Europe’s south and east worry more about emigration than immigration – poll

2019/04/02 Leave a comment

Interesting results but understandable given the demographics:

Southern and eastern European countries are more concerned about emigration than immigration, according to a wide-ranging survey of attitudes in 14 EU countries.

In Spain, Italy, Greece, Poland, Hungary and Romania, six countries where population levels are either flatlining or falling sharply, more citizens said emigration was a worry than immigration, according to the poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

The steepest falls are in Romania, where the population has decreased by almost 10% over the past decade as an exodus of mostly young people move to work in western Europe.

https://interactive.guim.co.uk/uploader/embed/2019/03/popuation-change-zip/giv-3902leY08K5RYnIs/

However, in northern and western nations, concerns over immigration far outstripped those over emigration.

The survey was conducted to establish the principal issues of concern ahead of the European parliamentary elections in May. The 14 nations polled will occupy 80% of the seats in the new parliament.

The poll discovered that Europeans are concerned about far more than migration, even though it has dominated EU politics and discourse over the five year term of the outgoing parliament. Corruption, nationalism, terrorism and climate change are also uppermost in minds.

In the survey as a whole, 20% were worried about emigration and 32% about immigration. The poll was conducted by YouGov and questioned almost 50,000 people.

https://interactive.guim.co.uk/charts/embed/mar/2019-03-25T13:41:59/embed.html

In some countries, the fear of emigration was so great that large numbers of people believed compatriots should not be allowed to leave their country for long periods of time.

https://interactive.guim.co.uk/charts/embed/mar/2019-03-25T15:48:16/embed.html

“The EU elections have been sold as a battleground over the heart of Europe,” said Mark Leonard, the director of the ECFR, adding that nationalists were trying to turn the vote into a referendum on migration.

“The findings from this poll should give heart to pro-Europeans, and show that there are still votes to be won on major issues such as climate change, healthcare, housing, and living standards,” Leonard said. “They will be making a strategic blunder if they accept the framing of the anti-European parties that this election will be won or lost on migration alone.”

Populist leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Italy’s Matteo Salvini are seeking to put migration front and centre of the 23-26 May polls, in which 374 million people are eligible to vote in a new parliament for a five-year term. The Orbán government recently deployed a scare poster warning about migration policy in Brussels.

Hungary has refused to take refugees under an EU quota system and continues to block an EU law that proposes a permanent redistribution system for asylum seekers. The poster referred to this theme, stating: “They want to introduce compulsory relocation quotas.”

Orbán, who is under pressure to quit the main centre-right European parliament group, has called for migration policy to be “withdrawn from the commission and returned to the member states”. EU member states already play the decisive role in migration policy.

While Orbán has scaled back his media attacks, following pressure from allies in the European People’s party, he has indicated that he could resume his anti-EU campaign. “Our job now is to continually inform the people about what Brussels is up to.”

But immigration numbers have fallen sharply over the past two years: in 2018, the number who crossed the Mediterranean was put at just over 116,000 by UNHCR, down almost 90% from those who made the journey in 2015.

The survey found that Islamic radicalism was the top area of concern, worrying about one in five Europeans, though fears were much higher in countries like Belgium, France and the Netherlands than in eastern Europe.

In almost all countries, a majority of people agreed that the environment should be made a priority even if it damaged economic growth.

https://interactive.guim.co.uk/charts/embed/mar/2019-03-25T15:47:08/embed.html

But the data also showed a wide range of concerns cropping up in different countries, meaning that the election will be fought on different issues across the continent.

The economy was the single biggest concern in Italy, Romania and Greece. In seven countries – Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Spain, Greece and Slovakia – more than 50% of people surveyed said corruption was a major issue.

Some experts have warned centrist and traditional parties against accepting a pro-EU versus anti-EU narrative, fearing it will only bolster populists by setting up straw-man arguments.

The European elections are the second-largest electoral contest in the world, behind the Indian elections. Voters in 27 countries are due to elect 705 MEPs, who will take office on 2 July. The UK is not scheduled to take part in the vote and will have to inform the EU by 12 April if it wishes to elect MEPs, meaning a long Brexit delay.

Source: Europe’s south and east worry more about emigration than immigration – poll

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Pope Francis on immigration: Political leaders ‘risk becoming prisoners of the walls they build’

2019/04/02 Leave a comment

Well said:

Pope Francis said on Sunday that political leaders who want walls and other barriers to keep migrants out “will end up becoming prisoners of the walls they build.”

The pope made his comments to reporters aboard the plane returning from Morocco in response to a question about migration in general and about U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to shut down the southern border with Mexico.

“Builders of walls, be they made of razor wire or bricks, will end up becoming prisoners of the walls they build,” he said.

Francis, who did not mention Trump in his response, has sparred with the U.S. president before over migration, which was a theme of several questions on the plane as well as during the trip to Morocco.

