UK Immigration: Salary threshold set to be lowered

2020/02/10 Leave a comment

Of note:

Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Priti Patel are expected to set out their immigration reforms, including a drop in salary threshold for some migrants, at a cabinet meeting on Friday.

Currently, skilled migrants from outside the EU need to have a job offer with a minimum salary of £30,000.

The BBC understands ministers plan to lower this threshold to £25,600.

Workers from the EU will face the same rules once the transition period for leaving the EU ends on 31 December.

Workers earning less might be allowed to make up “points” elsewhere in order to be granted a visa if they work in a sector with a skills shortage.

Points will also be awarded for speaking good English or for having an outstanding educational background.

It comes after the independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) last month made a series of recommendations for a post-Brexit transition period immigration system, including lowering the salary threshold for skilled migrants to £25,600 in order to help recruit teachers and skilled NHS staff.

The committee also criticised the UK’s current complex immigration system, where non-EU workers can attempt to qualify for a range of visas.

The prime minister made it a key pledge during the election campaign to introduce a points-based immigration scheme, based on Australia’s, for when existing EU freedom of movement rules end.

Under those rules, workers from the EU and European Economic Area countries can come to the UK to live or work without a visa.

The MAC has said there is no such thing as a “perfect” immigration system, with benefits and trade-offs in various parts of the economy.

It said whatever policies the government decides, it must work quickly to get something in place for after the transition period ends.

Source: Immigration: Salary threshold set to be lowered

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Are the Courts Beginning to Move in Favor of Trump’s Immigration Policies?

2020/02/08 Leave a comment

Good analysis:

Since taking office, Donald Trump has issued nearly twenty Presidential actions on immigration, and more rule changes and regulations than one can easily count. Nearly all of them—including the travel ban, the cancellation of daca, and measures to end asylum applications at the Southern border—have prompted legal challenges, and, in several instances, federal judges have issued nationwide injunctions blocking the Administration’s plans. This situation has not deterred the White House, though, and, a few months ago, a senior D.H.S. official told me why. “The idea is, ‘don’t waste time trying to anticipate the risk of litigation,’ ” the official said. “Everything will get challenged in the lower courts anyway. We’ll win at the Supreme Court.”

Last week, in an unsigned, 5–4 decision, the justices lifted an injunction against the Administration’s “public charge” rule, which will use immigrants’ financial status to determine their qualification for green cards and, eventually, citizenship. (The rule will make it much more difficult for anyone who may need to rely on public assistance to become a legal permanent resident.) A few days later, the White House expanded Trump’s travel ban, to include travellers from six additional countries, among them Nigeria. District-court judges had repeatedly blocked the previous ban, but the Supreme Court eventually upheld it, in June, 2018, on the ground that the President has unfettered authority to shape immigration policy for national-security purposes. This time, the Administration didn’t bother to invoke any such purpose. A D.H.S. official admitted to reporters that the extension “focussed on people who want to reside in the U.S., not people who want to visit,” meaning that travellers from the countries in question can enter the United States without incident, as long as they have no intention of staying here. “How can that be national-security motivated?” a former State Department official asked me.

If the Administration appears to be growing bolder, it may be because, three years into the President’s first term, the nation’s highest courts are starting to bolster his agenda. In July, 2019, the Supreme Court—which, by then, included two Trump appointees, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh—lifted an injunction on a Presidential proclamation calling for the use of military funding to build the border wall. Two months later, the Justices allowed Trump’s asylum ban at the border to stand, pending further appeals. Sometime this summer, they’re expected to issue a ruling in a separate case, on whether the Administration’s cancellation of daca was legal. Earlier this week, Trump, in his State of the Union address, thanked the Senate Republicans for confirming Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, and boasted that “my Administration is restoring the rule of law.” He has successfully appointed at least a hundred and eighty-seven judges to the federal judiciary and, he said, there are many more “in the pipeline.”

The legal landscape has already begun to reflect his influence. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, for instance, which the President used to routinely attack as a “complete and total disaster,” rife with “Obama judges,” has ten new conservative jurists. When Trump took office, there were eleven more Democratic appointees than Republican appointees on the circuit; now, on a court with twenty-nine judges, there are just three more Democratic appointees. Generally, it isn’t the entire court that hears cases but, rather, panels of three judges who are selected at random. This past May, one such panel lifted an injunction that a federal judge had issued to block a policy called the Migrant Protection Protocols, which has forced more than a hundred thousand Central Americans seeking asylum in this country to wait in dangerous Mexican border cities.

