Immigrant children’s health declines rapidly after arrival in Canada

2019/04/11 Leave a comment

The study would have benefited if the data and analysis included economic information to assess the influence of economic versus other factors.

But approaching an unhealthy Canadian norm, while reflecting integration, is not a positive development:

A healthy, happy future, free from poverty: This is the aspiration of many new immigrants and refugees to Canada and the United States. Leaving harsh conditions and food scarcity behind, they embrace the safety and relative affluence that North America offers.

Few would have imagined that migration would damage their family’s well-being and lead to rapid health decline.

Yet research studies over the past 15 years have found that immigrants arrive in better health than Canadians — with a lower incidence of chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes — but suffer a decline in their health as their time in Canada increases.

This decline applies to young children too. As a professor and a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Public Health and College of Pharmacy and Nutrition at the University of Saskatchewan, we recently conducted the first comprehensive research project in Canada examining the health of immigrant and refugee children after their arrival in the country.

This study, published in Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism, found several health concerns and nutritional deficiencies in many of these children.

Higher blood pressure, unhealthy cholesterol

Our study of 300 immigrant and refugee children in Saskatoon and Regina, Saskatchewan, found that these newcomer children often embrace a Western diet and sedentary lifestyle. Some parents are unaware of the dangers of overeating and the calories attached to the Western diet.

Overall, newcomer children were found to have borderline or elevated blood pressure— substantially higher than that of Canadian children.

Thirty-six per cent of the children in our study also had an inadequate intake of zinc, which is essential for growth and development.

Fifty-two per cent had unhealthy cholesterol levels, whereas just 35 per cent of Canadian children had similar levels. It is worth mentioning that increased stress is a known risk factor for high cholesterol.

Other research has found that some groups, such as South Asian immigrants — particularly women — are at a higher risk of developing high blood pressure the longer they reside in Canada.

Non-European newcomers also experience significant deterioration in how they rate their own health, and increase in body mass index (BMI) over time, compared to people who were born in Canada.

Poverty and dead-end jobs

Why this decline in health? Canada offers relatively abundant food, accessible health care and a standard of living that is one of the highest in the world, so the findings may appear counter-intuitive.

The answer lies both in the situations that immigrants and refugees have left behind, and the conditions they find when they get here.

Some immigrants find their pre-immigration dreams confounded by circumstance. They live in relative poverty, working dead-end jobs that fail to exploit their experience and potential. Some came to Canada as highly qualified professionals, optimistic about their prospects in a new country, but are unable to find meaningful, rewarding employment. Some who dreamed of a middle-class lifestyle struggle at the bottom of the economic pile due to language and educational barriers.

A diet of cheap, readily available junk food doesn’t help.

For many immigrant families, the stress of adjusting to life in Canada may contribute to deteriorating health. Many lose their social support network through migration. It can also be challenging to access culturally appropriate health care.

Living in survival mode

We spoke with numerous immigrants and health-care providers about newcomer health, diet and lifestyles. Many newcomers spoke of their aspirations to attain a good standard of living in Canada and the daily struggles they experienced to achieve this.

Some had become disillusioned with life in Canada because of their difficulties achieving the lifestyle they had expected, or aspired toward.

One refugee was so disheartened by the difficulties he encountered in getting a good job and providing for his family that he wanted to be sent back.

“Refugees and immigrants are in survival mode, because doctors, engineers and professors are pushing shopping carts,” said one service provider, commenting on the rising number of food insecure immigrants.

Research has shown that health disparities among ethnic groups can be reduced when individuals are able to achieve their desired level of socio-economic attainment. As such, living on a low income for extended periods can contribute to physical and mental health problems and a turn towards unhealthy affordable food.

On a low income, a hamburger and fries may cost less than a salad, but will fill a rumbling stomach.

An abundance of food

Refugee children who have known hunger can also find it hard to control their appetite.

“A lot of people change the way they eat. That’s why they gain so much weight. There is an abundance of food here,” said a health-care provider in Regina.

“Sometimes children coming from a refugee camp with very little to eat come here and eat too much,” added an immigrant service provider.

Another factor is that in some cultures, plump children are considered healthy. One family told us that eating meat, once a luxury to be enjoyed once or twice a month, was now considered both desirable and essential.

Thirteen per cent of Canadian children aged three to 19 years are obese, compared to 10 per cent of newcomer children who have been in Canada for five years or less.

Understanding these newcomers’ rapid routes to obesity and deteriorating health is important if we are to prevent chronic disease in adulthood, including Type 2 diabetes and hypertension.

Health and social service personnel should be sensitive to these risks when devising effective and culturally sensitive health screening programs.

Source: http://theconversation.com/immigrant-childrens-health-declines-rapidly-after-arrival-in-canada-114421

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When is an immigrant not an immigrant? When they’re rich

2019/04/11 Leave a comment

Nice piece on the somewhat semantic distinction between immigrants and expatriates, or more accurately, between migrants and expatriates:

Our attitudes towards immigration involve some stunning doublespeak. My own family tells the story quite well. My grandparents’ generation, of Africans on one side and Jews on the other, were “immigrants” who created “diasporas”. My parents’ generation are British, and when they lived in Brunei, shortly before I was born, enjoyed the label reserved for British immigrants – “expatriates”. Although, since expats are considered glamorous and successful, there is a question as to whether black British people are allowed to fall into that category. I know this because trolls, who don’t seem to have a problem with British expats per se, point to my having been born as one as evidence that in my case, it disqualifies me from Britishness, something I’ve never heard levelled at my white contemporaries.

The difference between expats and immigrants is that, while the latter are a problem, the former are – its celebrants tell us – British people “embracing a limitless life”. This tends, not surprisingly, to take part in the former empire. Most British expats are concentrated in Australia, Spain, the US and Canada. The best place of all, according to research by HSBC bank – itself an expatriate colonial invention – is Singapore (good for health, education and improving your earnings).

The limitless life has, however, been experiencing a few unfortunate limits of late. It was a deeply unfortunate juxtaposition that the very day on which the culture secretary, Jeremy Wright was boasting Britain’s “toughest internet laws in the world”, a former British expat in Dubai was reported to have been arrested for comments she made on Facebook. Laleh Shahravesh was detained for calling her ex-husband’s new wife a horse. We should never condone trolling, but I would personally find that pretty complimentary compared to the the social media abuse I get on an average day.

Brunei, meanwhile, where my parents lived on the British expat circuit, is also putting a real dampener on the limitless life of the British expat, or at least one who is gay or planning to commit adultery or have an abortion, all of which are now punishable by sadistic acts of state-sponsored violence. Protestors have been making a scene outside hotels in which almost nobody can afford to stay, but our stance on British companies and their thousands of staff living and working in Brunei seems to have been quietly left out of the picture.

Maybe that’s because the lack of adherence to human rights standards in our favourite expat destinations poses some difficult questions. The British diaspora – though we never call it that – is seen as a useful tool for making Britain a great trading nation in the world again.