Trump has declared a national emergency to justify redirecting money earmarked for the military to pay for his promised U.S.-Mexico border wall.

“I realize that with this problem (of migration), a government has a hot potato in its hands, but it must be resolved differently, humanely, not with razor wire,” the Argentine-born pope said on the plane.

Addressing Moroccan leaders on Saturday, Francis said that problems of migration would never be resolved by physical barriers but instead required social justice and correcting the world’s economic imbalances.

“With fear, we will not move forward, with walls, we will remain closed within these walls,” he said on Sunday.

Besides the United States, migration has again risen to the fore of national political debates in a number of North African and European countries.

On the plane, Francis repeated some of the key points of his views on migration.

He said wealthy countries should help eliminate the root causes of migration such as poverty, war and political instability.

Migrants should be accepted, protected and integrated and if a country cannot handle the numbers, the migrants should be distributed among other countries, he said.

Source: Pope Francis on immigration: Political leaders ‘risk becoming prisoners of the walls they build’

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Metropolis 2019 Halifax Conference notes

2019/04/02 Leave a comment

For the diversityvotes.ca, see our blog entry: https://www.diversityvotes.ca/whats-new/metropolis-conference-doing-immigration-differently

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Overall, the 2019 Metropolis conference had a stronger line-up of plenary speakers than previous years, with substantive discussion of immigration and integration issues in Atlantic Canada. 

The different context of Atlantic Canada, where demographic pressures are sharpest and consequently the need for increased immigration greatest, has parallels elsewhere in rural and northern Canada, as seen in the recently announced Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot and the Alberta UCP’s party platform aiming at increasing immigration to rural Alberta.

The Nova Scotia Minister of Immigration and the mayors of Halifax and Moncton reinforced this need and outlined their respective initiatives to attract and retain immigrants. 

The Atlantic Immigration Pilot, where 800 designated employers have access to Nova Scotia’s share of the Provincial Nominee Program spots, allowed Nova Scotia to introduce new streams: a physician stream and labour market priority (early childhood education, financial professionals, francophone). About 40 percent of employers were located outside Halifax.

Both mayors talked about their focus on retaining international students and events such as receptions to welcome students to the community. Halifax provides free transit and recreation policies to refugees for their first year. Moncton provides a “concierge” service to help newcomers navigate the “system” and holds job fairs to assist them find a job. Both mayors wanted to have a more formal consultative role in immigration along with the provincial and federal government. Additional resources for francophone immigrants were flagged by Moncton and permanent resident municipal voting rights by Halifax.

Michael Hahn of Western noted the vastly improved quantity and quality of data compared to when he did his thesis, particularly the linking of administrative and census data. Immigration was moving outside the major cities, reflecting in part the Provincial Nominee Program and Express Entry (expression of interest by employers). He echoed the call for a greater role for municipalities and suggested that more could be done to assist students to transition from temporary to permanent residency status. He noted, however, that municipalities with a university would benefit compared to those without.

The presentation by the international affairs advisor of Montreal focussed on their international activities in relation to the Global Compact on Migration. Dubious value compared to the practical on the ground initiatives outlined by the mayors. She also mentioned the need for more data regarding indicators of how welcoming a community was at the municipal level.

The plenary on refugees and asylum seekers in North America was a welcome change from last year’s infomercial on the North American Migration Policy forum with substantive presentations and discussion. 

Agustin Escobar Latapi, Director General, Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, Mexico gave a detailed presentation on how Mexico had changed from an emigration to an immigration country over the past 10-15 years given Mexican returnees and immigrants from Central America and Venezuela (mainly refugees, 30,000 in 2018). Given US immigration and refugee restrictions, most of them will become de facto residents of Mexico.

Julia Gelatt, Senior Policy Analyst, Migration Policy Institute, outlined the impact of staffing and funding constraints at USCIS on processing asylum applications. The decline of refugees from the Middle East and consequent relative increase in the share of refugees from Africa and East Asia reflect Trump administration changes. At the southern border, there was a shift from Mexican asylum seekers to those from Central American and Venezuela, with more being families rather than individuals.

Anne Richard, former Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration in the Obama Administration (2012-2017) noted the 180 degree change in policy under the Trump administration. From the goal in the last year of the Obama administration of 110,000 to 45,000 in the Trump administration, with only 21,000 admitted in 2018. Prejudice against Muslims meant fewer Somalia and Syrian refugees. While stressing the importance of security screening, she animated that the more cumbersome processes were not necessarily more effective. The reduced numbers have had a corresponding impact on organizations that support refugees. On a more positive note, resistance to some of the changes by Congress, the courts, mayors and mainstream press, including the separation of children from their parents, was having an impact.