The main fight in the shifting legal battle against the Administration’s policies now turns on what was once a semi-obscure matter of academic debate: whether it’s appropriate for federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions to halt those policies. The practice has always been fraught, but it has become especially so in the past several years. Since a federal judge can single-handedly stall a national policy, litigants have increasingly opted to file lawsuits in jurisdictions that are ideologically sympathetic to their causes. During the Obama years, conservative groups and Republican attorneys general tried to stop executive actions on immigration and health care by challenging them before judges in South Texas. When Trump became President, advocates sued the government in California, New York, Maryland, and other liberal states, prompting a spate of injunctions against the Administration.

The most obvious explanation for the rise of injunctions in the Trump era is, as Lee Gelernt, a lead litigator at the American Civil Liberties Union, told me, the fact that “there’s never been an Administration that tried to do so many unlawful things, nationwide, at once.” Senior members of the Administration, however, blame their legal setbacks on rogue judges and a faulty system. Last May, in a speech before the American Law Institute, in Washington, Attorney General William Barr called the issuance of nationwide injunctions “perverse,” and added that “rather than an orderly pattern of litigation in which the government loses some cases and wins others . . . we have an inter-district battle fought with all-or-nothing injunctions.” Last week, in a concurring opinion on the Supreme Court’s decision on the public-charge rule, Justice Gorsuch hinted that the Court will likely take up the issue at some point. “The routine issuance” of injunctions, he wrote, “is patently unworkable, sowing chaos.”

As the battle has swung back and forth between the executive and the judiciary branches, it has bypassed the legislative branch. “Congress has been completely out of the conversation,” Sarah Pierce, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, told me. “The government will continue to lean on the executive to develop policies, and on the courts to draw clear boundaries around what the executive can and should do. But, if the courts can’t do that, if they’re impeded from stopping the executive when it’s gone past what its authority allows, then we’re going to have a one-sided conversation.” The public-charge rule is a case in point. The policy itself is technical: for decades, the federal government could withhold permanent legal status for certain immigrants who might have become overly dependent on the state as recipients of social services, but the formula for how the government decides who is ineligible, and why, has been stable since the late nineteen-nineties.

Now the Administration plans to drastically expand the list of factors that will count against a green-card applicant, including the use of non-cash benefits, such as food stamps and Medicaid. It will also raise the threshold for how much money a person must earn each year in order to avoid being labelled as a potential public charge. The changes will disproportionately affect immigrants from Latin America, Asia, and Africa, and observers argue that this is by design. According to the Migration Policy Institute, the policy is a “modern-day version of the National Origins Quota Act of 1924,” a law that “sought to tilt immigration to Western Europe.”

Such a radical rule change would not pass the current Congress, so the White House made it unilaterally, with the Supreme Court’s blessing. “The Administration has looked hard for things that can be done administratively to tighten the screws on legal immigration, to bring the numbers down, and change the composition of who gets to come,” Barbara Strack, a veteran official at the Department of Homeland Security, who recently retired, told me. “The public-charge rule is a significant part of that.”

Without nationwide injunctions to counterbalance aggressive executive actions, the President can make immigration policy in ways that are virtually unchecked. I asked several civil-rights lawyers how they would now fight the White House on any number of sweeping new policies. Last month, for example, a federal judge blocked another executive order designed to restrict the refugee-resettlement program. Will that injunction stand? The Administration, meanwhile, is preparing to take further action on asylum seekers and on the treatment of immigrant children. The lawyers didn’t have an immediate answer, because there isn’t one. Gelernt said, “You’d have to try to pull together class-action suits, or bring a lot of different cases at once. It would take a long time, and would be really hard. In the meantime, your clients would suffer irreparable harm.”

Source: Are the Courts Beginning to Move in Favor of Trump’s Immigration Policies?

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Student behind class-action lawsuit against Niagara College says settlement empowers international students

2020/02/08 Leave a comment

Good result and message:

The student at the helm of a class-action lawsuit against Niagara College says a settlement Thursday should empower vulnerable international students to stand up for themselves.

“This has set a great precedent that will benefit future international students in Canada,” an emotional Anish Goyal told Justice Paul M. Perell after the Ontario Superior Court of Justice approved a settlement between the college and its international graduates.

Some of those students were forced to leave the country in 2015 and had their immigrant dreams shattered when Canadian immigration officials rejected their work permit applications because their credits were earned through Niagara College’s online courses — though the government later reversed some of the refusals.

“I wish to thank Canada and all Canadians for being welcoming to international students. Also, to God for empowering me to help so many students. This situation has affected my life in ways that are irreparable by money. We settled this lawsuit mostly to ensure that we don’t burden the already overburdened courts of Canada and its colleges,” Goyal told Justice Perell.

