigration system, which classifies a person’s eligibility to immigrate to Canada according to their skills and qualifications. Those accepted to immigrate generally have a higher education and better work experience, qualities that may lessen their susceptibility to anxiety disorders.
“Another potential explanation … is that potential immigrants with anxiety disorders would find the challenges of relocation too anxiety inducing and would therefore not choose to immigrate,” the authors wrote.
Certain health factors impacted the likelihood of an anxiety disorder diagnosis. Having at least one existing health condition, experiencing chronic pain, being categorized as underweight, having a higher percentage of body fat, or smoking 100 or more cigarettes over one’s lifetime were each associated with increased odds of being diagnosed with anxiety.
Nutritional factors also impacted reports of anxiety. Across the sample, those who consumed two or more fiber sources a day or one or more pastries a day were more likely to be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Alternatively, those who consumed 0.5 to 2 sources of pulses and nuts per day or three or more sources of fruit and vegetables per day were less likely to have anxiety. This may be because fruits, vegetables, and nuts contain high levels of zinc, magnesium, and vitamin B, which have been associated with reduced anxiety.
“We believe the main message of this study is that after accounting for many social, economic, health, and nutrition-related factors, a significant relationship was found between fruit and vegetable intakes and having been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. It is well established that fruit and vegetable intakes are associated with physical health. This study lends to the increasing evidence that shows there are also links with mental health,” Davison told PsyPost.
“In this study we found that lower intakes of calcium rich foods with high vitamin D content are associated with lower odds of anxiety disorders. However, as the number of sources consumed increased, the trends in the odds ratios showed what seemed to be a positive or dose-response type relationship. For future studies we would like to examine supplement sources of calcium and vitamin D which are commonly taken by older adults and their relationship with anxiety disorders. In addition, for future work we plan to examine biomarkers and genomic markers related to calcium and vitamin D which may help us to better understand these relationships.”
“Another finding we would like to highlight is the associations we found with higher percent body fat and anxiety. This relationship may be due to mechanisms related to immune-inflammatory activation. Previous research has shown that individuals with high body fat and mental ill health have increased inflammatory markers, such as C-reactive protein, interleukin-6, and tumour necrosis factor-alpha. The activation of certain immune system cells in response to ongoing chronic inflammation, has been linked with poor mental health. Certainly more research is needed to better understand the possible links between body composition and anxiety,” Davison added.
The authors concluded that their findings offer insight into nutritional, health-rated, and social factors associated with anxiety disorder diagnoses among immigrants and Canadian-born residents of Canada. These insights could help inform treatment for middle age and older adults with anxiety.
Donald Trump’s June 22, 2020, presidential proclamationappeared aimed at preventing the entry of foreign workers. However, the proclamation had another, equally important target – spouses and children.
Why would Trump and his team try to prevent the entry of spouses and children in a proclamation whose stated purpose was to “protect unemployed Americans”? The answer lies in the administration’s policy of separating Central American families who crossed the U.S. border, which took public anger over recordings of crying children being held in detention facilities to end.
In October 2018, Donald Trump made his intentions in separating children at the border from family members clear. “We have people trying to come in like never before,” said Trump. “If they feel there will be separation, then they won’t come.”
A similar logic seems behind the presidential proclamation. Catherine Rampell, a columnist for the Washington Post, recently wrote about Vihaan Baranidharan, who is 7-years-old: “Vihaan is stuck in India, where he went to see his sick grandmother for what was supposed to be a short visit. Thanks to Trump’s order, he’s blocked from getting the visa stamp needed to return to Dallas. But Vihaan has not taken, nor has any plans to take, any American’s job . . . Vihaan just finished first grade.”
The text of the proclamation singles out spouses and children as a “threat,” which means preventing 7-year-olds from joining their mothers or fathers in America was an intended, not an unintended, consequence. The proclamation reads: “Temporary workers are often accompanied by their spouses and children, many of whom also compete against American workers.” As attorneys point out, the phrase “many of whom” is not true, even if one believed in the “lump of labor fallacy,” the discredited notion that there is a fixed quantity of labor needed in an economy on which the presidential proclamation is based.
“The universe of spouses and children entitled to work authorization in the U.S. is rather limited, so there’s scant economic rationale for barring them from entry,” said Vic Goel, managing partner of Goel & Anderson, in an interview. “Only spouses of L-1 and J-1 nonimmigrants are automatically entitled to apply for work authorization in the U.S, and spouses of H-1B workers qualify only when the principal H-1B worker has been approved or has experienced significant government delay for an application leading to permanent residence. Dependent spouses and children of H-2B workers are barred from working in the U.S., as are the children of H-1B and L-1 visa holders.” He also points out even if arriving dependents were eligible for work authorization, they would be unlikely to get approved before the end of the year.