François Crépeau, Director, Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, McGill University, focussed on the Global Compact on Migration and systematically reviewed the myths regarding the Compact.

One of the strongest plenaries was Shaping the Story of Refugees and Immigrants in the News, covering the changing media landscape and suggestions on how best to get stories out.

Kelly Toughill, University of King’s College and former journalist noted that there were only three full-time immigration reporters in Canada: Doug Saunders (Globe), Nicholas Keung (Star) and Doug Todd (Vancouver Sun). There were many more free lancers on blogs and other media than reporters. Moreover, Communications staff, whether government or private, vastly outnumbered reporters. Reliance on communications officers to respond to reporters, rather than experts, further diminished the ability of reporters to report and analyze policy and program changes. Social media had a further impact: Michelle Rempel, Conservative immigration critic has 84,000 followers, twice as much as Minister Hussen, both dwarfing Saunders and Keung at about 5,000 followers each. Toughil noted that, unlike reporters, other sources all had an explicit agenda: #ImmigrationMatters is perceived as pre-election government propaganda, ISANS (Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia) can be perceived as advocating for more resources, CIC News is designed to attract high value clients to an immigration lawyer. Toughill ended with a plea for academics and service providers to develop relations and share their knowledge with reporters.

Michael Tutton, The Canadian Press, Halifax, noted that immigration-specific news can be easily lost in a “torrent” of other important news on the economy, healthcare etc. It is important to relate immigration to other aspects and stories rather than just stand-alone stories. Reporters have an important role to play in helping to “unpack the black box,” making the contrast between the Harper government not providing access to stowaways, and the arrival of Syrian refugees, where reporters were able to talk to sponsors, service organizations and many of the refugees themselves. Tutton noted that the discussion around the importance of immigration in economic terms — as in input — meant less understanding of immigrants as people. He cited the example of the Prince Edward Island investor immigrant program where most did not remain in the province as an example where people lost faith in immigration. However, that being said, reporters should cover the imperfections and problems of immigration. But the goal should be to tell all stories with knowledge, understanding and empathy.

Madeline Ziniak, Senior Broadcast Executive, Chair, Canadian Ethnic Media Association, noted the importance of ethnic media for marginalized voices. Ethnic media had a long history in Canada dating form a German newspaper in 1777. Ethnic media provides a platform for community building and sense of belonging in the context of the larger Canadian society and the lens of Canadian standards and values. These expressions and reflections of Canada’s diversity are part of the settlement and integration process. For seniors, who generally tend to revert to their mother tongue as they age, ethic media helps them to remain connected. Voices silenced in immigrant countries of origin can find a voice in Canadian ethnic media and thus perhaps influencing events in those countries. Ziniak noted the need for greater public support to ethnic media, citing CBC and TVO as examples, given that their business models were struggling as well, with less private sector interest.

Louisa Taylor, Director, Refugee 613, Ottawa, Ontario, after outlining the activities of her organization, noted the current context where the anti-immigration far right were organized and becoming more active. The challenge of getting the facts out in a “post-fact” world made it harder. She suggested that messaging should mobilize hope, know and focus on goals not means. In terms of engaging with those with immigration-related concerns, she recommended listening without judgment and find a space where values overlap in order to engage in discussion.

Some of the questions focussed around the “bubbles” between those with different views. Panelists noted the dangers of separate “facts,” the contrast between mainstream media’s use of the CP style guide compared to other media, and how to find ways to reach people. The example of Colin Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling during the US national anthems and Nike’s subsequent ad were cited as successful examples, recognizing that these approaches will inevitably annoy some people. Digging deeper into “happy” stories to include some of the problems would be more authentic and credible as well as finding ways to connect a story to the wider community.

The last plenary,  Immigration on the Margins, provided some good examples of how settlement organizations and governments were helping smaller communities welcome immigrants.

Ken Walsh, Association for New Canadians, Newfoundland talked about the range of services provided and how immigration was essential given that Newfoundland and Labrador had the most rapidly aging population in the country. Their approach has a number of satellite offices across the province with considerable focus on direct outreach with employers. Challenges to immigrant retention include lack of ethnocultural groups and social isolation of spouses which the organization which a variety of orientation programs and activities try to address. 

Cathy Woodbeck, Executive Director, Thunder Bay Multicultural Association, noted the work they do with Peel and Windsor to find placement for newcomers from those areas looking for opportunities, given that Thunder Bay has a labour shortage and low unemployment. They are learning from the best practices of the Atlantic Immigration Pilot and work with the community to improve service availability. Pre and post arrival services are available. Note:

Lara Dyer, IRCC and Shelley Bent, Nova Scotia Office of Immigration talked about the Atlantic Immigration Pilot’s experience in Nova Scotia. The AIP is employer driven, with an employer role in settlement services orientation, including a settlement plan for the entire family. Nova Scotia’s experience indicates the need for individual conversations with employers, with dedicated staff to help employers navigate through the system. The major lessons learned to date include: the need for increased support to employers tailored to the needs of the employee and his/her family, and the ongoing partnership with IRCC which has a dedicated team to support provincial staff in answering their questions. While people have fears about immigrants taking jobs, once immigrants are hired, more positive stories start.