“International students are here to be a positive part of Canada. I am sure every international student is here to work hard and be a better part of this society,” he said. “Problems are part of every system. Important is its willingness to help.”

According to the settlement terms, the college has offered to compensate each student between $7,500 and $20,000, depending on their circumstances. At least 100 former international graduates from the college’s general arts and science program have been identified as part of the lawsuit, but the number of members could reach as many as 500 as the legal action initially indicated.

The students had alleged the school and its representatives misled them to believe that by completing the mostly online general arts and science diploma transfer program, after finishing a year of graduate or postgraduate schooling in Canada, they would qualify for a three-year work permit.

But they later learned the four-month Niagara College program didn’t meet the immigration department’s work permit requirements because the program was considered distance learning. Without a permit, students must leave the country after graduation.

Price of Admission, an ongoing joint investigation by the Toronto Star and the St. Catharines Standard, looked at the exponential growth of international students, particularly in the Ontario college system, and its impacts on Canada’s immigration and education systems.

The series found the influx has resulted in governments, recruiters, academic institutions and employers directly, and indirectly, profiting from international students, who are willing to pay hefty tuition fees and, in some cases, put up with abuse and exploitation, for the dream of making a life in Canada.

Goyal, who has a background in IT project management from India, is still in the process of settling permanently in Canada after ultimately receiving a three-year work permit. He and other members of the class action are bound by a gag order not to speak with the media as part of the settlement terms.

However, in the public court, the now 31-year-old lead litigant said he had learned from the hardships he endured and will use the experience and strength he acquired to build a future in Canada.

“As a gesture of peace and gratitude, I have decided to donate all the money I will receive from the lawsuit to charitable cause,” said the Brampton man. “(I) hope that no public sentiment is hurt by our (legal) actions.”

Noting that the court appreciated the settlement and expression of thanks from Goyal, Justice Perell replied: “It is honourable the good deed you are doing. It is also appreciated.”

Thursday’s settlement covers international students who graduated from the general arts and science diploma transfer program between Sept. 1, 2013 and Aug. 31, 2016 and who were initially denied a three-year post-graduation work permit “due to distance learning.” Some of those students subsequently reapplied for and were granted permits while others were turned down after reapplying.

Those who qualify for the class-action settlement must contact the law firm Thomson Rogers with supporting documents by April 6. While class members who meet the requirements will be compensated, those who object to the settlement terms must opt out before that date.

Justice Perell also approved total fees of approximately $950,750 to the students’ lawyers from the compensation settlement, in addition to $250,000 in legal fees, disbursements and applicable taxes from Niagara College.

The college declined to comment on the court settlement.

Source: Student behind class-action lawsuit against Niagara College says settlement empowers international students

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How Iranian immigrants can be role models for diversity in STEM

2020/02/07 Leave a comment

Of interest:

When I first came to the United States from Iran in 2007 for a doctorate in computer science and machine learning, I was surprised by how few women attended industry conferences. Those I did meet were usually fellow immigrants.

Diversity and gender equality drive creativity and spur innovation across the globe. It’s why the United Nations has declared Feb.11 the International Day of Women and Girls in Science and why the U.S. House of Representatives just launched the first-ever Women in STEM Caucus. The bipartisan initiative, started by four female congresswomen, now has 13 members from both sides of the aisle. The caucus aims to increase the presence of women and underrepresented minorities in STEM across the country.

In Tehran, where I grew up, it’s considered normal for girls to study computer programming from an early age. That culture has opened the door for new generations of female engineers. In fact, in Iran, nearly 70 percent of university graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are women.

That’s a sharp contrast with the United States, where women are vastly underrepresented in STEM fields. Data by the Council of Graduate Schools found that in 2018 U.S. women earned only about a quarter of PhDs in engineering, math and computer science. This is at a time when the United States is facing a critical shortage of STEM workers; in 2015, 14 states advertised 20 STEM jobs for every unemployed STEM worker, according to New American Economy. That demand is projected to grow over the next decade.

Today, I’m the executive vice president and chief algorithms officer for Overstock.com, a tech-driven online retailer committed to diversity. As an immigrant and a woman, I bring a wealth of experiences that help me see problems differently. Plenty of data shows women bring skill sets, strategic thinking and creativity valued by businesses. Women also take women’s needs to heart when creating products and services for them, whether it’s heart medication, seat belts or air bags designed for our physiques. Simply put, women are an essential part of the talent pool.