After the harmful effects on families became publicly known, the Trump administration amended the proclamation to make it more restrictive. “Under the language of the original provision, having a valid visa of any category was sufficient to exempt an individual from the proclamation,” writes attorney Cyrus Mehta. “The amendment renders the proclamation even more restrictive, specifying that the visa must be a valid H-1B, H-2B, L, or certain J visas, and that the individual must be entering the United States pursuant to that visa to qualify for an exemption. . . . . Already, the proclamation is resulting in irreparable harm and separated families.”
Attorney Greg Siskind thinks families were targeted because Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the authority used in the proclamation, limits the president’s power to restricting entry. He believes the more restrictive interpretation of the proclamation and the language on families allows the administration to go after people inside the country. “In effect, they’re forcing people to self-deport because they have found a permanent way to keep families separated,” he told me.
By “permanent,” Siskind refers to the open-ended nature of the proclamation, which “ends” on December 31, 2020, but could continue for an additional 4 years beyond that date if Donald Trump is reelected and no court limits the proclamation’s scope. Siskind expects foreign governments to retaliate against U.S. companies and their operations overseas if employees of multinational companies continue to be prohibited from entering the United States to work. (The proclamation prevents L visa holders from transferring into the United States.)
Jeffrey Gorsky of Berry, Appleman & Leiden believes that by including children, as well as spouses who are ineligible to work, the administration made the proclamations (of April 22, 2020, and June, 22, 2020) more vulnerable to legal challenge, since the alleged reason for the proclamations were economic.
He also points out the perverse, some might even say cruel, impact of the administration’s actions. He gives the example of an L visa holder “stuck in Europe because of another travel ban currently in place that bars anyone physically present in the Schengen region from coming to the U.S. unless they have been outside that region for 14 days.” Although as a current visa holder the woman would be exempt from the proclamation, that would not be the case for a child if she gives birth. “The newborn child will be subject to the new travel ban because, unlike the child’s mother, the child will not have a visa valid at the time of the effective date of the ban,” according to Gorsky. “As a result, the mother can return to her employment in the U.S., but the infant is barred from the U.S. on the legal grounds that the infant’s admission would be detrimental to the interests of the U.S. as a threat to U.S. employment.”
In addition to the proclamation, the Trump administration has promised to rescind the regulation that allows the spouses of H-1B visa holders to receive employment authorization documents (EADs); 93% of the spouses on EADs are women. The work authorization makes it easier for H-1B families to bear the long wait for employment-based green cards, which is what appears to have motivated administration officials to eliminate it.
A possible plan suggested in the June 22, 2020, proclamation could drive hundreds of thousands of long-time H-1B visa holders out of the United States. The plan, if the administration pursues it, would compel foreign nationals waiting years for employment-based green cards to go through “labor certification” again – a process in most cases completed years earlier – in the hopes many will not succeed, particularly if the administration changes the process to make it more difficult. Failure to pass a second labor certification could force H-1B visa holders waiting for green cards to leave the country.
“By barring spouses and children from entry when the principal temporary visa holder is already in the U.S., the proclamation inflicts much pain and suffering on those workers,” said Vic Goel. “It presents them with a choice of continuing their employment in the U.S. or leaving the country to be reunited with their family members.”
It appears those running U.S. immigration policy today do not believe it is sufficient to keep out highly skilled professionals, despite the economic cost to the nation. The evidence indicates Trump administration officials also want to drive out foreign-born scientists and engineers currently working in the United States. Separating high-skilled foreign nationals from their spouses and children as another way to achieve this goal is not only acceptable to administration officials, analysts note, it’s been planned out. As Donald Trump said about desperate Central American parents: “If they feel there will be separation, then they won’t come.”
Well, we will know for sure this summer, the peak period for arrivals.
But an interesting snapshot of intentions, carried out by Ka Ho Mok of Lingnan University, Hong Kong, but without baseline data that would make it more meaningful.
And interesting, given the large number of Chinese students in Canada, that Canada was not mentioned, along with the importance of health and safety concerns.
Of course, intentions are different than behaviour, and the work that Dan Hiebert, Howard Ramos and I are doing will provide the basis for deeper analysis:
The world is facing an unprecedented health crisis with the spread of COVID-19 across different corners of the globe. Well before the present global health crisis, growing debates have been emerging with regard to the future of internationalisation of education, especially as people begin to question the value and benefits that international education brings. The COVID-19 pandemic again raises the issue of the future of international higher education.