Workshops

As has become  my regular practice, I organized a workshop on “how to debate immigration: Atlantic edition” with Kelly Toughill (moderator), Howard Ramos, Dalhousie University, Tony Fang, Memorial University and Alex LeBlanc, New Brunswick Multicultural Council. Although I was unable to locate a reasonable immigration critic for the panel, we did engage in a good discussion on how to engage those with concerns regarding immigration, with the key points a willingness to listen openly, find concrete examples where immigration was beneficial (ranging from the general labour needs to who will buy your house!).

My annual citizenship workshop focussed on birth tourism with my presenting this deck and Audrey Macklin of UofT providing a frank and engaging critiqueI of the substance and magnitude of the issues. Governments also “gamed the system” the deportation of long-term permanent residents who had unwittingly not become citizens (e.g., Abdi, Revell, Moretto, Budlakoti) or imposing a first generation limit on transmitting citizenship. “Meaningfulness” was an elusive concept and there were citizens who had as little connections as the children of birth tourists. Fundamentally, she argued that citizenship laws are a highly imperfect proxy for meaningfulness and connection.  

The most interesting workshop for me focussed on improved data through integration of administrative data (e.g., IRCC’s Longitudinal Immigration Database – IMDB, health data from CIHI) and census data. Improvements to the IMDB include citizenship, children, preliminary 2017 wages and settlement services. External linkages being developed include health, education, and non-immigrant data. For example, with respect to birth tourism, the linkage with CIHI’s DAD will allow separating out temporary residents such as international students from the “non-resident self pay” coding to have a more accurate number of birth tourists along with countries of origin.

 

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Why it’s time to restart the federal immigrant-investor program

2019/04/01 Leave a comment

No, it’s not (apart from creating business for immigration lawyers, some increased pressures on the housing market and some increased consumer spending. It is striking when looking at Canadian immigration data, that the incomes of primary applicants under the previous investment programs, based on tax data, are less than refugees since 1996.

I have not been able to find a Quebec government evaluation of its investor immigrant program on their website so it is hard to substantiate or refute Silverstone’s claim that it has pumped “billions” into the Quebec economy. We do know, however, that most of these immigrants end up elsewhere and pay little to know tax (Opinion | Study reveals awfulness of Canadian investor immigration):

These are exhilarating times for Canadian immigration. Ottawa announced last December that it would be accepting more than one million immigrants over the next three years, with an increase in 2018 to 310,000 from the previous 300,000 annually, followed by a further increase to 330,000 in 2019 then to 340,000 in 2020.The Province of Quebec, which essentially runs its own immigrant selection process, is, however, reducing its intake by some 20 per cent.

The large majority of these new entrants to Canada will be in various economic categories. In particular, the federal government’s new global talent stream, with its quick-processing turnaround time, and enhancement of the startup visa program, are becoming very useful mechanisms for recruiting and retaining international high-tech talent.The express entry stream, which brings skilled workers to Canada, broke a record in 2018, with almost 90,000 invitations to apply issued. This represents an increase of nearly 4,000 over the previous record set in 2017. Immigration authorities are also promising to clear some of the backlog in the family-reunification class, including the families of the much-needed live-in caregivers. The rules for obtaining Canadian citizenship have also been significantly relaxed.

With the national unemployment rate at a 40-year low 5.6 per cent, immigration is on its way to being an ever-more significant factor satisfying the Canadian labour market. It’s the major factor in Canada’s population growth, which rose by about 1.4 per cent last year. About 71 per cent of this growth is as a result of immigration.

However, processing immigration applications as well as refugee claims does not come cheap. The 2018 federal budget supports increased immigration levels to the tune of $440-million, with an additional $173-million for asylum seekers. The government’s pre-election budget earmarked $1.18-billion over five years to “accelerate” the claims process and to “facilitate the removal of failed asylum claimants.”

Quebec’s immigrant investor program 

Since its inception in 1986, the Quebec immigrant investor program has pumped billions of dollars into the Quebec economy. Quebec’s is a passive investment program. This means that potential immigrants must ante up $1.2-million for a period of five years, after which the money is returned in full but without interest. The prospective investor must establish a minimum personal net worth of $2-million and be able to demonstrate the legal provenance of the funds. They also have to be able to show at least two years of business management experience. The vast majority of the thousands of immigrant investors come from China and elsewhere in Asia, with some from the Middle East. Quebec charges a substantial application fee. The program is well run and has proved to be an economic winner.