American companies should strive for increased diversity and inclusivity throughout their organizations. Teachers need to create inclusive classrooms that value girls’ and women’s opinions. Those of us in the field can create better representation by hiring and championing female colleagues or requesting female-friendly policies inside the companies where we work. Leaders in our communities also need to do more to encourage women, immigrants and minorities to enter STEM fields. I applaud the Congressional Women in STEM Caucus, whose mandate is to improve access to hands-on learning, technical training and real-world application of skills required in these jobs.

But we also need to remember the value of our personal stories in influencing young lives. If young American women and girls, including immigrants and minorities, are going to embrace STEM, they’re going to need more support and role models. As Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of West Chester, Pa., said, she was one of 10 women in her engineering major and doesn’t think the numbers have changed much in 30 years.

A 2018 study of 6,000 American young women conducted by Microsoft and KRC Research found that girls who know a woman in STEM are more than 70 percent more likely to know how to pursue a STEM career and what types of specific jobs might utilize a STEM skillset.

The study said parents’ encouragement was particularly influential in whether girls cultivated a love for science and technology and stuck with these fields over time. Likewise those of us already working in these industries can also serve as mentors for them, whether it’s volunteering at coding camps or sharing our enthusiasm for AI and robotics over ice cream.

Or we can simply raise our hands high in our communities and say: “This is what a female coder, engineer, biotech founder, mathematician or science professor looks like. You can be one, too.” That’s especially important, because 30 percent of girls and 40 percent of women described a man when asked what a “typical” scientist or engineer looked like.

As a woman in STEM, an Iranian American citizen and an immigrant, I want to encourage new generations to realize their potential. With any luck, I’ll see many more female faces at industry conferences to come.

Dr. Kamelia Aryafar is executive vice president and chief algorithms officer for Overstock.com.

Source: How Iranian immigrants can be role models for diversity in STEM

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USA: The Next Harmful Immigration Move Against International Students

2020/02/06 Leave a comment

Significant short and longer term impact. Haven’t seen data on Canadian visa overstays for international students but likely less given Canadian Experience Class pathway to permanent residence:

The next Trump administration action taken against high-skilled foreign nationals may be to limit the length of stay for international students after they are admitted to the United States. This would be done through a new rule eliminating “duration of status,” which now allows a student, once admitted to America, to continue his or her studies until completion, without requiring additional approvals.

The vehicle for this new restriction would be a new regulation to establish a “maximum period of authorized stay for students.” The targeted date for publishing the proposed rule is February 2020.

Replacing the current “duration of status” for international students with a “maximum period of authorized stay” would increase uncertainty for students. It would require them to gain new approvals at each stage of their studies in the United States, such as a transition from an undergraduate to a graduate-level program. New approvals also would be needed if academic programs take longer than anticipated.

In interviews, educators estimate extra costs incurred by international students could be $1,500 or more per extension. Moreover, students would face the prospect of USCIS adjudicators denying student extension requests, much like many H-1B visa holders experience today when trying to extend their status and are forced to leave the country. The denial rate was 24% for H-1B petitions for new employment and 12% for continuing employment through the first three quarters of FY 2019, according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis.

Educators and analysts blame higher costs in the United States and restrictive Trump administration immigration policies for recent declines in international student enrollment. The new policy would raise costs higher for students and be much more restrictive than the status quo.

Given the significant delays in U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) processing under its current workload, the agency is unlikely to approve applications in time for many students. At the Texas Service Center, as of February 4, 2020, the processing time was 9 to 11 and a half months for an “Application to Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status (I-539).” That means a student would need to file a year in advance for an extension, which likely would not even be permitted by USCIS.

What happens if a student files a timely application but USCIS fails to approve it in time? The student would be in jeopardy unless he or she leaves the country, according to USCIS.

The agency includes the following on a list of Q&As for an extension of stay: “What if I file for an extension of stay on time but USCIS doesn’t make a decision before my I–94 expires? Your lawful nonimmigrant status ends, and you are out of status, when your Form I-94 expires, even if you have timely applied to extend your nonimmigrant status . . . DHS [Department of Homeland Security] may bring a removal proceeding against you, even if you have an application for extension of status pending.”

The administration has provided little justification for this significant change in policy, which was first placed on the regulatory agenda in October 2018. The “Statement of Need” for the rule to end duration of status reads: “The failure to provide certain categories of nonimmigrants with specific dates for their authorized periods of stay can cause confusion over how long they may lawfully remain in the United States and has complicated the efforts to reduce overstay rates for nonimmigrant students. The clarity created by date-certain admissions will help reduce the overstay rate.”

The only evidence presented on international student overstay rates remains a series of flawed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reports – and even those reports show student overstay rates have dropped significantly.

