Australia: Acting Immigration Minister Alan Tudge addresses concerns of Indian nationals on temporary visas in Australia

2020/04/29 Leave a comment

Presumably, some Indians on Canadian visitor visas have also been caught by Indian airports being shut down but haven’t seen any media coverage:

The coronavirus pandemic has spawned uncertainty in the best of cases, but more so for the 2.2 million temporary visa holders in the country, who have been thrown into chaos by global travel bans and border closures.

A large number of these visa holders are from India, many of whom are now finding themselves in a precarious situation, where Australia is asking them to go home, but their own country isn’t yet ready to evacuate them.

Addressing their concerns, in an exclusive interview with SBS Punjabi, Immigration Minister Alan Tudge said he understands its a matter of “greater uncertainty” for those Indian nationals who are anxious to return home.

 

“We understand that the international airports in India are closed until next week and then and a further decision will be made by Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi whether to extend them again or reopen them,” said Mr Tudge.

He added that the situation in India is, however, different from that in Australia.

In Australia, we are not allowing foreign nationals to come into the country, we are only allowing Australians and permanent residents, unless there are exceptional circumstances, whereas India is not even allowing Indian nationals to return to their country

‘Temporary visa holders facing hardships must return home’

For most temporary visa holders, the problem is not just limited to being unable to return to their countries of origin, it is also a financial one. Many of them have lost their jobs due to the pandemic and are now having to survive the crisis without any income assistance from the federal government.

Addressing the concerns of visa holders, Minister Tudge said while the country recognises their importance to its economy and society, however, with Australian citizens and residents being the priority, many will have to reevaluate their options.

“Firstly, all the efforts with the welfare payments and the JobKeeper payments are very much focused on Australians and permanent residents here. If you’re here on a temporary visa and you do run out of money then we do encourage people to return home where you may be able to get support,” he said.

It is difficult for Indian nationals at the moment because the international airports are closed, but our expectations and maybe the expectations of Prime Minister Modi is that they will be opened again in the not so distant future

‘Immigration will resume when it will be safe to do so’

Mr Tudge said the government is yet to take a decision on when it would open its borders to anyone other than the Australian citizens and permanent residents.

“Two things have to occur for that to happen. First is the international airports in India have to open up which is a decision of the Indian government and then second, we would have to open our borders to foreign nationals and we haven’t made that decision yet,” he said.

The minister thanked the Indian immigrants for their “terrific” contribution to Australia’s immigration success.

“I think it will be some time yet before we reopen the borders but it’s is something that we’d like to do in the future because immigration has been such a critical part of Australia’s success.

“And particularly immigrants from India in the last decades who have come in very large numbers and made a terrific contribution in Australia and we will be looking for immigration to resume when it is safe to do so,” he said.

Minister Tudge said a lot of Australia’s success in stemming the coronavirus has come through government’s move to close the international borders. He said a decision to reopen would largely depend on the development of a vaccine.

“How quickly we will rebound, it’s just too early to say and if there’s a vaccine which is found and that’s globally available then we may be able to open-up those borders sooner rather than later and get back to what the normal situation is. But if the vaccine is not found for some time, then it will probably be a slower process,” said the minister.

‘Immigration rate will be low’

Mr Tudge said it is too early to ascertain the long term impact of the health crisis on the country’s immigration policies, but added that the numbers would certainly be low as compared to the previous years.

“It’s just too early to say at this stage obviously our immigration rate will be lower this year compared to previous years because we have closed down the borders and almost nobody is coming in at the moment,” he said.

COVID-19 impact on visa applications:

The minister said while the processing of onshore applications has not been largely affected, those lodging visa applications from outside the country are more likely to feel the pinch.

“If you’re overseas and you’re applying for a visa, then I can say that it is being interrupted because of coronavirus, often because things like the English language testing providers or the health testing providers in most destination countries are shut down.”

He, however, added that the situation would be “irrelevant” for applicants from India as they would not be able to enter the country, even if they had a valid visa until the restrictions are lifted.

“At the moment that situation is almost irrelevant, because even if you had a valid visa and if you were in somewhere like India or Nepal then you would not be able to come into the country in any case.

“Again, we are keeping a close eye on things we are continuing to process those in Australia we are processing some overseas, but it obviously is at a slower rate,” said the minister.

Source: Exclusive: Acting Immigration Minister Alan Tudge addresses concerns of Indian nationals on temporary visas in Australia

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ICYMI: In the UK, white immigration is an asset – while everyone else is undesirable

2020/04/29 Leave a comment

Interesting commentary on immigration narratives and some of the contradictions with respect to white versus visible minority immigrants and their descendants:

A conversation that has stayed with me came after the Brexitvote in 2016, when a French friend, who is white, told me of her anxiety at the outcome. There were already signs of the mounting xenophobia against foreigners of all descriptions that was to come in the aftermath of the referendum. “It’s like people are seeing us as immigrants!” she said with disgust. “As if we don’t belong here.”