Unsurprisingly, there is zero evidence that the British government is planning to jeopardise all this by taking a more principled position in relation to human rights abuses. It places growing emphasis on the Commonwealth, despite the fact that this club’s failure to hold Brunei’s backward steps in human rights standards is just one of many examples. The United Arab Emirates, which was already in the spotlight after accusing the British academic Matthew Hedges of being a spy last year, has the unique privilege of being the only country in the world in which we have two embassies – one in Abu Dhabi and one in Dubai. Britain is currently defending in the court of appeal its refusal to halt weapons sales to Saudi Arabia in the face of credible international evidence that our arms are helping the Saudis regularly attack civilians in Yemen.

We can have a debate about whether it is right for Britain to enforce human rights standards in other countries as part of an ethical foreign policy. I, like the countless local activists in each of the countries where Britain prop ups abusive regimes, have no problem taking a stance in favour of ethical foreign policies. However, I have yet to hear that our government has decided, through a reasoned process of inquiry and consensus, that we are having a non-ethical one.

But there is a bigger question about immigration here too. We consider British immigrants to be people of means, whether former military personnel once stationed luxuriously in the Raj or today’s corporate lawyers enjoying tax-free living in the Gulf. If we bothered to think about our real view of British immigration, we would probably conclude that immigrants we don’t regard as a problem are those who aren’t poor.

We are generous enough to extend these ideas about immigration to a few other people too. On the day the Home Office announced its settlement scheme for EU migrants, I was speaking to a Dutch banker who has lived in the UK for years. “Will you apply?” I asked him, innocently. He looked at me as if I were a bit simple. “I’m just assuming that, like all these things, there will be an exemption for rich people,” he replied.

He is undoubtedly right. We suspend judgment for all rich immigrants, just as we do for British immigrants – so much so we don’t even call them immigrants. And so I guarantee that when it comes to countries where the immigrants are both rich and Brits, such as Brunei, we will avoid conducting any further analysis at all.

Source: When is an immigrant not an immigrant? When they’re rich

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‘This is not what we came to this country for, to live and work like animals’: Migrant workers say they endured modern-day slavery in Simcoe County

2019/04/08 Leave a comment

The Globe had a similar more in-depth story on this abuse (Investigation False promises: Foreign workers are falling prey to a sprawling web of labour trafficking in Canada):

For more than a month, Francisco Urbina Contreras shared an infested house in Barrie with 30 other Mexican men and women who were drawn to Canada by the promise of jobs.

The former small business owner from northern Mexico could live with the bedbugs underneath his foam mattress, the unheated attic he shared with four others and the long wait for one of two bathrooms at the Dunlop St. home.

What he couldn’t put up with was the meagre $113 in cash he said he was handed for two full weeks of work — cleaning toilets, vacuuming carpets and making beds at Simcoe County hotels. Instead of the $800 he was expecting from the temp agency that had recruited him and put him up in the rooming house, he said his take-home pay had been whittled down by hefty deductions: $5 for each trip to a work site, $17 for daily job placement and $400 a month for rent.

“We felt we were in jail because we were too afraid to leave the house. We got picked up to the hotels and dropped off at the house. We only went out for groceries,” the 41-year-old man told the Star through an interpreter. “This is not what we came to this country for, to live and work like animals, with no dignity.”

Contreras was one of 60 foreign workers allegedly exploited in what police have described as a case of “modern-day slavery.”

At a news conference in February, Barrie police revealed that a joint investigationwith the Ontario Provincial Police and Canada Border Services Agency had uncovered a labour trafficking operation that housed and hired people from Mexico who had been lured by promises of jobs, work visas and possible permanent residency.

The news conference came just a week after pre-dawn police raids at several houses in Simcoe County. At the time, officials rescued 43 people, ranging in age from 20 to 46, from squalid conditions. Since then, some 20 more people have come forward to police with stories of having recently worked for the recruiter.

The Star reached out to the owners of the temp agency but, through their lawyer Bruce Daley, they declined to comment on the allegations.

Police say the investigation is ongoing and no one has been charged to date.

Contreras was not among those freed in the sweep; he had already escaped, he says, from the “horrible” situation last December with help from a stranger he met on a Facebook page group for Mexicans in Toronto, who offered to give him shelter.

The workers caught up in the raid were transported to a church and later to an area hotel for temporary shelter before they were issued temporary residence in Canada to assist the investigation. They were advised by police not to speak with the media.

“I have dreamed to be many things in my life, but not a slave,” said Contreras, who is now trying to obtain temporary residence in Canada while working in construction in Toronto to support himself.

Human trafficking has exploded in Canada: Between 2010 and 2016, the annual number of cases has increased 11 fold, according to a parliamentary report published in December. The majority of incidents — 66 per cent — happened in Ontario, with 14 per cent in Quebec, 8 per cent in Alberta, and the rest spread across Canada.

In total, 1,099 incidents were reported during the period, with 32 per cent involving foreign nationals being brought into the country. Although Statistics Canada does not differentiate between sex trafficking and labour trafficking data, the report said the majority of reported incidents involved women being forced into the sex trade.

Migrants’ advocates say Canada’s growing reliance on foreign workers — the number of temporary foreign workers has almost doubled in the past decade, to 300,000 in 2017 — has greatly contributed to the surge of labour trafficking because precarious immigration status makes people vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

With poor English, little money and threats by traffickers, workers are reluctant to come forward out of fear for the safety of loved ones back home and their own possible deportation from Canada, making investigation and prosecution difficult for officials, said the advocates, who believe labour trafficking is grossly under-reported for those reasons.

“Foreign workers are recruited overseas and often tied to the people who bring them here. They have no permanent status and are ineligible for community services,” said Loly Rico of Toronto’s FCJ Refugee Centre, which is part of the Toronto Counter Human Trafficking Network, a six-year-old grassroots umbrella group that meets regularly to share information on trafficking and advocate for victims.

“These workers do jobs that most Canadians do not want to do. They are just cheap labour and don’t get the same attention as victims of sex trafficking.”

February’s rescue operation was among the largest labour trafficking raids in Ontario. Investigation officials collaborated with advocates to take a “victims-first” approach, making the safety and well-being of the migrant workers a priority over arrests of suspects.

Since the raids, the rescued workers were sheltered at no costs at the Living Water Resort in Collingwood, which also hired some of them full time.

Living Water owner Larry Law said the community has come together to help the workers by organizing English classes and Spanish church services, while the town has offered them two months of free public transit. So far, half of the workers are working at Living Water while the rest have moved out after taking jobs offered outside of the community.

“We are just so happy to see them turning over a new leaf in Canada,” said Law.

Authorities said complaints by the workers in Barrie first surfaced in 2015. In addition to Contreras, the Star tracked down two other workers who had lived in the houses arranged by the temp agency. Their stories share common threads: promised jobs, betrayals, desperation, debts and threats.

Rodrigo Jesus Vazquez Medina ran a small garage in Merida, a city off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. After he fell behind on a loan to purchase equipment for his shop, an acquaintance in Mexico gave him the phone number of the recruiter in Canada who “offers lots of jobs.” Medina borrowed $3,000 from family for his trip to Canada.

“I was making $300 a month in Mexico, and I was told I could earn as much as $1,000 every two weeks here, at $13 an hour. That’s good money. They said I wouldn’t need a visa and they could find me jobs once I’m here,” recalled Medina, 31, who has two teenage children back home.