As discussed previously, Department of Homeland Security reports include as “overstays” people who did not necessarily overstay a visa, but individuals who DHS could not confirm had departed the United States. The distinction is important. “The DHS figures represent actual overstays plus arrivals whose departure could not be verified,” writes Robert Warren, a senior visiting fellow at the Center for Migration Studies in an analysis.

Attorney Paul Virtue, a former top official at the Immigration and Naturalization Service, told me in an interview: “The DHS report on overstays is dependent on the accuracy of information in SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System) and the agency’s ability to match entry and exit information, especially for students who, for example, may have departed through a land port of entry or have had a change of status that was not updated in SEVIS . . . there is still too much guesswork built into the DHS assumptions concerning the number of overstays among the student and exchange visitor populations.” (Emphasis added.)

Recent DHS reports show the purported overstay rate for F-1 students declined by 42% between FY 2016 and FY 2018, falling from 6.19% in FY 2016 to 3.59% in FY 2018. Despite this, DHS has not backed away from the potential rule to abolish duration of status and establish a maximum period of authorized stay for F-1 students.

Many in the international education community believe the “overstay” argument is being used to justify the policy rather than the actual impetus for eliminating duration of status. The motivation, many suspect, is to limit or discourage more international students from coming to the United States, as evidenced by a series of policies the administration has put forward to restrict international students and employment-based immigration.

New enrollment of international students at U.S. universities declined by more than 10% between the 2015-16 and 2018-2019 academic years. At the same time, in Australia the enrollment of international students in higher education increased by 47% between 2015 and 2018, according to Australian government data.

In Canada, the number of Indian international students rose from 76,075 in 2016 to 172,625 in 2018, an increase of 127%, according to the Canadian Bureau for International Education. Canada makes it easy for international students to transition to work after graduation, which creates a path to permanent residence, notes Toronto-based attorney Peter Rekai. The number of Indians obtaining permanent residence in Canada doubled between 2016 and 2019.

At a time when other countries are attracting more students, increasing costs and adding new layers of uncertainty will likely discourage international students from coming to the United States.

Source: The Next Harmful Immigration Move Against International Students

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Donald Trump’s latest travel bans are cruel and senseless – and an opportunity for Justin Trudeau

2020/02/06 Leave a comment

Of the African countries included in the ban, immigration to Canada has increased for all of them 2015-19 (till November): Nigeria (4,090 to 11,175), Eritrea (2,210 to 6,555), Sudan (335 to 1,200) and Tanzania (150 to 200). So hard to see Kusmu’s case for “measures to directly increase immigration to Canada from those countries” given that it is already happening.

I am not sure about whether this would actually play a positive role in gaining African support for the Canadian Security Council bid, given that this is essentially a brain drain from Africa to Canada:

Understanding the news that came from the White House on Jan. 31 was an exercise in cognitive dissonance.

Earlier that day, President Donald Trump proclaimed February as National African-American History month. “Through bravery, perseverance, faith and resolve – often in the face of incredible prejudice and hardship – African-Americans have enhanced and advanced every aspect of American life,” he said.

But just a few hours later, his administration announced the latest round of travel bans, which will affect four African countries – Nigeria, Eritrea, Sudan and Tanzania – that contain nearly a quarter of the continent’s entire population (a continent he previously referred to as containing “shithole” countries). The various restrictions – the suspension of visas for people sponsored by family members and, for some, green card (i.e. diversity visa program) applications – go into effect on Feb. 22.

The Trump administration cites national-security concerns for those bans, including potential slips of aging identity-management systems and overall “elevated risk and threat environments”; past White House officials and current legislators have called the bans nonsensical and cruel. Indeed, those issues offer the government thin cover to arbitrarily target potential immigrants, most of whom are free to apply for a temporary visitor visa (which would theoretically nullify any security precautions) but are barred from the labour-intensive process of applying for an immigration visa that often requires years of intense vetting.

So if security seems like an unlikely motive for the administration’s latest move, what is? While there is some speculation it may be a play for diplomatic bargaining chips with those countries, the more probable motivator is Mr. Trump’s anti-immigration base as a presidential election looms. Unlike the 2017 Muslim ban, which garnered widespread condemnation and scrutiny, a craftier approach – targeting mostly African nations under the pretense of national security – has been adopted. (Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan were also included in this round of bans.)

What Mr. Trump and his supporters may not realize (or, more likely, care about) are the economic and moral consequences of this decision. Banning immigration from Nigeria, one of Africa’s fastest-growing and most dynamic economies, would essentially close America off to a demographic that has proven to be some of its most educated and, with it, direct access to what Newsweek named a growing global “economic superpower” – ironically, on the same day the bans were announced.