Although the program is administered by the province, investors and their families must satisfy federal security and medical standards. One of the criticisms is that the bulk of successful applicants do not maintain their residence in Quebec, but rather flow to other parts of Canada, primarily southern Ontario and British Columbia. Quebec has responded to this by adding an intent to reside in the province proviso, but, in practice, inter-provincial mobility will really not be restricted.

Restarting the federal investor program 

Canada’s federal immigrant investor program was terminated in 2014. It is time for it to be restarted. An immigrant investor program geared toward job creation in economically challenged areas of the country should be implemented now. Such a program could require an active investment of $1-million, with perhaps a lower amount geared toward areas of higher unemployment. This money would be risk capital directed toward private-sector enterprises with job creation as an essential component. The Canadian stream should, of course, include all necessary checks to ensure the legitimate source of the funds as well as to determine the net worth of the applicant.

Borrowing from the EB-5 conditional-visa system in the United States, the Canadian plan should provide for the creation of regional centres, which would enable the private sector in any given area to participate constructively in the allocation of the investment by the foreign applicant. Regional centres in the U.S. bring together investors and local and regional entrepreneurs and economic development officials to ensure the best use of funds. Studies have found that, in the U.S., immigrant investor capital has played a key role in financing several large projects in areas as diverse as New York and Las Vegas.

In the Canadian context, the regional centre would always have as its focus the creation of at least two permanent jobs per investor. Substantial application fees and a security deposit, along with strict monitoring of the investment, will keep away tire kickers and fraudsters, and the regional centre must be prepared to provide complete transparency with regard to the investment process and allocation of resources. In addition, it should be tasked with assisting the immigrant investor as well as other classes of immigration, including refugees, by providing integration and employment services in order to ensure that newcomers build successful lives in this country. Refugees could be major beneficiaries of the job-creation component of a rejuvenated immigration investor program.

Alternatively, the government could just reinstate the discontinued federal immigrant investor program as it was, basically mimicking Quebec’s passive investment initiative. Either way, an essential element that would maximize chances for success would be a firm undertaking by the federal government that applications would be handled in a timely fashion. Serious overseas investors are not going to wait four and five years to have their applications processed.

A typical immigrant investor arriving with a family in a struggling area of the country will be serious and motivated. The investor, having paid perhaps $30,00 in application fees, along with a risk capital investment of a million dollars—and spending perhaps nearly that amount again in dwelling costs, clothing, schooling, vehicles, and many other needed expenditures—will surely be an asset rooted in his or her chosen community. This, combined with the establishment of a viable commercial enterprise and the creation of employment opportunities, produces a winning situation that could economically and socially boost many Canadian locales, especially those outside Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver—that attract the bulk of new immigrants.

Ramping up to receiving 10,000 families annually could generate billions and create 20,000 jobs. Now is the time to act and get new money into our system before we lose more highly desirable investor immigrants to other jurisdictions.

Source: Why it’s time to restart the federal immigrant-investor program

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Buying citizenship vs. deportation: The contrasting world of immigration in Tampa Bay

2019/03/30 Leave a comment

Sharp contrast:

On a Friday morning, many people who traveled far and wide wait inside the Tampa Immigration office, are hoping for a better life.

“I’m from the Netherlands,” said Marjoke.

“To live in Tampa Bay, it’s really pretty awesome!” she told us with a smile, minutes after she was officially sworn in as a U.S. citizen.

Ahmad from Palestine told us, ”I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time in my life.”

Their stories are stories of personal success.

Stories of defeat

But for Army Veteran Elliot Martinez, the Road to the American Dream for his Honduran wife, has taken a heartbreaking detour.

“How can I… ahh… it’s a hard thing to explain,” said Martinez as he takes a deep breath.

“I want my wife back. I need her… I find myself being very lonely. And I’m not a man who cries, but I find myself crying every once in a while because I miss her,” he said.

Like many immigrants from Central America, Martinez’s wife Consuelo, came to the U.S. illegally 18 years ago.

She was allowed to stay as long as she didn’t commit any crimes and she checked in with immigration officials once a year.

But, that all changed two months ago, while she was working on becoming a citizen.

“On the way to the lawyer’s office, we got here, got outside the door, and they called her on the phone and told her she had to leave the next day,” Martinez recalled.

Tampa Immigration Attorney Samson Koyonda is seeing a surge in cases like Elliot’s.

“After the election in 2016… there was a fever pitch atmosphere. The emphasis was no longer on deporting criminal aliens, the emphasis was on deporting everybody,” said Koyonda.

But, there is another path to the American dream.

A path paved with money

It’s called EB-5, a federal program giving rich immigrants the chance to get a green card if they invest at least $500,000 into a local project that creates at least 10 jobs.