My immediate thought was, “welcome”. I’m not an immigrant but I have always been seen as one. The response to any perceived transgression I make towards a public person or policy is frequently: “If you don’t like it here, then leave.” White immigrants, and especially those from western Europe, had on the whole never before felt as if this prejudice applied to them, because “immigration” – as a contentious political issue – has never been about people coming from other countries, and it’s never been about the movement required to get here. “Immigration” has always been a byword for the problem of people who are racialised as undesirable, whether they were born here or not.

The hypocrisy is embedded in the history. I often wonder how it was that the arrival of the SS Windrushin 1948, carrying fewer than 500 West Indians specifically invited to come and work in the UK, was and remains such a symbol of profound soul searching for the national identity. That event stands in stark contrast to the more than 200,000 eastern Europeans and 100,000 Irish immigrants who came to Britain during the same period. The former is regarded as a turning point in the fabric of the nation’s identity, the latter is barely remembered at all.

But this illogicality in our narratives around immigration is not confined to the past. I have spent most of my life living in leafy southwest London, an area often described as “quintessentially English”, helped by the presence of rowing on the Thames at Putney and Hammersmith, lawn tennis at Wimbledon, botanical gardens at Kew and Henry VIII’s old hunting grounds in the deer-populated Richmond Park. These areas are still perceived as unchanged by mass immigration.

Dig a little deeper, however, and it emerges that locals call this area the “biltong belt” because of the large presence of white South Africans, Australians and New Zealanders. In fact, white immigration has had the same impact as immigration everywhere – provided skilled and unskilled labour to meet economic demand, triggering the arrival of a new wave of biltong-themed shops, and requiring planning to provide the requisite housing; school places; doctors surgery capacity. The difference is that this immigration is never weaponised as a threat to the national heritage, or as a reason for pre-existing communities to flee. This immigration has been largely unproblematic because it is white, English-speaking and less visibly “other”.

The notion of “other” is in itself deeply ironic. The history of immigration law is a history of government attempts to limit the movement of people who had not long before been British subjects as imperial citizens. As Rab Butler, former home secretary, said about the Commonwealth Immigration Act in 1962, these were laws whose “restrictive effect is intended to, and would in fact, operate on coloured people almost exclusively”.

Today’s governments are more subtle in their language. The word “coloured” disappeared from the letter of our legislation but retains its power in effect. Immigration lawyers frequently remark, after visits to immigration detention centres, how few white immigrants can be found there – these are warehousing facilities for the still undesirable African, Asian, South American and other non-white people. In my work, I have interviewed many who were arrested in dawn raids while in the process of lawfully regularising their immigration status.

The most blatant examples of contemporary racism – the Windrush scandal for example – have exposed a historical continuity that infects the entire immigration system. The “root cause” of the scandal, Wendy Williams, inspector of constabulary, found, can be traced back to the “racial motivations” of immigration laws at their most racialised birth.

The sooner we acknowledge that legacy, and dispense with the fantasy that immigration has nothing to do with race, the sooner we will be able to consign this ongoing, abhorrent injustice to the dustbin of history, where it belongs.

Source: In the UK, white immigration is an asset – while everyone else is undesirable

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COVID-19 Has Separated Those With Real Problems From Those With Mere ‘Snoblems’

2020/04/28 Leave a comment

Cute phrase, but one that accurately captures inequalities:

There are problems, and then there are “snoblems,” as social media like to call certain first-world personal issues during the pandemic. And almost anyone with a pen and a platform—myself included—has written about the latter, with harrowing tales of everything from long grocery lines during the lockdown to bad hair and awkward Zoom dates. But just as the privileged appear to be moving down the back side of the global coronavirus pandemic, it is those people in the margins, almost always ignored by society, that we need to be most worried about, not only for the sake of compassion, but for self-interest.

“The rigorously managed city-state of Singapore has suffered a recent spike in new cases simply because it wasn’t watching those who are easiest to ignore. ”

The curve has been flattening in most of the hardest hit areas of the global coronavirus crisis, from New York City to northern Italy, where  fewer than 500 deaths in a single day now feels oddly victorious. Wuhan is opening for business and Italy will slowly come out of its own coronavirus hibernation in early May.

But as Singapore has learned, premature celebrations of containment can easily backfire if success is only measured among those being counted. The rigorously managed city-state has suffered a recent spike in new cases simply because it wasn’t watching those who are easiest to ignore.

Migrant workers forced into lockdown in tight dorms are now emerging to help kickstart the Singapore economy, but during the height of the crisis, they were largely untested, and the virus ran wild among them. They now account for a huge increase in cases taxing the health care system and causing leaders to enforce a partial lockdown for the first time in the pandemic.

The same is likely to happen across Europe, where migrant workers and seasonal laborers are desperately needed to harvest winter crops. Special dispensation to cross closed borders is now being considered for Romanian harvest workers to come to Italy, where they will move into barrack-style lodgings and work side by side. In Great Britain, after calls for furloughed workers from non-agricultural sectors to step up and work in the farm industry were largely ignored, the government chartered flights to bring Romanian fruit and vegetable pickers in, despite travel bans.