Upon arriving at Pearson airport last November, he waited hours to be interviewed by immigration. “I was told by the recruiter to tell them that I wanted to come here to see the CN Tower, Niagara Falls and the (Ripley’s) aquarium,” he recalled. “They even made a fake hotel reservation for me.”

After leaving customs at midnight, he called a number he was given by the recruiter. A driver picked up Medina and another worker who was on the same flight, and dropped them off at the Dunlop St. house, charging each $150 for the trip.

Medina said he slept on a couch in the living room that night. When he got up the next morning, he was shocked by what he saw.

“We had about 30 people living there, some staying in the attic, some sleeping in the hallways. People put their mattresses on top of used tires, cardboard and forklift wood platforms because it’s too cold on the floor,” said Medina. “It wasn’t what I had expected.”

Work placements and other communication by the recruiters were arranged through the group messaging tool WhatsApp. On Medina’s fourth day in the house, he was finally assigned to work at one of six hotels, including Nottawasaga Inn, Hockley Valley and Living Water resorts, according to work schedules sent to them by the recruiter on the app.

Police have said the hotels were not aware of the alleged human trafficking operation.

Nottawasaga and Hockley Valley did not return the Star’s repeated requests for comment.

Medina said he and his housemates didn’t work every day, but sometimes shifts were 12 hours long. Due to his background in mechanics, Medina said he was also sometimes sent to do light construction jobs. He said he was paid about $400 in cash for two weeks of work.

“I wasn’t making any money at all. I had no money to pay off my debt or send to my kids. I was just making enough to stay in this horrible house,” Medina said.

Iran Yesmin Lazeano Cabrera, who fled from a Livingstone St. residence operated by the same Barrie recruiter, shared a similar experience.

The 42-year-old mother of three said coming to Canada was her esa era mi ultima carta — “my last card” — after her husband left her with three children and a huge debt to a Colombian loan shark that she couldn’t repay.

Last fall, her sister heard about a lawyer in the Mexican port city of Veracruz who could help people find jobs in Canada. They went to the storefront law office and were asked to pay almost $2,100 “to start the process” — money that her sister paid by selling her car.

“I sat my children down over our dining table. I told them I tried everything to pay off the debt and I needed to take a gamble. This is our last card. This is our only way out,” recalled Cabrera, who arrived Toronto from Puebla last November.

“My eldest one, only 17, said she would look after the two little ones,” she recalled, sobbing. “My kids were expecting to come and join me once I got a steady job and settled.”

When Cabrera arrived at Pearson, a pre-arranged driver took her to the three-bedroom house on Livingstone St. in Barrie, where she immediately had to hand over $400 rent. There were already 13 tenants there, all from Mexico.

“I just remembered seeing a lot of men in the house. There was one bedroom for the women, but there was just one bed. I asked them where my bed was. They told me they would buy me a mattress and it would be deducted from my paycheque,” said Cabrera, who was left with just $50 in her pocket after paying the driver and the rent.

The next morning she met with the recruiter.

“The recruiter said only hard workers could stay and my future depended on my behaviour. She told me that I work for her but I can’t tell anyone,” said Cabrera, who was later taken shopping to get a blanket, a foam mattress and two black T-shirts as uniforms — the costs of which were all to be deducted from her pay.

Three days later, she says she was placed at a job and moved to another house in Wasaga Beach, which she shared with six men and one woman.

“There’s no Wi-Fi at the house and I couldn’t talk to my children. I started to feel really bad. I was depressed and anxious. There were other workers coming and going. I did not feel safe there,” said Cabrera, who at that point had yet to be paid and only had $3 left.

“I borrowed another worker’s phone and called the driver who picked me up at the airport. I told her I needed to leave. She came to get me and I ended up staying with her.

“It just felt like a very bad dream,” said Cabrera, who had tried unsuccessfully to retrieve her owed wages. (She says the recruiter told her that, after deductions that included a $175 fine for abandoning her job, there was nothing left).

“I came here for work. If I had known it’s going to be like this, there’s no way I would have come to Canada. But it’s too late. I have no money. I have a debt to pay in Mexico. I can’t go back to my kids with nothing.”

Contreras, a native from Tabasco who met Medina at the Dunlop St. house, said the two decided to leave Barrie when they went eight days without a work assignment. When they posted on a Facebook page for Mexicans in Toronto looking for jobs in the city, they were offered temporary shelter. After doing day labour jobs in demolition and renovation, a Mexican man hired them for a month to clear snow on construction sites in Muskoka, and offered them room and board.

“It was the first time in Canada where I could sleep in a real bed, with sheets and pillows,” said a smiling Contreras, who ran a small business in Mexico making and installing awnings to support his daughter through university.

“People treat us differently because we have no (immigration) paper. We have no English and others take advantage of us.”

Both men have recently found jobs in construction in Toronto, with Contreras working on insulation and Medina as a welder. Like Cabrera, the pair are hoping to obtain a temporary residence permit to stay and work in Canada until they save up enough money to return home.

Source: ‘This is not what we came to this country for, to live and work like animals’: Migrant workers say they endured modern-day slavery in Simcoe County

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Québec songe à relever les seuils d’immigration dès 2020

2019/04/08 Leave a comment

That was fast.

In other words, the CAQ can claim that they delivered on their platform (for one year!) before apparently going back on it (to be fair, I prefer a change of position than stubbornly sticking to an ill-thought policy). Perhaps there is hope for the government to reconsider Bill 21 (Laïcité):

Face à des « besoins pressants et immédiats de main-d’oeuvre », le ministre Simon Jolin-Barrette évoque un rehaussement des seuils d’immigrationdès l’année prochaine.

Du haut de la tribune du Conseil des relations internationales de Montréal (CORIM), Jolin-Barrette s’est dit déterminé vendredi à accueillir quelque 40 000 immigrants au Québec au cours de l’année 2019, et ce, comme la Coalition avenir Québecl’avait promis en campagne électorale. « On a respecté notre engagement. C’était un pas de recul pour s’assurer de réformer notre système d’immigration, de le moderniser et de l’améliorer », s’est-il justifié devant un parterre de quelque 400 personnes rassemblées dans un hôtel du centre-ville de Montréal pour un déjeuner-causerie.

Cela dit, le ministre de l’Immigration a dit déjà envisager de tirer vers le haut le nombre de nouveaux arrivants admis au Québec.

Dans la Planification pluriannuelle de l’immigration 2020-2022, le gouvernement caquiste « établir[a] la façon dont la hausse graduelle des seuils [d’immigration] s’effectuera au cours des prochaines années », a-t-il annoncé lors du déjeuner-causerie organisé par le CORIM. Les cibles d’immigration des trois prochaines années seront débattues au Parlement, puis fixées par le gouvernement d’ici le 1er novembre prochain.

En plus d’élaborer la Planification pluriannuelle de l’immigration 2020-2022, M. Jolin-Barrette révisera la grille de sélection des travailleurs qualifiés en revoyant les points accordés notamment à la formation, l’expérience professionnelle, l’âge et les connaissances en français des candidats. « Nous voulons qu’elle reflète davantage nos besoins en matière d’immigration en assurant une meilleure adéquation entre les besoins du marché du travail et le profil des candidats », a dit M. Jolin-Barrette deux mois après le dépôt du projet de loi sur l’immigration (projet de loi 9) à l’Assemblée nationale.