Supporters say it creates jobs for people in Tampa Bay and if you need proof that EB-5 money is being pumped into Florida, look no farther than the Tampa skyline.

According to the website of Atlantic American Partners — one of the premiere EB-5 investment firms in Tampa — they raised $4.5 million to build the Aloft Tampa Downtown hotel, $12 million to re-develop The Le Meridian Hotel, which used to be a Federal Courthouse, $19 million to build the 500 Harbour Island high rise, and $23 million for Nine15 apartment building.

And beyond downtown, the new Current Hotel now under construction at Rocky Pointe, fetched $9 million in foreign funds.

Even your non-descript neighborhood strip malls like the Horizon Park Shopping Center on Hillsborough Avenue, got a boost from overseas investors trying to come to America, $3.5 million dollars worth.

It all adds up to thousands of local jobs in the Tampa Bay area and hundreds of rich immigrants and their families now living in the U.S. and on their way to becoming U.S. Citizens.

Statewide, the EB-5 numbers are far greater, especially in South Florida.

“They’re providing things. That money provides jobs,” said Mike Xenick, the CEO of Invest America, which is an EB-5 recruiting firm that seeks foreign investors to fund job creating projects in Tampa Bay.

“That is a huge benefit to the United States, huge benefit to the communities these projects are being built in. They are adding to society here in a positive way,” said Xenick.

Critics of EB-5 point to a contrasting world of immigration in America: those who have money and are able to get in and those who do not, and are facing increased enforcement.

Xenick says that is a very simplistic argument because, ”They (the EB-5 Immigrants) are putting hard money at risk, for a very long period of time.

“They may never see that money back,” he said.

EB-5 Program & Reported Fraud

That kind of money risk has led to allegations of fraud, which are spelled out in a Federal lawsuit against a South Florida Development company that used EB-5 money from Chinese and Russian immigrants. They sued claiming their money was misspent.

The Federal case was dismissed last December, after the company filed Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, but another lawsuit has just been filled in state court in Florida.

Alison Jimenez is a Tampa economist who specializes in money laundering cases.

“The SEC has filed over 32 different enforcement actions since 2013. Specifically over EB-5 programs,” she said.

She said the problem with EB-5 is there is no central regulator who’s looking over the program, and many times the investment documents are in Chinese, making it hard for banks to know if the money is legitimate.

Jimenez said some EB-5 projects have even risen to the level of being a ponzi scheme.

“They have in fact been ponzi schemes, and some have been plain old fraud,” she said.

Mike Xenick, who’s never been sued, admits the industry could use more regulations, but he says the EB-5 program has been a win, win for Tampa Bay.

“The United States provides opportunities for a lot of people, from a lot of different walks of life,” he said.

Dreams and Reality

Elliot Martinez dreams of a day when his wife will be back in his arms.

“I served in the forces to guard our way of life, I was prepared to give my life for their defense, but I will fight for my wife,” he said.

Meanwhile, Martinez’s lawyer, Samson Koyonda, estimates it will probably take two and a half years for his wife to come back to the United States.

Source: Buying citizenship vs. deportation: The contrasting world of immigration in Tampa Bay

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H-1B: U.S. employers say Canada’s immigration policies better, as tech booms north of border

2019/03/29 Leave a comment

These articles keep on coming:

About two-thirds of U.S. employers see Canada’s immigration policies as more favorable than those at home, while a single Canadian city has seen more tech job growth than the Bay Area, Seattle and Washington, D.C. combined, according to a new report.

“Canada has been using friendly immigration policies as one of its key tools to aggressively attract tech companies,” said the 2019 Immigration Trends Report from Envoy, a firm selling immigration services to companies.

Of the 405 HR professionals and hiring managers who participated in Envoy’s survey late last year, 38 percent said their companies were thinking about expanding to Canada, and about a fifth said they already had one or more offices there, according to the report.

Toronto in 2017 added more tech jobs than the Bay Area, Seattle and Washington, D.C. together, and the nation’s capital, Ottawa, boasts more than 1,700 tech companies, the report said.

The firm’s findings come amid a fierce national debate over immigration, with significant controversy over the H-1B visa. The immigration trends report highlights heightened scrutiny of H-1B applications by federal authorities carrying out President Donald Trump’s “Buy American and Hire American” executive order.

San Francisco immigration lawyer Pavan Dhillon, who specializes in helping people obtain work permits and residency in Canada, pointed in a tweet to “Green card backlogs & attacks on legal immigration” as reasons why it appears from Silicon Valley that the American Dream is being replaced by the Canadian Dream.

A Quartz magazine article Tuesday argued that Canada is in fact eating our American Dream. Tech founder Vartika Manasvi told Quartz she chose Calgary over Silicon Valley as the location for StackRaft, a startup making a jobs platform.