Romania has had just over 11,000 positive cases, but as of the weekend had carried out only around 115,000 tests, meaning a large part of the population probably is infected without knowing. Italy does not have the capacity to test seasonal farm workers, who could introduce the virus in the southern regions of the country where winter agriculture is based, and which have largely escaped the brunt of the pandemic.

“On Greek islands, where thousands of refugees live in horrific conditions awaiting rulings on their asylum requests, testing is virtually nonexistent.”

The more than 71 million people displaced by war and conflict worldwide, as tallied by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, have also been locked down without the sort of testing carried out on other populations. Human Rights Watch warns that as nations lift restrictions, many of the migrants will start moving again without any proper care during the critical early stages of the pandemic.

On Greek islands where thousands of refugees from the Middle East live in horrific conditions awaiting rulings on their asylum requests, testing is virtually nonexistent. A spokesperson for Doctors Without Borders told The Daily Beast that at the notorious Moria camp on the island of Lesbos, where 19,000 migrants and refugees live in a space meant for just 3,000, there is just one water tap for every 1,300 people and no soap at all.

“Families of five or six have to sleep in spaces of no more than three square meters [about 32 square feet],” Dr. Hilde Vochten, MSF’s Medical Coordinator in Greece, said recently. “This means that recommended measures such as frequent hand-washing and social distancing to prevent the spread of the virus are just impossible.”

As the world has learned from watching COVID-19 tear through cruise ships, aircraft carriers and New York  City, tight living arrangements are the perfect breeding ground for the virus. In so many parts of the marginalized world—from refugee camps to labor farms—social distancing cannot be enforced effectively and blanket testing for the virus is just not a priority.

These also are the environments where other health issues are rampant, from malnutrition to a lack of hygiene, which will complicate even mild cases of COVID-19, and where asymptomatic carriers could easily spread the disease to thousands of people before a single case is confirmed.

Moria, like other camps, is serviced by staff who live on the island and come and go from the camps, making it easy for them to spread the disease, and holes in the fences make it easy for many of the people there to move freely and return.

Writing in The Nation, author and human rights advocate Sasha Abramsky warns of a storm on the horizon. “So preoccupied are we by our own fears and by the U.S. pandemic calamity that we risk forgetting the misfortunes piled on misfortune of the 70 million people around the world currently displaced by war and social collapse,” he writes, warning that in the United States, Donald Trump’s policies on immigration have caused a bottleneck in facilities where those who may be carrying COVID-19 are neither treated nor released.

In the United States, where there are an estimated 11 million people Trump likes to call “illegal aliens,” many work in the sectors that solve the snoblems for the rest of us. A lack of access to health care could be deadly, not just for “them” but for “us,” too. Out of fear of deportation, these vulnerable undocumented workers are likely to avoid hospitals, and instead stay on the job, working in those businesses that are opening up in some states, like restaurants, massage parlors, and bowling alleys.

The stark degrees of suffering and vulnerability to COVID-19 have largely focused on the elderly and unwell in the developed world, the strain on normally well-developed health systems that should have been far better prepared, and the shocking lack of preparedness in the world’s richest economies. But, writing in The Economist, Bill Gates warns that as the pandemic slows in developed nations, it will accelerate in developing ones.

“Their experience, however, will be worse,” says Gates. “In poorer countries, where fewer jobs can be done remotely, distancing measures won’t work as well.” He notes that, “COVID-19 overwhelmed cities like New York, but the data suggest that even a single Manhattan hospital has more intensive-care beds than most African countries. Millions could die.”

Gates goes on to say he hopes wealthy nations include poorer ones as they move to a post-pandemic world. “Even the most self-interested person—or isolationist government—should agree with this by now,” he says. “This pandemic has shown us that viruses don’t obey border laws and that we are all connected biologically by a network of microscopic germs, whether we like it or not.”

But if nothing is done to integrate the needs of those vulnerable populations on the margins—whether at home in the “first world” or abroad in less affluent societies—experts warn they may contribute massively to the second wave of COVID-19. And they won’t be as easy to ignore the next time around.

Source: COVID-19 Has Separated Those With Real Problems From Those With Mere ‘Snoblems’

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Quebecers answer call to work on farms, but are they up to the task?

2020/04/28 Leave a comment

The productivity and cost benefits of foreign agricultural workers and the resulting dependence:

Melina Plante has found that, on her five-hectare fruit and vegetable farm south of Montreal by the U.S. border, one experienced Guatemalan farmhand can produce more than two Quebecers.

She and her husband, Francois D’Aoust, have hired the same four Guatemalan seasonal workers year after year. They typically clock up to 70 hours per week on the farm in Havelock, Que., and though the pay is relatively low, the workers value it.

But this year, Plante said, the farmhands are stuck in Guatemala due to travel restrictions their country has imposed to limit the spread of COVID-19.

They are among the roughly 5,000 seasonal and temporary workers that Quebec’s farmers’ union estimates will be missing on the province’s farms this year because of the pandemic, leaving Plante, D’Aoust and scores of other farmers with a tough choice: They can either reduce this year’s food production or take a chance on inexperienced but eager Quebecers thrown out of work by the pandemic.