Pour l’heure, il s’engage à « faciliter » et à « accélérer » l’admission de travailleurs temporaires au Québec. « Les travailleurs temporaires sont une solution à la « pénurie de main-d’oeuvre qui touche différentes régions du Québec », a-t-il fait valoir. « Nous avons bon espoir que ces personnes-là soient [deviennent des résidents permanents] », a-t-il ajouté. À ses yeux, le ministère de l’Immigration dispose désormais des ressources pour « les franciser, les intégrer ».

Immigration et laïcité : les parlementaires en ont plein les bras

Simon Jolin-Barrette s’est dit déterminé à faire adopter non seulement le projet de loi sur la laïcité de l’État, mais également le projet de loi sur l’immigration par l’Assemblée nationale d’ici la mi-juin. « Si c’était uniquement de ma responsabilité, ce serait déjà fait [pour le projet de loi 9]. Mais vous savez comme le Parlement fonctionne : parfois, il y a de petites difficultés à adopter rapidement [un projet de loi] », a-t-il lancé.

Le jeune trentenaire a soutenu que les membres de l’Assemblée nationale ont l’« obligation de faire avancer » les projets de loi portés à leur attention. Cela dit, il n’a pas osé vendredi accuser ses adversaires libéraux, solidaires et péquistes d’obstruction.

L’examen — article par article — du projet de loi sur l’immigration s’amorcera prochainement devant la commission des relations avec les citoyens. Le projet de loi sur la laïcité de l’État fera pour sa part l’objet de consultations particulières devant une autre commission parlementaire.

« On est à deux mois et demi de la fin de la session. Il serait inopportun pour les collègues de l’opposition officielle, ou même de Québec solidaire, de dire qu’ils vont faire un barrage parlementaire. Nous, on est en démocratie. On travaille en collaboration avec les différents partis politiques. […] Il n’y a pas de raison qu’on ne réussisse pas à travailler ensemble », a dit le leader parlementaire du gouvernement à la presse.

Le hic : les élus de Québec solidaire (QS) veulent, à eux seuls, inviter pas moins de 62 groupes à partager leurs impressions en commission parlementaire sur le projet de loi 21.

Syndicats, commissions, régies, municipalités, avocats, agents correctionnels, services policiers et cadres : le parti a choisi de ratisser large, signe qu’il n’entend pas rendre la tâche du gouvernement facile. Le Devoir a obtenu la liste que les solidaires lui ont soumise plus tôt cette semaine.

« L’idée est de donner la parole aux gens touchés par la loi qui n’ont pas encore été entendus », a expliqué l’attachée de presse de l’aile parlementaire de QS, Simone Lirette.

Cela inclut les organismes qui auront à appliquer la loi, comme la Commission de protection du territoire agricole, la Régie de l’énergie, le Tribunal administratif du travail et l’Alliance des cadres de l’État.

Les trois partis d’opposition ont envoyé leur liste de témoins au gouvernement et attendent une réponse. Le Parti libéral et le Parti québécois ont refusé de la partager. Le gouvernement espère en arriver à un compromis sur le nombre d’invitations.

Le Mouvement laïque québécois a confirmé au Devoir vendredi qu’il sera invité à témoigner par le bureau du ministre Jolin-Barrette. La Fédération des comités de parents a également été invitée, mais elle a décliné, préférant s’abstenir de commenter un projet de loi qui touche les conditions de travail du personnel scolaire.

Le premier ministre, François Legault, a répété à plusieurs reprises qu’il souhaitait que le projet de loi sur la laïcité de l’État soit adopté d’ici la fin des travaux parlementaires pour la relâche estivale le 14 juin… quitte à utiliser le bâillon.

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The longer someone lives in Canada, the more critical they may be of immigration: federal survey

2019/04/06 Leave a comment

Interesting poll and findings that presents new data on immigrant views (from time of arrival, the number question has been asked in other surveys). In many ways, it shows how immigrants integrate over time:

The longer an individual or their family have lived in Canada, the more critical their views may be towards immigration.

However, roughly half of Canadians are still broadly in favour, regardless of whether they’re newcomers or more established.
That appears to be one of the indications from a survey conducted for federal immigration officials, tracking Canadians’ views on immigrants and ultimately helping shape federal policy on the matter. It asked 2,800 Canadians for their views on immigration in August and September 2018 via landline and cellphone, and claims a margin of error of +/- 1.9 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

The 2018-19 Annual Tracking Survey conducted for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada asked respondents a number of questions, including whether “in your opinion, do you feel that there are too many, too few or about the right amount of immigrants coming to Canada?”

Twenty-seven per cent of immigrants in Canada for more than 20 years said they feel there are too many immigrants here.

That’s compared with 19 per cent of immigrants who have been here between five and 19 years, and 16 per cent of those here for less than five years.

Among those who identified as first, second or third-generation Canadian, there were also differences.

Thirty-two per cent of those who identified as third-generation Canadians said there are too many immigrants.

That compares to 26 per cent of those who identified as second-generation and 22 per cent of those who identified as first-generation who said the same.

Roughly half of respondents across all of those categories said the immigration levels in Canada right now are “about the right number.”

“It’s clearly a pattern that shows up pretty repeatedly, for a couple of fairly obvious reasons, but also some more subtle things. The obvious thing is the more salient the immigration experience is for you, the more sort of open to immigrants you will tend to be,”said Michael Donnelly, an assistant professor of political studies at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs.

“It’s also harder to stereotype immigrants if you are yourself a recent immigrant,” he continued, noting the effect of being more closely linked to immigration may also be reflected in the changes in views among those who said their families have been here longer.

“If your parents were immigrants, there’s at least some sort of family lore of that experience and it’s going to have some influence on you.”

Donnelly noted that while studies done in other countries have yielded similar results, he has seen suggestions of a link between how long someone has lived in Canada and their views on immigration in only “one or two” studies in Canada over the years.

Disapproval appeared to increase in all but one demographic category when respondents were asked specifically about their views on immigration in the context of the government’s plan to bring in 300,000 immigrants per year.

“Knowing Canada aims to admit over 300,000 immigrants each year, do you feel there are too many/too few immigrants coming to Canada?” the questionnaire conducted for the report asked.

The percentage of immigrants here more than 20 years who said they feel there are too many immigrants coming to Canada increased from 27 to 37 per cent when asked that question with reference to the specific number.

The same was true for immigrants here between five and 19 years, with the number who responded in kind increasing from 19 per cent to 26 per cent.

Among those born in Canada, disapproval of immigration levels rose roughly 10 per cent when asked about the specific plan.

Forty-one per cent of those who identified as third-generation Canadian and 35 per cent of second-generation Canadians said so, compared to 32 and 26 per cent when asked the same question without the reference to the number of immigrants planned.

Christina Clark-Kazak, an associate professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, and President of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration, offered an explanation as to why that appears to be the case.

“I think that as an abstract idea, people are not necessarily against immigration,” she said, noting 300,000 is not a large amount of immigration given Canada’s size and existing population.