Will COVID-19 adversely affect international education and student mobility? A recent study published by the British Council in April 2020 shows that 39% of Chinese students who were considering studying in the United Kingdom are unsure about whether to cancel their study plans.
China is the largest source of international students in the UK, with 115,014 study visas issued to Chinese students in 2019, representing 45% of international study visas.
When asked about their major concerns regarding overseas learning, the majority of the respondents overwhelmingly rated health and well-being (79%), personal safety (87%), finances (86%) and application difficulties (70%) as their major worries.
Worse still, the international media report a number of cases showing Asian students and residents have experienced discrimination or even assaults when wearing face masks in the UK, Europe and Australia. Such images will have affected Chinese students’ plans and choices for international education.
Studying abroad: Chinese student perspectives
It is against the context of confronting the COVID-19 pandemic that a Lingnan University research team distributed questionnaires to non-local students in Hong Kong and students in mainland China, asking them to share their plans regarding study overseas after the global health crisis.
In addition, we also invited them to indicate their preferred destinations when choosing to study abroad.
The questionnaires were distributed online in late April to early May 2020. By mid-May, we had successfully reached out to around 2,900 respondents and secured 2,739 valid responses after data cleaning.
Hong Kong, as an international metropolis, is also a traditionally popular choice for mainland Chinese students to further their studies.
This survey about Chinese students’ plans for overseas learning was conducted after another survey reported that citizens living in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) in Guangdong province held negative perceptions of Hong Kong earlier in April 2020 following the protests in Hong Kong after the introduction of the Fugitive Offenders amendment bill by the Hong Kong government.
The GBA survey shows people in Guangdong, China, find Hong Kong no longer friendly, safe or well managed in terms of urban governance. Such perceptions will inevitably affect mainland students’ preferences when it comes to making Hong Kong their destination for further studies.
Whether people outside the city perceive Hong Kong as performing well in social management, safety, tolerance and friendliness will have a direct impact on their decisions about studying and working in Hong Kong.
According to our survey about Chinese students’ overseas study plans, most of the respondents (84.4%) said they would choose not to study overseas and only 16% of the interviewees still have plans to study abroad when the global health crisis is over.
When asked about their preferred destinations for overseas learning, the United States remains the most popular destination for study abroad in higher education, followed by Hong Kong.
One point which deserves particular attention is that many of the respondents prefer to study in Asian countries or regions, with Japan and Taiwan being equally popular (on 10.8%), though the UK is rated third (12.2%) among the top five destinations.
The less preferred countries are as follows: France (3.3%), New Zealand (3.3%), South Korea (3.04%), Malaysia (0.94%) and Italy (0.94%).
We found that those students who had previous overseas learning experiences or had enrolled in transnational education programmes through the Sino-foreign cooperative universities based in mainland China showed more interest in pursuing higher degrees through international education.
Among this cohort of students, the intention to study overseas is around 20% higher than among the rest of the survey participants.
Interestingly, Hong Kong is chosen as the second most popular destination by these students.
The above findings are consistent with recent research examining how Chinese students who graduate from UK universities assess the relevance of the overseas learning experiences they received to job acquisition or career development. The present survey again shows the perceived importance of international learning to Chinese students.
Policy implications
Despite the fact that the above data indicate a declining interest in international learning, Hong Kong stands out as a popular destination for those who opt for overseas learning, despite GBA citizens’ concerns about the city being friendly and safe.
A successful world city depends on attracting and retaining world talent. The two surveys draw important policy insights not only for the Hong Kong government but also for society at large. The city is facing unprecedented challenges and concerted efforts are urgently needed to be put together to make Hong Kong competitive and to rebuild its reputation as a friendly and hospitable city for mainland Chinese students.
After fighting COVID-19, academic leaders in Hong Kong need to develop appropriate strategies to attract students from the GBA to come to the city for higher education, seriously engaging with universities in the GBA to promote innovation-centric entrepreneurship.
Our research findings on Chinese students’ choice when planning their international education offer useful policy insights for higher education institutions across different parts of the world, especially when institutions of higher education have relied heavily on Chinese students as one of their major funding sources or incomes.
For small university towns across the UK, Europe, US and Australia, the survey indicates that whether students feel safe and secure will become a major factor influencing their study plans.
Are we ready to embrace internationalisation of education when the COVID-19 crisis is over?
Is it ethical to take in foreign students if local residents are not ready to adapt to diverse understandings and experiences when managing the global health crisis, including the acceptance of ‘wearing face masks’ as a preventive measure?
These are critical issues for us to reflect upon.
Professor Ka Ho Mok is vice president and dean of the School of Graduate Studies and Lam Man Tsan Chair Professor of Comparative Policy at Lingnan University, Hong Kong.