In response to the foreign labour shortage, the provincial government on April 17 announced a $45-million program to pay an extra $100 a week above regular wages as an incentive to work on a farm. About 2,800 Quebecers have so far responded to Premier Francois Legault’s call.

But it is still unclear if there are enough unemployed Quebecers able and willing to do the work — and whether those who do will stick around if the economy picks up and their old jobs return.

Plante said bluntly that in the past, Quebecers have proven unreliable farmhands.

“That’s been our experience — and why we turned to foreign labour …. We estimate that one Guatemalan worker can be replaced by 2.5 Quebecers,” she said by phone from her farm.

The provincial program pays minimum wage, plus the $100 per week top-up and requires that applicants be available to work at least 25 hours per week. But Marcel Groleau, president of Union des producteurs agricoles, which represents about 42,000 Quebec farmers, says those kind of schedules simply won’t cut it.

“It will take farms — at a minimum — 40 hours per week, per employee, to replace the foreign labour,” he said in a recent interview.

The Canadian border remains open to seasonal farm workers, he explained, but many of them are having difficulty obtaining travel permits in their home countries.

“The pandemic made us realize how much we rely on foreign labour — but it’s been hard to attract local labour in the fields for many years now,” Groleau said.

Florence Lachapelle is hoping she’ll qualify for the extra $100 per week.

She had already agreed to work on Plante’s farm to help replace the Guatemalan farmhands before the province created the recruiting program. The 19-year-old visual arts student from Montreal met Plante and D’Aoust through family.

Lachapelle said she got involved in environmental activism at her junior college but since the pandemic doesn’t know what to do with her energy.

“I think the key to fighting climate change is through agricultural self-sufficiency and knowing how to work the earth in a respectful way,” she said in a recent interview. “I really want to learn how it works.”

And while people such as Lachapelle may be helping to fill a critical gap created by the pandemic, there are other fragile links in the agricultural supply chain exposed by the pandemic.

COVID-19 has highlighted the problems associated with industry concentration, particularly within the food-processing sector, Groleau said.

“There are fewer and fewer (processing plants), and the ones that are left are bigger and bigger,” he said. “When there is an issue at one of them, there are serious impacts for the rest of the supply chain.”

For example, the closure of a single meat packing plant in Alberta last week forced Canada to curtail beef exports to meet domestic demand. The Cargill-operated factory in Alberta has seen an outbreak linked to at least 484 cases of COVID-19s, including one death.

“We are not, at this point, anticipating shortages of beef,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said earlier in the week, “but prices might go up.”

Aside from higher prices, Plante said she and other farmers in her network expect food shortages this fall. She and her husband have already estimated they will have to cut production this year by about a third.

Pascal Theriault, a lecturer at McGill University’s farm management and technology program and vice-president of Quebec’s order of agronomists, said he hopes this crisis forces Canadians to rethink their relationship with food.

“We worked on producing food at the lowest possible cost and that’s all that counted,” he said in a recent interview. But over the years, international supply chains controlled by a handful of big players have contributed to Canadians’ alienation from the food they eat.

“I think the crisis will build awareness to eat more locally,” he said. “It’s not that we weren’t doing it before, but now we are really paying attention to it.”

Buying local could mean higher grocery bills for Canadian consumers used to seeing stores stocked with imported produce grown with cheaper labour under fewer regulations.

Canadians spend about 10 per cent of their budgets on food — one of the lowest proportions in the world, Theriault said. So there is room to pay a little more for local products — but not that much more, he said.

Lachapelle started her new job Thursday. She’ll live in a trailer on Plante’s farm and keep mostly to herself for two weeks to ensure she is not carrying the virus. Then when she starts what she expects will be gruelling work in the fields, she will respect physical distancing guidelines.

“I am very hard-working,” she said. “I’m 19, and I think I am ready, physically and mentally. I know it’s going to be a challenge. But I think it’ll be will super fun!”

Source: Quebecers answer call to work on farms, but are they up to the task?

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Alberta’s COVID-19 crisis is a migrant-worker crisis, too

2020/04/28 Leave a comment

More on temporary foreign and immigrant workers in relation to COVID-19 working conditions:

The 500 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and one death tied to an Albertan meat-packing plant are unquestionably tragic. The Cargill plant in High River, Alta., temporarily ceased operations last week following the most serious COVID-19 outbreak in Canada, with cases linked to that plant constituting about a quarter of all cases in the province.

But it must also be understood in its broader context, beyond this pandemic. While this tragedy seems unique to this crisis, this outbreak has only exposed Canada and Alberta’s dependence on temporary labour migration and immigrant workers, the particular vulnerabilities they face, and the deep inequities in Canada’s occupational health and safety system.