“But I think that people are concerned about ‘too many’ people coming in, so as soon as you get any kind of number, it becomes real, it becomes concrete, and then consequently there is a discussion of whether or not it is too many.”

The survey also asked respondents for their views on the influx of irregular border crossers coming into Canada from the United States.

Clark-Kazak said she was surprised by the results.

“There’s been actually a lot of negative press and political pressure around the Safe Third Country Agreement and irregular border crossers and that doesn’t seem to be born out in the public opinion that’s expressed, at least in this,” she said.

The survey asked respondents to rate on a 10-point scale whether they agree or disagree with the following statements: first, that they are confident in the government’s handling of irregular migration; and second, that it is not the responsibility of Canada to accept asylum claims from those coming from the U.S.

But neither question yielded any marked differences among respondents.

A slightly higher percentage said they strongly disagreed with the first statement than strongly agreed (16 per cent versus 11 per cent).

The same was true for the second statement, with 19 per cent overall saying they strongly agree and 16 per cent saying they strongly disagreed.

The vast majority of respondents from all backgrounds fell in between.

Donnelly said that isn’t surprising given the way the question was asked.

“There’s a real temptation to self-moderate and put yourself in the middle unless you have a real sort of goal,” he said.

“We don’t often see huge numbers at either extreme on longer scales unless the scales are sort of concrete.”

Roughly 35,000 migrants have crossed the border from the United States into Canada at irregular points of entry since early 2017.

Under the terms of the Safe Third Country Agreement, asylum seekers who arrive in either country must make their claim in the first country they first arrived.

That means migrants who arrive in the United States but do not make their claim will be turned around at the border if they try to do so in Canada.

But that only applies if they try crossing the border at an official checkpoint.

Those that cross at unofficial points of entry along the border can make their claim due to a loophole in the agreement.

That has led to calls from the Conservatives over recent years for the government to close the loophole and reduce the incentive for people to cross the border irregularly. Federal immigration officials have also acknowledged that the Safe Third Country Agreement is “no longer working as intended.”

Patti Lenard, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa focusing on immigration and immigration policies, said she doesn’t think the data shows strong feelings or differences in opinion about immigration among any particular subsets of the Canadian population.

Specifically, she questioned whether the average Canadian is as caught up in concerns about irregular migration as politicians have been in recent years.

“These numbers don’t suggest people are very exercised about irregular migrants coming in or irregular asylum seekers coming in through the United States. Mostly, it suggests people don’t really care about it at all,” she said.

“If I were the government, I would think that this is a sign that unless the Conservatives decide to go after them, they wouldn’t have to worry about a population that was going to turn against them on immigration.”

Lenard says while she recognizes immigration is expected to form a significant part of the Conservative campaign in the fall election, she is skeptical that it will bring the results Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer may be chasing.

“I don’t expect him to get a lot of purchase on it.”

Source: The longer someone lives in Canada, the more critical they may be of immigration: federal survey

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New report suggests visas for skilled immigrants to struggling U.S. counties

2019/04/05 Leave a comment

Some similarities with Canada in terms of the Provincial Nominee Program, the Atlantic Immigration Pilot, and the recently announced Northern and Rural Immigration Pilot. Hard to see it going anywhere under the current anti-immigration environment:

The U.S. already has a special visa to attract foreign doctors to treat rural Americans — now a new report suggests expanding that to all skilled immigrants who’d be willing to settle in areas facing long-term demographic problems.

Why it matters: “Migration out of struggling areas has become skill-biased,” according to a new report released by the Economic Innovation Group.

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  • “Someone with a professional or graduate degree is twice as likely to move states as a high school graduate.”
  • “For every one college graduate that the fastest shrinking counties add, the fastest growing add two.”
  • “By 2037, 67% of U.S. counties will contain fewer prime working age adults than they did in 1997.”

The big picture: “At the national level, slower growth in America’s working-age population is a major reason that mainstream forecasters now expect the economy to expand around 2 percent each year rather than the 3 percent common in the second half of the 20th century,” the N.Y. Times’ Neil Irwin notes.

The EIG’s set of principles for a heartland visa:

  1. Communities must “opt in”: Towns or counties that don’t want to participate shouldn’t be forced to join.
  2. Distressed areas first: The program “should be targeted to places confronting chronic population stagnation or loss.”
  3. No work restrictions: Visa holders should be allowed to compete in the labor market, as long as they stay in a specific geographic area.
  4. This should be a path to a green card: “The prospect of permanent residency … should provide an extremely strong incentive for compliance.”
  5. Adding to, not replacing, existing skilled visas: “The scheme would therefore need to be accompanied by a commensurate increase to the green card cap.”

The bottom line: This is somewhat of a moot point during the Trump presidency, which has sought to curb immigration levels. But as the U.S. faces further demographic decline, this is one option for lawmakers trying to help the areas hurting the most.

Source: New report suggests visas for skilled immigrants to struggling U.S. counties

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Asylum seekers should make claims through ‘appropriate’ channels: Canadian envoy to U.S.

2019/04/04 Leave a comment

One further detail that I hadn’t noticed before – Canada has been pressing this for more than one year (so not just short-term pre-election positioning):

Canada’s ambassador to the United States says “legitimate refugee claimants” should make their claims through an “appropriate” process rather than crossing from the U.S. between official points of entry.

David MacNaughton said the U.S. moving to begin the process to renegotiate the Safe Third Country Agreement is an encouraging sign. Ottawa wants the pact changed to close a loophole in order to allow Canada to quickly turn away most asylum seekers coming from the United States who enter from unauthorized points.

Asked to square this request with the federal government’s position that refugees are welcome in Canada, Mr. MacNaughton said asylum seekers should use an “established” process.

“We’re open to immigration. We’re also open to legitimate refugee claimants who go through the process that is established,” Mr. MacNaughton said Tuesday in the U.S. Capitol after a lunch meeting with legislators on trade. “What we’re trying to do is make sure that those who are wanting to claim refugee status do so in the way in which it’s appropriate.”

More than 40,000 asylum seekers have entered Canada through unofficial points of entry since U.S. President Donald Trump launched his crackdown on illegal immigration two years ago. The flood of claimants is bogging down the refugee protection system in Canada.

Under the current pact, most refugee claimants who come to Canada from the United States through official points of entry – such as border stations – are immediately sent back to the United States, as it is considered a safe country for refugees under the treaty. But the agreement does not apply between such points of entry, so those who cross between border stations have the right to make a refugee claim.

Mr. MacNaughton said he is encouraged that the United States is starting to move on renegotiation. But he said he did not know whether the United States would agree to the rewrite Canada wants.

“We have had no firm indication as to what they’re prepared to do or not do,” he said. “It’s a positive thing that it’s gone to State [Department] to give a negotiating mandate because that hasn’t been the case for the last however long we’ve been asking for this to happen.”

Canada has been pressing the United States to renegotiate for more than a year. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is now working with State Department officials on a formal request to reopen the deal, The Globe and Mail reported on Monday. An assistant secretary would have to authorize the request for talks to start.

Border Security Minister Bill Blair has proposed a change to the agreement that would see Canadian border officials take such asylum seekers to an official crossing, where they would be denied immediate entry. But that plan would have to clear legal hurdles articulated by the Supreme Court that guarantee a hearing to any refugee claimant setting foot in Canada.

Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees, said a renegotiation could backfire on Canada. She said Canada risks drawing Mr. Trump’s attention to the 2004 border agreement, which could lead the United States to propose changes to the agreement that Ottawa doesn’t want.

“This agreement was negotiated to favour Canadian interests and at Canadian request,” Ms. Dench said. “And so in asking to renegotiate the agreement, the Canadian government must be aware that the U.S. government may … actually want to negotiate it so that fewer refugees are sent back to the U.S. or that the U.S. would think maybe we should actually withdraw ourselves from this agreement.”

The CCR, along with Amnesty International and the Canadian Council of Churches, launched a Federal Court challenge to the agreement in 2017, arguing against Canada’s position that the United States is a safe country for refugees under the Trump administration. A decision has not yet been issued by the court.

The NDP has called on the Liberals to suspend the pact so asylum seekers in the United States can claim refugee status at official Canadian land border posts.

Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel urged the Liberal government to act immediately to stop the flow of asylum seekers between official points of entry along the border, saying she doesn’t buy its assertion that Canada can’t make the appropriate changes without agreement from the United States. She accused the Liberals of putting forward ideas without a plan to practically implement them.

“We’re six months out to an election and after trying to make electoral hay out of calling Canadians who raise questions about this fear mongerers and un-Canadian and thinly veiled accusations of racism, I think that this is now about electoral calculus rather than action,” Ms. Rempel said.

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Douglas Todd: Would-be immigrants to Canada being sold ‘false dreams’

2019/04/03 Leave a comment

Yet another story on immigration fraud with some examples of more reputable consultants:

The migration agents confronted Vancouver’s Laleh Sahba as she walked on the sidewalk last month near the Canadian embassy in Ankara, Turkey.

The street hawkers told her that, for $25,000 or more, they would get her to an immigration professional who would be sure to hand her a visitor or student visa so she could be well on her way to obtaining a Canada passport.

The sidewalk agents mistook Sahba for another near-desperate Middle Eastern person who would spend almost everything she had for the dream of becoming a permanent resident in Canada, land of promise.

But Sahba — an Iranian-Canadian and a regulated Canadian immigration consultant — says her encounter with Turkey’s street agents was just another reminder how easy it is for people abroad and in Canada to claim to be immigration experts to take vulnerable people for a nasty ride.

“They are selling wrong information. They are making up false dreams,” Sahba said at her downtown Vancouver office. “This is a huge business. And what disturbs me is that many are in it for the money in Canada. They’re playing with people’s lives.”

Sahba, who works with professional immigration partners in the Middle East, is among a small number of Canadian immigration consultants and lawyers who are coming forward to describe the wide range of misinformation, misdeeds and scams being foisted on would-be immigrants.

Some of those posing as immigration specialists are telling anxious people they will eventually get a Canadian passport if they pay large sums, in the tens of thousands of dollars, just to obtain a study or visitor’s visa, which have limited use. Some are also falsely telling clients they can finagle them status as a refugee.

The immigration fantasies of foreign nationals often end in tatters, says Sahba, 40, who came to Canada from Iran two decades ago and has been a consultant for 15 years. Many immigration specialists are making promises they can’t deliver on. By the time most would-be immigrants come to her to find a way out of their migration problems “they are absolutely screwed. We can’t help them.”

Much more must be done, Sahba says, to clean up the fast-growing immigration-advice industry, which in Canada includes 5,400 regulated immigration consultants and 1,000 immigration lawyers, but also an untold number of unlicensed agents.

Marina Sedai, a Surrey immigration lawyer, tends to agree. She told a Conference Board of Canada workshop in Vancouver last month that there is “rampant immigration fraud” being perpetrated by some consultants and agents.

Sedai said she is constantly hearing from troubled clients about how they’ve being misled or defrauded by self-professed experts who demand large fees to guide foreign nationals through Canada’s intricate immigration system.

As national chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s immigration section, Sedai highlighted how her organization has told federal Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen the system Ottawa has set up to regulate immigration consultants, who have less formal training than lawyers, is not working.  “There are good reasons,” the society said in 2017, “to limit the practice of immigration law to lawyers and Quebec notaries,” with immigration consultants working under the supervision of lawyers.

Many wives are being advised by immigration specialists to get a study visa so their husbands can come to Canada and work and their children can attend school, says Laleh Sahba. The trouble is many wives “don’t really want to study” and end up failing. It leads to big problems for the family.

Sahba, however, believes the majority of regulated immigration consultants do excellent work. Still, she hears at least five times a month from foreign nationals who have become embroiled in shady agreements that involve both Canadian immigration advisers and lawyers.

While Sahba generally supports Ottawa’s aim to make it simpler for some of the more than 500,000 foreign students in Canada to become permanent residents, for instance, she said some advisers are increasingly misrepresenting the study visa program as the backdoor immigration ticket for entire families.

Many wives in their 40s and 50s are being advised, she said, to apply for a study visa so that their husband can come to Canada on a spousal work visa and their children can attend schools in Toronto, Metro Vancouver and elsewhere.

The trouble, Sahba said, is many of the wives are unable to pass English-language exams and “don’t really want to study in the first place.” They begin failing courses and can’t get into postgraduate school, which means they and their husbands and children are expected to return home.

“It’s all over for them. They’ve wasted their time and huge amounts of money. And their kids have in the meantime become used to Canadian society. This is where my heart bleeds.”

In addition to describing scams in which so-called immigration specialists have charged clients many thousands of dollars just for a visitor’s visa, Sahba said other illicit schemes involve provincial immigrant entrepreneur programs, including those operated by Quebec, B.C. and Manitoba.

Since a large number of so-called immigration specialists also have real-estate licences, Sahba says, some become embroiled in housing deals with rich prospective newcomers.

Other advisers direct so-called entrepreneurs to make “passive investments” in Canadian properties or businesses, which often involve nothing more than appearing to transfer money between relatives’ bank accounts.

In one extreme case, Sahba worked with two sisters from Pakistan who transferred more than $170,000 to immigration agents in Canada who said they were arranging the purchases of a gift shop and pet store in Vancouver. The entire process, which involved transferring photos and signatures via Skype, was fake. The culprits couldn’t be tracked.

The Canadian Bar Association, in its attempts to target “incompetent and unscrupulous” immigration advisers, told Canada’s immigration minister in 2017 there had been an “astonishing” 1,470 complaints against the regulated members of the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council (ICCRC) since it began in 2011, plus 1,115 more against non-members.

That regulatory council posts some of the online allegations against its licensed Canadian immigration consultants, with one ICCRC page describing disciplinary investigations against almost 50 named members, who regularly charged clients $10,000 to $30,000 for relatively small tasks. Many of the consultants are accused of misdeeds such as: “Deceiving client,” “misleading client,” “falsely advising client,” “failing to notify client,” “charging client exorbitant fee” and of “misrepresenting” themselves in a variety of ways, including as border officials.

Sedai said some immigration advisers have even become involved in presenting false job offers to would-be immigrants — an activity she says she has run into in Surrey. Burnaby immigration lawyer George Lee is among those who has tried to expose the widespread jobs deception.  