The graver implication is that this policy will bring ruin to the lives of the more than 12,000 potential immigrants expected to apply next year and the thousands more relatives and loved ones. The fact that families who are awaiting to permanently reunite with their aging parents or their distant partners on American soil will know that this is impossible, at least for now, is heart-wrenching. To make matters worse, Eritrea and Myanmar (where the Rohingya population is under threat of genocide) are experiencing outsize refugee crises, demonstrating yet again the cruelty of this measure.

Countries continue to erect walls against migrants, from the United States to Greece, which recently announced a (widely ridiculed) plan to create a floating barrier to block refugees on boats. Leaders continue to employ racist rhetoric; Mr. Trump, for instance, previously cited concerns that Nigerians visiting the U.S. would never “go back to their huts” in Africa. And this represents an opportunity for Canada and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Canada will likely witness a large increase of immigration applications from the countries affected by Mr. Trump’s ban. As a country, we will be all the better for such waves, particularly since the infusion of new Canadians can help us offset the challenges that come with our increasingly aging population. And so Mr. Trudeau can counter Mr. Trump’s rhetoric and policies by announcing measures to directly increase immigration to Canada from those countries. If nothing else, it could serve as a last-minute rallying point to bolster his government’s campaign for a seat on the United Nations Security Council, especially as he embarks on an outreach tour of Africa this month.

But perhaps, more poignantly, this move could serve as a much-needed act of atonement to Canadians of African descent, for whom the memories of Mr. Trudeau’s blackface scandal from the 2019 federal election campaign are still fresh. Just as Mr. Trump’s Black History Month actions were telling about his government’s approach, there might be few better ways for Mr. Trudeau to signal his support of Black History Month in Canada this year.

Source: Donald Trump’s latest travel bans are cruel and senseless – and an opportunity for Justin Trudeau: Petros Kusmu

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U.S. Could Actually Use More Nigerian Immigrants

2020/02/06 Leave a comment

By way of comparison, there are about 52,000 persons of Nigerian ethnic ancestry in Canada (Census 2016), about 71 percent first generation. In the last 5 years (January 2015 to November 2019, about 37,000 new Nigerian permanent residents have been admitted (IRCC, open data). Average and median incomes are lower than the overall Canadian numbers. While participation levels are stronger, unemployment levels are higher. Like most recent immigrant groups, Nigerians are more highly educated than the Canadian average.

See article for the charts regarding Nigerians in the USA:

This column will not render a verdict on whether the White House decision last week to suspend immigration from Nigeria — the world’s seventh most-populous nation — and five other countries was mainly an expression of bigotry from an administration led by a man who once likened African nations to latrines, or if it was a legitimate reaction to security concerns. It will, however, tell you some things you might not know about Nigerian immigrants in the U.S.

To start, there’s a fair number of them (which is why I’m focusing on Nigeria and not Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Sudan or Tanzania, the other five countries hit by the new ban). An estimated 374,311 Nigerian-born people were living in the U.S. in 2018, which put the country in 27th place as a source of foreign-born Americans, behind Pakistan and ahead of Japan. These and a lot of the numbers to follow are based on the American Community Survey that the U.S. Census Bureau sends out to 3.5 million households every year, so they’re subject to margins of error (19,648 for the number cited above), plus the inevitable strengths and limitations of self-reported statistics.

For example, the Census Bureau says there were an estimated 462,708 people of Nigerian ancestry in the U.S. in the 2018, but that’s based on what people put on the survey, not the sort of genealogical investigation that would surely reveal that there are millions of Americans whose forebears were brought across the Atlantic against their will in past centuries from the region of West Africa that is now Nigeria. Still, for our purposes the census survey is probably better, in that it restricts the scope mostly to recent immigrants and their kids. The members of this group have more than doubled in number since 2007, and they are for the most part doing quite well.

Source: U.S. Could Actually Use More Nigerian Immigrants

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Ripple effect on Canadian immigration likely from Trump’s new visa restrictions

2020/02/05 Leave a comment

We shall see but agree with Falconer that it could go either way:

U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to slap visa restrictions on six new countries could affect immigration flows to Canada.

Past moves by his administration on immigration policy for Haiti and Iran saw asylum claims and student visa applications in Canada jump.

Trump is now targeting visas granted to citizens of Nigeria, Sudan and Eritrea, among the largest sources of refugee claims lodged by people crossing irregularly into Canada from the U.S.

Immigration policy researcher Robert Falconer says Trump’s move could have both positive and negative impacts on the Canadian immigration system.

He says the number of asylum seekers could rise, as people from those countries already in the U.S. realize they won’t be able to stay permanently and so follow others who’ve already come to seek refugee status here.