Media reports and accounts from community advocates have indicated that most of the workers at the meat-packing plant came here from abroad, including many as temporary foreign workers. This is in line with what the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives recently found, which is that workers who have been deemed “essential” are also disproportionately racialized. Immigrant workers earn less than the Canadian average and lack access to basic protections, including paid sick leave. These workers are systematically disadvantaged with respect to workplace safety, despite the rights due to them under the Employment Standards and the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

The current OHS system relies on the “internal responsibility system,” which means it is driven by complaints and thus requires that workers have to be the one to assert their rights to workplace safety. This system disadvantages low-wage and precarious immigrant workers who may be unable to exercise these rights, or fear reprisal for speaking out about unsafe work conditions. This is borne out in data which shows that, in their first five years in Canada, immigrant men are at increased risk of work-related injuries that require medical attention compared to their Canadian-born counterparts.

The crisis has also revealed the way public policy intersects with an unequal labour market to exacerbate those vulnerabilities that temporary workers in particular face. While policies around temporary foreign workers change depending on prevailing political sentiments and public attitudes, the fundamentals of the program remain largely unchanged: Workers are recruited for labour that Canadians are unwilling to do.

Much of it, including meat packing, is “3D work” – difficult, dangerous and dirty. Research published in 2014 found that in Alberta, meat-packing employees have the highest probability of a disabling injury of all manufacturing employees, at a rate that is more than double the manufacturing average.

Temporary workers enter Canada on a time-limited work permit that is tied to their employer. The program is divided by skill level: Those in “high-skill” occupations have greater access to Canadian permanent residence than “low-skill” workers, including meat packers. What few pathways exist are largely dependent on a referral from employers, making it less likely for those workers to push for their rights.

Temporary migrant workers in occupations classified as low-skilled are structurally disadvantaged when it comes to workplace health and safety. They pay taxes and contribute to the employment insurance program, but if they become sick or injured, they can be laid off and sent back to their home country without access to the Canadian benefit system. Research shows that temporary migrant workers hide illnesses and injury for fear of being fired, and we cannot rule out that this influenced the Cargill workers who continued to do their job despite being sick.

It is deeply unjust that workers deemed “essential” in this pandemic are the same workers who are unable to access pathways to Canadian citizenship and to equitable workplace health and safety. The temporary foreign worker program is meant to address short-term and geographically specific needs in the labour market, yet as advocates and researchers have noted for years, “temporary” migrant workers often work in jobs that are not temporary at all.

As evidence of the inequities in workplace safety, the last inspection at the Cargill plant happened over video rather than through an in-person inspection. This begs important questions about the actual safety afforded those working in the plant. Workers have disclosed to the media that their concerns over safety and the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 went largely unheeded by management.

And yet, Alberta designated Cargill an essential service. That only ensured that one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world continued operations – while workers suffered the consequences.

Source: Alberta’s COVID-19 crisis is a migrant-worker crisis, too: Bronwyn Bragg

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‘Death is so real:’ Grim reality for immigrant workers providing Canada food

2020/04/27 Leave a comment

Sobering:

An organization that works with immigrants says the temporary closure of a large slaughterhouse in southern Alberta has left many among its largely Filipino workforce fearful for the future.

Cargill shut down its plant just north of High River, Alta., earlier this week after an outbreak of COVID-19 and the death of one employee. The decision put 2,000 employees out of work.

Marichu Antonio from Action Dignity said 70 per cent of the workers at Cargill are Filipino. There are also Mexicans, Chinese and Vietnamese working at the plant.

Her organization, previously known as the Ethno-Cultural Council of Calgary, assists new Canadians to obtain services. She said it has received hundreds of calls from Cargill workers.

Antonio, who is originally from the Philippines, said people are worried about what happens after the plant reopens.

“The possibility of death is so real right now. They know the long-term implications to their families if something happens to them as the main breadwinners, so they’re very worried. They’re afraid,” she said.

“They don’t know what their future is and they don’t know what is best for them.”

Antonio said the death of the Cargill worker in her 60s has hit many people hard.

“The woman who passed away was of Vietnamese descent. She took her sick day that Friday and then she was hospitalized Saturday and passed away Sunday.”

Antonio’s organization helped the woman’s husband arrange a funeral.

Cesar Cala, a co-convener of the Filipino Emergency Response Task Force, said a significant number of plant employees are temporary foreign workers here in Canada alone. There are also many with permanent resident status who have their families with them.

He said those who are sending money home often look to save expenses by moving in with other workers.

“Either they rent places or they make living arrangements with other workers from other businesses. It’s a good way to save money.”

The cost savings go beyond living together.

“They car-pool. Most of them live in Calgary, so it saves a lot of money for them to go in a car-pool … five of them going there together and coming back.”

Cala said workers are worried about their health and feeling pressure to head back to work, even if they are still showing symptoms. He said having a steady income is a priority for them.

“For a lot of the (temporary foreign workers), their employment and their status to stay in Canada is tied up to their employment. It’s not just losing their jobs,” he said.

“It might be about losing their status as well. They’ve incurred so much cost coming to Canada and they’re also quite anxious, because there’s no clarity on what’s going to happen and what’s in store.”

Antonio said her group has been urging workers to tell their stories publicly.

“We’ve been asking them … to share their stories and their reality, but they’re afraid that they may not be rehired. There are many stories that they can tell.”