Although the clients of people who make a living in the immigration industry continue to take part in illicit schemes based on bad advice, Sabha wants to make clear some clients have not been innocent in the process. “They’ve got dirty hands, too.”

And the chances for all concerned of getting caught are increasing.

“The immigration officers are also not stupid anymore, not like in the old days,” Sahba says, chuckling. “They’re smart. And they’re looking at all aspects of every immigration application.”

Source: Douglas Todd: Would-be immigrants to Canada being sold ‘false dreams’

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‘He was supposed to help us’: Chinese immigrants out thousands after immigration agent disappears

2019/04/03 Leave a comment

It would be a lot simpler just to ban consultants and only advise applicants to use lawyers. And hard to understand why people would trust a 24-year-old with that kind of money (no, lawyers have a few bad apples too, but there are meaningful codes of conduct and enforcement):

A Winnipeg immigration agent has allegedly skipped town, leaving a group of Chinese immigrants in the lurch and out thousands of dollars.

Jiatoo Immigration Consulting Inc., run by 24-year-old Zhihao Jia, quietly shut the doors at its Pembina Highway office in early March, clearing out furniture in a seemingly overnight move with no notice given to its landlord or clients.

“He was supposed to help us — but he didn’t help, but hurt us,” said Julie, a client of Jia’s, who the CBC has agreed not to identify.

Julie said she gave Jia $10,000 on March 1, 2019, to help her apply for a post-graduate work permit and eventually help her get permanent residency in Canada.

Instead, less than two weeks later, she was left scrambling to find Jia after he stopped returning her calls or texts.

‘No people, no furniture, nothing’

When Julie went to Jia’s office on March 11, she knew there was a problem.

“We found his office was totally vacant. Nobody was there. They were all gone. No people, no furniture, nothing,” she said.

The CBC has agreed not to name the woman we are calling Julie, as she is afraid that speaking out could impact her future immigration applications.

She is one of at least 13 Chinese immigrants who claim they were affected by Jia’s disappearance, according to licensed immigration consultant Yu Xiang, who is working with Julie and a few other clients left in the lurch.

One person gave Jia over $20,000 and only received partial services before the immigration agent packed up and left, Xiang said.

“The severity of harm done to them [varies],” person to person, he said.

Some clients paid and got nothing, he said, while others got partial help and some received full service. But Xiang questions the legitimacy of their applications, because Jia was not licensed to fill them out.

CBC has not been able to speak with Xiang’s clients to independently verify this claim.

Julie said she felt she could trust Jia after seeing online advertisements for his company, and a website saying it was nominated for a 2017 “new emerging Chinese company” award at the Manitoba Chinese Business Gala.

When she went to the company, Julie had just graduated college and needed to get a job in order to obtain a work permit and stay in Canada.

She agreed to pay Jiatoo Immigration Consulting $15,000 for help to find a job and eventually receive assistance with her application for permanent residency in Canada, according to the retainer agreement signed by the client and the company.

Julie paid Jia $10,000 up front, and was to pay the remaining $5,000 at a later date.

“We are newcomers. We are not familiar with the immigration service or the working environment here in Canada,” she said when asked why people pay for immigration services.

“We need help. We need guidance and instruction. We need to consult people who know how to help us.”

Jiatoo owed 2 months’ rent

The landlord at 675 Pembina Highway got a call from an employee of Jiatoo Immigration on March 5, saying the office was empty.

“She said the place was cleaned out,” said property manager Eileen Gaynor.

CBC has not been able to reach Jia for comment. Texts and phone calls to the cellphone number he provided to clients, and which is listed on Jiatoo’s website, went unanswered.

CBC reporters also visited two properties associated with Jia through land titles. Both were abandoned. Stacks of newspapers were piled up outside the front door of one of the properties.

Gaynor said Jia still owed rent for February when he vanished. He had given her a cheque but it bounced. By March, he had closed his bank account so she could no longer collect on his debt.

Jia moved into the strip mall in April 2018, according to Gaynor. Company records show he is the director of Jiatoo Education Service Inc and also the president of Club Royale Immigration Inc.

Winnipeg police investigating

Julie said despite paying Jia, she got nothing in return. At first she wasn’t sure what to think, but after telling police what happened, the woman is confident she’s been duped.

“It’s official now, so we aren’t suspicious anymore. We are pretty sure that he’s a fraud,” she said.

For weeks, the woman kept trying to get ahold of Jia. He eventually phoned her husband, telling the couple to stop looking for him — or else.

“He said he knew us. He has got our information, and he [said] if we called police, it will have a bad influence on our immigration process,” Julie said.

After reporting Jia to police, Julie called the Canada Border Services Agency and Winnipeg-based immigration consultant Yu Wang — the licensed immigration consultant Jia worked under as an agent. Company records show that Wang is the director of Internationalized View Investments Consulting Ld.

In Canada, under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, advice or representation for immigration applications can only be provided by either a person licensed through the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council (ICCRC) — the regulatory body for immigration consultants — or a lawyer in good standing (or in Quebec, a member in good standing with the Chambredesnotaires du Québec).

Winnipeg police confirmed that they received a report from the client and are investigating. The CBSA said it is not their practice to confirm or deny whether they have launched an investigation.

At this time no charges have been laid.

Not allowed to give immigration advice: ICCRC

Jia was not licensed to do immigration work, but had been hired to recruit clients for Wang.

Jia is not a member of the ICCRC, but was registered as an agent of Wang’s.

Agents are not allowed to provide any advice for immigration under the current ICCRC regulations, but those rules are frequently skirted, explained Xiang, who is a licensed consultant under the regulatory council.

Wang told CBC News he had no idea Jia was taking money from clients until a woman called him mid-March to allege the agent stole her money.

“He’s supposed to [be] recruiting clients for me,” Wang said. “I prepare the application to Citizenship and Immigration Canada.”

Wang said Jia informed him earlier this month he was moving to Vancouver, so Wang cancelled his agency agreement with him. The ICCRC confirmed the agreement was cancelled on March 15.

He says he has no idea where any money Jia collected would be and he does not have access to a client list. He said repeated messages to Jia about the money have gone unanswered.

“I didn’t see the money at all,” he told CBC.

Xiang said the likely reason more people have not reached out to Wang is because they do not understand that he is the consultant Jia worked under.

Julie said at first, she was afraid to speak out, but decided she couldn’t stay quiet and allow other people to be victimized.

“We trusted him,” she said.

“We want people [to know] what kind of a company Jiatoo is, and we want people to know what kind of person Zhihao Jia is — and to me personally, I want my money back.”

Julie said Jia came to Canada as a student in 2012, and took the same path as she did which makes his actions even more egregious.

“He studied here and graduated and [worked] here. So I think he should know what we think. He should know what we feel — what we feel as a newcomer here.”

200 cases reported each year: CBSA

The Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council cannot legally prosecute or investigate allegations of fraud. It can discipline a consultant if an agent of a member acts unethically.

On first offence, the council member receives a written warning.

On second offence, the member is fined $100.

The CBC requested an interview with the ICCRC, which could not be accommodated in the time frame requested.

In a prepared statement, the regulatory council said it could not disclose information on any investigations that are currently underway.