But on the other hand, he says Nigeria’s booming middle class could be the source of many new economic or student immigrants to Canada, now that the door to the U.S. is harder to get through.

Source: Ripple effect on Canadian immigration likely from Trump’s new visa restrictions

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Does Canada have a ‘moral and legal obligation’ to allow climate migrants?

2020/02/03 Leave a comment

Good question that will run against the political and policy implications of admitting much larger numbers of refugees:

A landmark ruling by the United Nations that could pave the way for future climate migrants may force the Canadian government to rethink its conditions around refugees and asylum seekers.

On Jan. 20, the UN Human Rights Committee stated governments must now take into account the climate crisis when considering the deportation of asylum seekers.

Currently, there are no specific provisions for people seeking asylum on the grounds of climate change under Canadian immigration and refugee law.

The non-binding UN ruling involves Ioane Teitiota, from the Pacific nation of Kiribati, who brought a case against New Zealand in 2016 after authorities there denied his claim of asylum as a climate refugee.The UN committee upheld New Zealand’s decision to deport Teitiota, saying he did not face an immediate risk if returned. But it agreed that environmental degradation and climate change are some of the most pressing threats to the right to life.

Committee expert Yuval Shany said “this ruling sets forth new standards that could facilitate the success of future climate change-related asylum claims.”

Despite the committee’s optimism, Canadian legal experts are pessimistic, saying that accommodating climate migrants would require systematic changes in Canada.

Mitchell Goldberg, former president and co-founder of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, said that if Canada wants to be able to “look itself in the mirror,” the government will need to take urgent policy and legislative action in order to account for the “very threatening new reality” of forced migration due to climate change.

Elizabeth May, the former Green Party leader, said the ruling provides the opportunity for Canada and the international community to redefine the meaning of refugee.

“We are going to have climate refugees, and we can’t refuse them based on the fact that there isn’t a political problem in their country,” May said. If migrants “simply can’t live” in their home country because “their homes are underwater” or “persistent drought,” she said it is incumbent on Canada to do something.

Canada’s ‘moral and legal obligation’

According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, 17.2 million people worldwide had to leave their homes in 2019 because of disasters exacerbated by climate change.

The Global Climate Risk Index, released last year, found that the poorest and least-developed countries, such as Honduras and Myanmar, are generally more adversely affected by climate change than industrialized countries.

In a 2018 report, Canada was identified as the worst of the G20 nations for per capita greenhouse-gas emissions. Combined, the G20 members are responsible for more than 80 per cent of the world’s annual greenhouse gas emissions, which are contributing to human-caused climate change.

“Every time the Canadian government provides subsidies to the gas sector, every time it builds another pipeline, we should be thinking of the impact it will have on millions of people around the world living in already precarious situations,” said Goldberg. As a result, “there is a very powerful moral and legal obligation, especially for Canada, to step up the plate to take responsibility for our actions and the impacts we have had on millions people around the world.”

Goldberg said that while the UN ruling was “very encouraging” and “long overdue,” many countries, like Canada, the U.S. and those in the EU, will try and ignore it.

It had been “notoriously hard” to update the UN’s refugee convention, given that the “rich countries of the world” have been against any expansion and have tried to limit its provisions, Goldberg said.

The recent UN ruling could also lead to legal challenges from people whose asylum status may have been previously denied because it did not meet Canadian definitions, he said.

IRCC monitoring climate displacement

In a statement to CBC News, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said the Canadian government actively monitors the implications of climate change on migration and displacement of people.

“Climate change is one of the greatest global challenges of our time… Developing countries, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable, are the hardest hit,” IRCC spokesperson Shannon Ker said.

Canada remains “steadfast in offering protection to [UN] convention refugees,” and in the event of a natural disaster, decisions on refugee claims are taken on a case-by-case basis, she said.

“In the case of people displaced due to a sudden onset weather event or a natural disaster, IRCC has in the past expedited applications already in the system, and has also extended temporary resident visas for those already in Canada.”

However, IRCC did not state if the ruling would impact Canada’s definition around what constitutes an asylum seeker.

Chiara Liguori, policy adviser for Amnesty International, said governments’ tendency to resist redefining refugee definitions is due in part to how difficult it is to identify climate change as a specific reason for displacement.

“The reasons why people move are interlinked, and determining this objectively is hard,” Liguori said. “There is also an issue of political will.”

But she said that the climate crisis will trigger more “human rights impacts on the lives of people,” especially those living in developing countries.

“It is imperative that [nations] reduce emissions as fast as possible in order to keep an increase of global temperatures within 1.5 [Celsius],” Liguori said. “Otherwise, the impacts of climate change will represent serious human rights consequences.”