Source: ‘Death is so real:’ Grim reality for immigrant workers providing Canada food

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UK: Huge ‘immigration health surcharge’ fees paid by foreign NHS workers being reviewed, Priti Patel says

2020/04/27 Leave a comment

Always was an indefensible policy with the current COVID-19 pandemic highlighting the point (the UK has one of the higher number of deaths due to the pandemic in the EU):

The immigration health surcharge fees paid by foreign healthcare workers– despite working in the NHS themselves – are being reviewed, Priti Patel has said.

The home secretary revealed she had bowed to pressure to look again at the fees, in the light of the “extraordinary contribution” made by medical staff from overseas during the coronavirus pandemic.

Until now, ministers had held firm that the surcharge – due to soar from £400 a year to £624 this October – is a fair way for all migrants to contribute to the likely cost of their NHS care.

At the daily Downing Street press conference, Ms Patel was asked whether it was right to “scrap” the surcharge for overseas NHS staff, “given they too are fighting this pandemic”.

She replied that it was “under review”, adding: “We are looking at everything, including visas and surcharge.

“We are looking at everything now in terms of what we can do to continue to support everyone on the frontline of the NHS.

“We are speaking about the healthcare professionals, the medics, the doctors and nurses and allied healthcare professionals who have come to the UK.”

The possible cut, or removal, of the surcharge was revealed as Ms Patel played down hopes of an early easing of the lockdown as the death toll in hospitals passed 20,000.

She called it a “deeply tragic and moving moment”, warning “we are not out of the woods yet” – and telling people to stick to social distancing instructions.

“Quite frankly that is not right now. It is clear that it is not right now.”

The health surcharge was hugely controversial, even before the current crisis. There is no right of deferral, or ability to pay annually. Instead, it has to be paid in advance for the entire duration of an applicant’s visa or residency permit.

Meanwhile, nurses and junior doctors in training have starting salaries of between £18,000 and £23,000.

They are already paying tax and national insurance, like British nationals, and are therefore being “charged twice” for NHS treatment, campaigners have protested.

Nevertheless, only last month, when he announced his Budget, chancellor Rishi Sunak said it was necessary to ensure that “what people get out, they also put in”.

Once the UK leaves the Brexit transition period – at the end of the year – the government insists it will be paid by all EU citizens, as well as those from the rest of the world.

Around one in every seven NHS workers is foreign-born – a dependence that has attracted growing attention as they have been on the frontline of the fight against coronavirus.

Dame Donna Kinnair, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said it would welcome a U-turn to exempt nurses from the surcharge.

“The current crisis only serves to highlight the unfairness of charging overseas nurses working in the UK for healthcare services,” she said.

The concession comes ahead of Boris Johnson’s expected return to work in Downing Street on Monday, raising Conservative hopes of an end to the refusal to discuss how the UK will escape the lockdown.

The prime minister is expected back, three weeks after being taken to hospital when his coronavirus symptoms worsened – where he needed oxygen in intensive care, to ensure he survived

Conservative backbenchers have laid bare their frustrations at ministers batting away calls to set out options for easing restrictions, claiming it would underline the ‘stay at home’ message.

On Saturday, Philip Hammond, the former Conservative chancellor, asked if such a plan should be “published now”, replied: “Yes, I think that is the next step.

“I understand the prime minister is going to be back in harness in Downing Street at the beginning of next week and I very much hope that will signal a clear step change.”

Source: Huge ‘immigration health surcharge’ fees paid by foreign NHS workers being reviewed, Priti Patel says

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Canada is releasing immigration detainees at ‘unprecedented’ rates amid COVID-19 fears

2020/04/27 Leave a comment

Seems like calls have been listened to. Will see if the opposition raises this as a question period or committee issue:

The number of immigration detainees held in provincial jails and immigration holding centres across Canada has dropped by more than half since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, according to data provided to Global News.

And recent decisions from the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada(IRB), the administrative tribunal that presides over immigration refugee matters, show how fears over COVID-19 are playing a significant role in some rulings to release immigration detainees.

On March 17, there were 353 immigration detainees held in provincial jails and immigration holding centres across Canada, according to data from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).

By April 19, that number dropped by more than half to 147 detainees, 117 of whom were being held in provincial jails. The remaining 30 were held in one of Canada’s three immigration holding centres located in Toronto, Laval, Que., and Surrey, B.C.

“We would never normally see such a dramatic drop in detention (detainees) in such a short period of time. That’s unprecedented,” said Swathi Sekhar, an immigration and refugee lawyer based in Toronto.

A number of legal and advocacy groups have been calling for the release of immigration detainees and people held in jails and prisons who are not deemed risks to public safety due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases in these facilities, and the conditions there that make it difficult to isolate and control the spread of infection.

The majority of the immigration detainees held in jails are located in Ontario, which has been grappling with COVID-19 cases in its correctional facilities. Thousands of inmate in Ontario jails have been released in recent weeks as the province grapples with the outbreak.