“People don’t want to risk long-term careers and live with uncertainty in the U.S.,” Manasvi said. “Finding another visa or transferring the H-1B can be stressful. The Canadian immigration system is gradually moving towards becoming more and more skill-based.”

Among the benefits of immigrating to Canada instead of the U.S., Quartz reported, are faster visa processing times and cheaper fees; a more predictable visa-allocation system than America’s H-1B lottery; employment for visa holders’ spouses at a time when the Trump Administration is moving to ban H-1B holders’ wives and husbands from jobs; and permanent residency in two years or citizenship in three, compared to a green card wait that can last many years in America.

Source: H-1B: U.S. employers say Canada’s immigration policies better, as tech booms north of border

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Poland Bashes Immigrants, but Quietly Takes Christian Ones

2019/03/28 Leave a comment

Telling:

The far-right Law and Justice party came to power in 2015, at the height of Europe’s migrant crisis, after running a campaign that inspired choruses of “Poland for Poles.” With national elections due in October, the governing party is once again promoting its vision of “Poland First.”

The party’s loud, anti-immigrant rhetoric has created special headaches for the European Union, which has largely failed to distribute quotas of migrants from North Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East around the Continent because of resistance from Poland and other hard-line member states.

So it may come as a surprise that the Polish government has, very quietly, presided over the largest influx of migrant workers in the country’s modern history — though they are mostly Christians from neighboring Ukraine.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has not been shy about promoting the government’s agenda. “We want to reshape Europe and re-Christianize it,” he said in 2017 in an interview with a Catholic television station. The government recently ordered all new passports include the phrase, “God, Honor, Motherland.”

But immigration is Poland’s paradox. It has benefited greatly from the European Union’s open borders, earning billions of dollars in remittances from the hundreds of thousands of Polish workers who have migrated to other countries in the bloc, especially to Britain. Yet with Poland now facing labor shortages, the government is failing to lure back the diaspora — and is restricted by its political stance against migrants.

If government officials rarely speak about needing migrant workers, the infusion of Ukrainians is apparent in many Polish cities. According to Eurostat, more than 683,000 foreigners received their first residence permits in Poland in 2017, the highest number for any country in the European Union. There are now over two million Ukrainians working in Poland, most flocking to cities that are the engines driving the Polish economy.

The question is whether they will stay. Last year, the European Union began allowing visa-free travel for Ukrainians, and Germany is easing work requirements for skilled workers, targeting Ukrainians. A recent newspaper survey in Poland found that 59 percent of Ukrainians in the country said they would leave for Germany if the labor market opened up.

“There is no ownership of the issue by the government,” said Anna Wicha, a director at the Adecco Group, one of the largest employment agencies in Poland. “You ask how many Ukrainians are working here and they will say 500,000. But it is more than two million. And many may be going to Germany.”

For now, the government lacks a long-term strategy to expand the labor pool. Many experts and some opposition politicians in Poland say the situation will only be resolved if political leaders soften their resistance to migrants and embrace plurality. But at the national level, even talking about immigration can be politically lethal.

When Pawel Chorazy, the deputy minister of investments and development, said during a televised debate before the October local elections that “the inflow of immigrants to Poland needs to be increased to sustain economic growth,” he was met with scorn.

Joachim Brudzinski, the interior minister, said that Mr. Chorazy’s comments were “not a position of the government.” The prime minister, Mr. Morawiecki, said that Mr. Chorazy “got seriously ahead of himself.”

Then he fired him.

“Politicians are dancing on the line, well aware that you can wake up demons,” said Irena Kotowska, head of the center for demography at the Warsaw School of Economics. “It is easy to play into nationalist feeling with anti-immigrant rhetoric. But the reality of the need in the labor market is more and more clear every day.”

“This is a defining moment for the country,” she added. “Some decisions simply have to be made.”

Here in the central city of Lodz, the contradictions of Poland’s migration dilemma are evident. Unlike national leaders, however, the local mayor, Hanna Zdanowska, has embraced immigrants. When she ran last October, she called for an inclusive Poland that welcomed newcomers.

The governing party campaigned hard against her, but she won with 70 percent of the vote, which she credited in part to the city’s history of tolerance. It was once a manufacturing center of hundreds of red brick factories, with a diverse population of Dutch, English and German residents, and a strong Jewish contingent.

Henryk Panusz, 89, whose family were leaders in the knitwear industry and part of a boomtown that was an eclectic mix of ethnicities and cultures, said Lodz “was the promised land.”

“Until the Second World War, there were so many cultures and ethnicities and nationalities,” he added.

After the war, Lodz struggled under Communist rule before the Iron Curtain started disintegrating in Poland in 1989. After the country joined the European Union, providing a chance for people to leave more easily, Lodz saw its population decline to under 690,000, from more than 850,000. That was part of an exodus since 2004 of about 2.5 million people from a nation of around 38 million.