But Xiang says he’s heard stories like Julie’s too many times.

“It has a very huge impact on the reputation of Canada’s immigration system,” he said.

“And there’s lack of trust between these newcomers and the various service providers in Canada.”

Almost 180 cases of suspected immigration-consultant offences are brought to the attention of the Canada Border Services Agency each year, according to data provided by the agency.

About 120 of those complaints involve unlicensed consultants.

Xiang says those cases aren’t just about money. A late application form or forms with missing errors can mean the applicant is denied a work permit or permanent residency, and the consequences can be deportation.

“We’re talking about people’s lives here,” he said.

Source: ‘He was supposed to help us’: Chinese immigrants out thousands after immigration agent disappears

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Canada, U.S. move to redraft border treaty to cut flow of asylum seekers

2019/04/02 Leave a comment

More movement than I would have thought possible with a possible clever fix of taking seekers to a regular border crossing where they could be deported under the STCA.

Should the USA agree (far from certain), will be interesting to see how it would work in practice (a regular shuttle from Roxham Road until the flow decreases?).

And hanging over all of this is the court challenge to the STCA:

Canada and the United States are a step closer to redrawing the Safe Third Country Agreement covering asylum seekers, as Ottawa looks to stem the flow of refugee claimants crossing between authorized points of entry.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has sent a formal request to the State Department – which handles international treaties – to renegotiate the STCA with Canada, a source in the U.S. administration said. The source was granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Ottawa wants the pact changed to close a loophole, which would allow Canada to immediately deport most asylum seekers coming from the United States.

Canadian officials would take such asylum seekers to an official crossing, where they would be denied immediate entry. But that plan would have to clear legal hurdles articulated by the Supreme Court that guarantee a hearing to any refugee claimant setting foot in Canada.

More than 40,000 asylum seekers have entered Canada at unauthorized points of entry since U.S. President Donald Trump launched his crackdown on illegal immigration two years ago. The flood of claimants is bogging down the refugee protection system in Canada.

Under the current pact, most refugee claimants who come to Canada from the United States at official points of entry – such as border stations – are immediately sent back to the United States. But the pact does not apply between such points of entry, so those who cross between border stations have the right to make a refugee claim. Canada wants this changed so most people coming from the United States – at any point along the border – can be immediately deported. The idea behind the treaty is that refugees do not face a risk of persecution in the United States, so it is safe for them to apply for asylum there – no need to continue on to Canada.

The U.S. government source said DHS officials are working with their counterparts at the State Department on the request to start negotiations – formally called a C-175. Under that process, a high-ranking State Department official, usually an assistant secretary, must approve the request. An approval would allow talks to begin, but would not determine the outcome.

The State Department would not comment on the development. “We do not discuss internal and inter-agency deliberations, nor do we discuss specific documents or communications that are involved in such deliberations,” spokesman Noel Clay wrote in an e-mail.

Border Security Minister Bill Blair wrote to DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen last September to ask her to start talks on changing the border agreement. Mr. Blair’s office said the letter mentioned his mandate from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to manage the surge in asylum seekers at the border.

In a statement this week, Mr. Blair’s spokesman said Canada and the United States have not yet entered into formal negotiations on the STCA.

“However, since his appointment, Minister Blair has met with numerous stakeholders including U.S. members of Congress, Customs and Border Protection and Department of Homeland Security officials to discuss modernizing the STCA as soon as possible,” Ryan Cotter said.

Mr. Blair visited Washington this month to press his case. He met with three Republican legislators active on border-control matters – senators John Cornyn and Ron Johnson, and Representative Mike Rogers – as well as Matthew Reynolds, the U.S. representative for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s deputy ambassador to the United States.

Mr. Rogers, the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, would not discuss Canada’s requested change to the treaty.

“I don’t have a comment right now,” he said outside his Capitol Hill office Wednesday.

One Canadian official, who was granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly, said between 60 and 70 per cent of the asylum seekers crossing the border between points of entry appear to have gone to the United States specifically for that purpose: They arrive in the United States on a visitor’s visa, with no intention of seeking asylum there, then immediately head to the border.

Speaking to The Globe and Mail this month, Mr. Blair said Canada is proposing a change to the STCA that would allow Canadian officials to escort asylum seekers who enter at unauthorized entry points to a designated crossing area. There, the border agreement could be applied, allowing Canadian officials to refuse entry to the asylum seekers. The change would apply to the entire border.

Mr. Blair explained how it would work in Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Que., the unauthorized point of entry at the end of Roxham Road in New York State, where most irregular asylum seekers have entered Canada.

“If, for example, there was an agreement of the United States to accept back those people that are crossing at the end of Roxham Road, then Canadian officials who are already there dealing with those people as they come across could theoretically take them back to a regular point of entry … and give effect to those regulations at that place,” Mr. Blair said on March 15.

The legal community is divided over whether the proposal would violate the Supreme Court’s landmark 1985 Singh decision, which found that all refugee claimants on Canadian soil are entitled to an oral hearing.

Errol Mendes, a constitutional law professor at the University of Ottawa, says the Singh decision would apply to asylum claimants who cross into Canada between official points of entry and express fear of persecution.

“The only way you can get around it is if they don’t claim that they’re seeking asylum, but once they do, the Singh case covers it,” Prof. Mendes said. “This is really tricky.”

However, refugee lawyer Lorne Waldman has a different interpretation of how the Singh decision would apply to Mr. Blair’s proposal.

“There doesn’t have to be a hearing … [because it’s assumed] the U.S. is going to give them a fair hearing,” Mr. Waldman said.

He added that while it may be legal to send refugee claimants back to the United States at the moment, a continuing Federal Court challenge may change that. In 2017, the Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International and the Canadian Council of Churches launched a legal challenge to change the designation of the United States as a safe country for refugees. The groups argue that the rights of refugees have been stripped under the Trump administration. The Federal Court will take at least another year to issue a decision, Mr. Waldman said.

Craig Damian Smith, an immigration expert at the University of Toronto, said the political calculus for Mr. Trudeau is clear: He wants to shore up Liberal support in Quebec and in the 905 suburbs around Toronto, where anti-refugee sentiment boiled over into protests against asylum seekers arriving from the United States last summer. While tightening the STCA will cause some advocates for refugees to sour on the Prime Minister, there are not enough of them to matter electorally.

Still, the government’s proposed changes to the deal would clash with Canada’s image as a country that welcomes asylum seekers.

“The optics of that – pushing people back across the border, when right now we see friendly RCMP greeting people – what are they going to look like when they start chasing people down? That’s not good,” said Mr. Smith, associate director of the Global Migration Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.

It’s not clear exactly when Canadian officials first reached out to their U.S. counterparts to discuss reopening talks on the STCA. Mike MacDonald, an associate assistant deputy minister at the Immigration Department, told a parliamentary committee in May, 2018, that Canada had been in talks with the United States for “several months.”

Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale met with Ms. Nielsen last year to talk about the matter. Mr. Blair was the first minister to write to Ms. Nielsen last September, shortly after he was appointed the government’s first Minister of Border Security and took over the irregular asylum seekers file from Mr. Hussen.

Source: Canada, U.S. move to redraft border treaty to cut flow of asylum seekers

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