Thirty-three of the 117 immigration detainees held in provincial jails as of April 19 were detained at the Maplehurst Correctional Complex in Milton, a combined maximum-security jail for remanded prisoners and a medium/maximum-security jail for convicted offenders serving sentences of less than two years.

Foreign nationals and permanent residents can be detained — sometimes indefinitely — by CBSA officers if the person is deemed unlikely to appear for an immigration proceeding like a hearing, if the person is deemed a threat to public safety or if the person’s identity is under question. Most detainees are held on the grounds that they are unlikely to appear for proceedings or because of questions over their identity.

Immigration detainees are held on administrative and not criminal grounds like a typical jail or prison inmate. Immigration detainees can be held in one of Canada’s three immigration holding centres, which resemble medium-security prisons, or in provincial jails across the country, depending on the circumstances of their case, or if there is no immigration holding centre in that part of the country.

Last month, the Canadian government enacted an emergency order under the Quarantine Act that prohibits entry by individuals into Canada for the purpose of claiming refugee protection.

“This new order has reduced the number (of) asylum seekers remaining in Canada or being detained,” a CBSA spokesperson said in an email. “Also, since a lot of our admissions into (immigration holding centres) or provincial facilities are directly related to traveller volumes, it is not unexpected to see the overall number of admissions go down.”

“CBSA officers are asked to focus efforts to explore all viable alternatives to detention for all cases, where there is no public safety concern.”

Recent detention review decisions provided to Global News from the IRB show how COVID-19 is being factored into determining whether or not to release someone from immigration detention.

One IRB decision from April 3 involves a Colombian man who had been detained in the Toronto immigration holding centre since Jan. 23 because he was deemed a danger to the public and unlikely to appear for his removal from Canada to Colombia. However, he was released on a bond in large part due to the risk of being exposed to COVID-19 while in detention. He was ordered to abide by a number of strict conditions as part of his release.

The IRB decision-maker, Jacqueline Swaisland, stated that the man, Angelo Rincon, has a history of non-compliance with immigration laws “at least in three countries” and has also violated criminal laws in Canada and the United States. This includes a conviction for possessing a controlled substance for the purpose of selling, another conviction related to a number of break-and-enters in the Greater Toronto Area last year and possession of property obtained by crime.

The decision-maker said that while Rincon was deemed a danger to the public due to his criminal history, “I find the danger that you pose to be at the low end of the spectrum” because of the limited sentences he had received for his convictions, his “stated remorse under sworn testimony” and “the fact that there has been no violence in the commission of any of the offences you have been involved in…”

In determining whether to release Rincon from detention, Swaisland stated that Rincon had already been held in detention for more than two months, something that weighs in his favour, and “with respect to anticipated length of detention [it’s] agreed by all parties that at this point it is unknown because of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“And it could be long given Canada is currently not enforcing removals and given that Columbia is not permitting the repatriation of even (its) own nationals and it is not clear how long that will go on for given the current COVID-19 pandemic,” Swaisland stated.

Last month, the CBSA temporarily halted deportations of people whose refugee or immigration claims had been rejected, with the exception of serious criminal cases that will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

The decision goes on to note that Rincon’s counsel provided “significant documentation” on the risks that someone in detention faces and his own fears associated with his potential exposure to the virus in the facility due to an underlying condition. TVO reported last month that an employee at the Toronto holding centre had contracted COVID-19 and had been in self-isolation.

“I find that the risk that you face are not at the same level of detainees in correctional facilities (particularly) given that there is such a limited number of the detainees currently being housed at the immigration holding centre, 15 as of today and given the significant steps that are being taken to reduce the risks to individuals being detained at the holding centre currently,” Rincon’s decision states.

“(But) even though the immigration holding centre is taking significant precautions, they are not perfect. And you still have a high risk of exposure and significant restrictions on your ability to self-isolate in a manner that the documentary evidence seems to suggest that is required with this virus.”

COVID-19 is also cited in an IRB decision from March 30 involving a Chilean woman who had been detained at the Toronto immigration holding centre since March 17 because she was deemed unlikely to appear for her immigration proceedings. The decision states that the woman may be released from detention as long as she abides by a number of conditions, including living at a shelter and reporting regularly to the CBSA.

Her identity and some of the details of the decision are redacted, as she has a pending refugee claim, which is subject to privacy rules. The decision notes that the woman’s refugee claim is on hold for the time being, and proceedings will resume “once the pandemic is addressed and the Immigration and Refugee Board begins to hear and process claims again.”

“You are now waiting for your (refugee) hearing which under normal circumstances can be a long process and everything is delayed now due to the pandemic,” the decision-maker, Julia Huys, said to the woman.

Huys goes on to describe the elevated risk of exposure to COVID-19 among detainees.

“I am taking note that the conditions in the immigration holding centre may be better than provincial jail but I find only slightly,” Huys said.

“So detained people will come into contact with many others including detainees, other detainees, guards, staff, and movement in and out of people … from the immigration holding centre. And I am also taking very seriously the fact that there has now been a case of COVID-19 at the immigration holding centre with one of the staff.”