May said an increase in climate migrants to Canada could be beneficial to rural areas that have experienced depopulation, and could provide a much-needed economic boost.

“It’s not going to happen all at once, but is going to happen soon enough and governments — both federal and provincial — need to think about how we plan ahead and have adequate infrastructure to make this as positive as possible in unhappy circumstances.”

Source: Does Canada have a ‘moral and legal obligation’ to allow climate migrants?

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with , ,

Un débat sur l’immigration se dessine dans la course à la direction du PQ

2020/02/01 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to see where they end up, whether playing more on the CAQ turf (likely) or a more open approach:

Les candidats confirmés et pressentis ont pris part à un rassemblement du parti vendredi soir dans l’est de Montréal et l’un d’entre eux, Frédéric Bastien, a plaidé pour une réduction du seuil d’immigration au Québec.

En mêlée de presse, l’historien a affirmé que le Québec accueillait en proportion deux fois et demie plus de nouveaux arrivants que la France, tout en étant une société minoritaire qui n’a pas de moyens additionnels pour les intégrer.

« Il y a des débats que je n’ai pas peur de faire, a-t-il déclaré. […] Il ne faut pas se laisser intimider par nos adversaires, qui de toute façon vont nous traiter d’intolérants, de bigots, fermés sur nous-mêmes. On va avoir droit à un chapelet d’accusations. »

L’avocat spécialisé en immigration Stéphane Handfield, qui songe à se présenter, a plutôt fait valoir qu’il faut faire adhérer les nouveaux arrivants au projet indépendantiste.

« Tendre la main aux communautés culturelles, ils sont plus de 50 000 par an à choisir le Québec, a-t-il fait valoir. Peut-être qu’on est rendu à un point où les nouveaux arrivants vont être convaincus de notre projet. Ce n’est pas en les mettant de côté (qu’on va y arriver). »

Il soutient en outre que les seuils d’immigration doivent être déterminés en fonction « d’analyses sérieuses et non pas en garrochant des chiffres à gauche et à droite parce que c’est populiste ».

Le rassemblement péquiste, tenu dans Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, un ancien bastion du PQ passé aux mains de Québec solidaire, a attiré plus d’une centaine de militants. Le magnat de Québecor et ancien chef péquiste Pierre Karl Péladeau s’est pointé en soirée. En mêlée de presse, il a refusé d’appuyer un ou l’autre des candidats.

Dans un discours, le chef intérimaire péquiste Pascal Bérubé a invité les membres et les candidats à s’inspirer de l’esprit des fondateurs du mouvement indépendantiste, qui étaient peu nombreux aux origines _ tout comme le petit groupe de neuf élus du PQ en Chambre depuis la débâcle de 2018. Il a même ouvert la porte à un parti plus rebelle.

« C’était un petit groupe de pionniers. On y gagnait beaucoup en souplesse et en spontanéité. Et si on retrouvait l’esprit des pionniers. Et si le Parti québécois devenait un peu plus rebelle. Moi j’ai rien contre. »

La course à la direction du PQ sera officiellement lancée samedi avec le dévoilement des règles, qui seront établies par la conférence des présidents, une des instances du parti.

Référendum

Plus tôt en journée, un autre candidat confirmé, l’avocat Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, avait plutôt visé le député Sylvain Gaudreault, lui aussi officiellement dans la course.

M. St-Pierre Plamondon estimait que son adversaire louvoyait sur l’enjeu du référendum sur la souveraineté, toujours épineux au PQ.

M. St-Pierre Plamondon s’est engagé à tenir un référendum dans un premier mandat d’un éventuel gouvernement péquiste, s’il est élu chef.

Or M. Gaudreault lui a reproché de faire de la pensée magique, sans préparer la démarche.

Mais par la suite, M. Gaudreault s’est aussi engagé à tenir un référendum dans un premier mandat s’il est élu premier ministre.

Dans une déclaration transmise à La Presse canadienne, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon affirme que c’est « particulier » qu’un collègue discrédite une position d’un rival pour ensuite se rallier et y adhérer.

« On se réjouit tout de même qu’il se range derrière notre position », a fait savoir un porte-parole de la campagne de M. St-Pierre Plamondon, dans un message texte.

Outre ces candidats confirmés, M. Handfield devrait faire connaître ses intentions une fois les règles connues, tandis que l’humoriste Guy Nantel a fait savoir qu’il était intéressé.

L’élection du nouveau chef aura lieu le 19 juin.

Source: Un débat sur l’immigration se dessine dans la course à la direction du PQ

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

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