An IRB spokesperson said in an email to Global News that it’s “open to decision-makers to consider any relevant factors in determining whether detention is justified, including COVID-19 and its potential risks to detained individuals.”

The IRB also noted that its immigration division is “entertaining requests from parties for early detention reviews, for example to consider alternatives where the person detained may have a vulnerability that places them at elevated risk from the virus or any cases with an alternative to detention.”

Source: Canada is releasing immigration detainees at ‘unprecedented’ rates amid COVID-19 fears

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New Trump Immigration Order Does What Congress Rejected In 2018

2020/04/25 Leave a comment

The pandemic as opportunity. Good explanation of what is covered and what is not covered:

Donald Trump has issued a proclamation that would block indefinitely immigrants in categories the administration failed to eliminate in a bill before the U.S. Senate in February 2018. Economists consider the justification for the president’s action devoid of serious analysis and unconvincing. U.S. citizens will no longer be able to obtain immigrant visas for a parent, adult child or sibling, and the proclamation contains a lit fuse in the form of a 30-day review of H-1B and other temporary visas. In effect, the Trump administration has used the COVID-19 crisis to rewrite immigration law without passing a bill through Congress.

The presidential proclamation contains nearly identical provisions on legal immigration to those of a White House-designed bill the U.S. Senate rejected on February 15, 2018, which it voted down on a “cloture motion” 60-39.

The legislation, like the proclamation issued on April 22, 2020, would have eliminated the ability of U.S. citizens to sponsor a parent, as well as adult children and siblings (the family preference categories). It also ended the Diversity Visa lottery. (See page S1036 here.) The U.S. unemployment ratein February 2018 was only 4.1% when the administration attempted to stop immigrants from entering the United States in the same categories as were included in the April 22, 2020, presidential proclamation.

Originally, based on early discussions, the 2018 legislation was to represent a compromise between Democrats and Donald Trump to provide permanent legal protection for individuals brought to America as children, particularly those granted Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). However, press reports indicate White House adviser Stephen Miller intervened to ensure any administration-supported bill contained a “wish list” of immigration restrictions that Democrats would be unlikely to support. Miller is credited with drafting the new proclamation.

“Congress considered and rejected legislation that would have cut the same family-based visa categories that President Trump targets in the executive order,” said Lynden Melmed, a partner at Berry Appleman & Leiden and former chief counsel for USCIS, in an interview.

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Trump’s immigration move may force IT firms to shift staff offsite

2020/04/24 Leave a comment

Further possible effects for Indian IT services companies and tech in general:

US President Donald Trump’s decision to temporarily suspend immigration could further reduce Indian IT services companies’ reliance on H1-B visas.

While tech majors such as TCS and Infosys are increasingly hiring locally in the US and Europe, changes in delivery models following the Covid-19 pandemic could bring down the need for onsite deployment of Indian techies.

Trump, in a tweet, said he intends to sign an executive order to temporarily suspend immigration “in light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our great American Citizens.”

In the likelihood of immigration suspension, companies may not opt for H1-B visas as the Covid-19 pandemic has caused new headaches. TCS is already working on a delivery model that requires only 25 per cent of workforce to be present in an office. If 75 per cent of techies can do their work from outside office, it would not matter if they are in the US or in India.

“My estimate is that demand for onsite work (which requires H1-B) will come down by 50 per cent once things normalise,” said Harish HV, Managing Partner, ECube Investment Advisors.

While H1-B is a non-immigrant visa, Indians as well as others have been taking this route to get US citizenship. Indian nationals are the biggest beneficiaries of the H-1B visas, which the US Centre for USCIS issues to get “qualified” professionals into the US.

“Trump’s decision, albeit temporary, will have significant implications right from people whose citizenship is under process to H1-B renewals,” said a US immigration lawyer whose clients include Infosys, Mphasis and other tech companies. This development comes in the wake of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) which, last week, gave its nod to extend H1-B visas which have expired or set to expire.

For the fiscal 2020-21, the US received around 275,000 fresh H1-B visa requests, of which 67 per cent were from India, US government data stated. The mandate is for granting 85,000 visas for immigrants.

According to industry estimates, there are around three million H1-B visa holders. While there are no definitive numbers on how many H1-B visa holders apply for citizenship, some lawyers peg that 24 per cent of H1-B visa holders tend to get green cards every year.

Indian software services companies have had it tough in the last few years. Visa rejection rates were around 30 per cent in 2019 and only two Indian companies were among the top ten visa recipients. Companies that BusinessLine reached out to declined to comment on Trump’s tweet since the final policy document has not been released by the US Government.

H1-B visas have been under the lens by US authorities as visa abuse cases have been reported and lawsuits filed against Indian companies, alleging that people of South Asian origin are hired to displace American workers.

On their part, Indian companies have started to hire in the US. However, such restrictions in the current scenario of weak revenue and higher local employees would have an impact in the short term, said an analyst from a brokerage house who did not wish to be quoted.

Shares of TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL Tech and Tech Mahindra all closed lower than Monday’s close after Trump tweeted.

Source: Trump’s immigration move may force IT firms to shift staff offsite

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