But Poland has also benefited from billions in European Union subsidies that have helped turn the country into one of the Continent’s fastest-growing economies. Lodz has attracted international companies, while reinventing many old factories as cultural spaces to attract a new creative class.

Even as the economy thrives, however, the Polish government has had little success in luring home many of those who went abroad in search of better pay and greater opportunity, despite spending millions on a publicity campaign.

Aleksandra Modrzejewska left Lodz in 2014 and found a job as a waitress when she first arrived in Britain. She now lives in Chelmsford, England, and works as an insurance broker. She says she believes the assurances of the government in London that no matter what happens when Britain leaves the European Union, a process known as Brexit, she will be able to stay.

“No one I know is thinking of leaving,” she said. “Brexit may have an impact on new people coming but, as far as I can tell, for people who have built their lives here, it is not going to change anything.”

“It was just a different quality of life,” she added, explaining her decision to leave Poland. “People are much more open and inviting of different cultures and nationalities.”

For officials in Lodz, and elsewhere in Poland, the labor shortage is a problem that could curb economic growth. More than half of the companies in Poland reported having trouble finding workers, according to a survey by Work Service, Poland’s largest employment agency.

Antonina Marushko, 30, came to Lodz from Ukraine three years ago with her husband and two children. She says the move has been difficult. But, she adds, she does not want to leave. She worked and saved and recently was able to open her own beauty salon.

“Our life is here now,” she said.

To reconcile the new arrivals with the government’s anti-immigrant, Christian identity, Poland’s leaders have gone to great lengths to create narrow policies that almost completely limit the influx to Christians. That goal was all but stated in proposed legislation that would make it easier for people from former Soviet satellite countries that are “culturally similar” to Poland to become permanent residents.

Polish immigration officials declined to be interviewed for this article. But the government has worked so hard for so long to build a narrative that bolsters suspicion of all outsiders that even an immigration policy built on proximity and cultural affinity is fraught.

The influx of Ukrainians has come at the same time as a straining in the relationship between the Polish and Ukrainian governments over the politicization of history and the difficult pasts of the two nations, which share a border that has shifted multiple times over the decades.

For Ukrainians migrating to Poland, those tensions can ripple into daily life. Ms. Marushko, the beauty parlor owner, said that her son was the only Ukrainian in his class and that some of the other children — presumably repeating talk they heard at home — had told him that Poland was for the Poles.

Ms. Marushko said that one of her older Polish clients routinely mocked Ukrainians, calling them radioactive because of Chernobyl, a bitter reference to the nuclear disaster in 1986.

“Things are better now,” Ms. Marushko said, referring to her experiences of prejudice.

Perhaps the biggest problem for Poland is that another generation, despite growing up in an era of economic growth, also seems eager to leave.

“There is still the perception here that you ‘make it’ outside of Poland,” said Ms. Wicha of the Adecco Group.

Ms. Modrzejewska, the insurance broker in Britain, agreed. “Even if you have the worst job, it is a better life,” she said.

She talks frequently with her family and her 14-year-old sister, Magda, who seems to have taken the message to heart.

“I want to be a doctor or a medical engineer,” Magda said. “We also have family in Florida. I am too young to know what I will do, but I think about it and going to Florida is my dream.”

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Closing the Canada-U.S. asylum border agreement loophole? Not so fast

2019/03/27 Leave a comment

Sean Rehaag of Osgoode Law School on the STCA and discussions regarding expanding it to cover non-official points of entry:

According to media reports, Bill Blair, Canada’s minister of border security, is attempting to close a loophole in the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA).

The agreement allows Canada to send asylum-seekers back to the United States without hearing their refugee claims (and allows the U.S. the same option for those going in the other direction). The loophole is that the STCA only applies to asylum-seekers who present themselves at official land ports-of-entry.

Since President Donald Trump was elected, around 40,000 asylum seekers have used this loophole by crossing into Canada from the U.S. at places other than official ports-of-entry. They are not trying to sneak into Canada undetected. Rather, they cross the border irregularly to avoid being turned away under the STCA and then approach Canadian authorities to make refugee claims.

The number of irregular border-crossers has declined recently, with fewer than 1,000 in January 2019. What’s more, while the overall number of refugee claims made in Canada has been higher than usual in the past two years, it is not far off historical norms.

Nonetheless, the additional 40,000 refugee claims have produced pressures on the refugee determination system and on provincial social programs. There has also been political pushback, with calls from the Conservative party for the government to stem the flow.

However, closing the STCA loophole is a complicated proposition.

Blair reportedly wants irregular border-crossers to be taken to official ports-of-entry and processed as if they had presented themselves there directly. In other words, the STCA would apply both at official ports-of-entry and elsewhere.

To make this work, the U.S. would need to agree, which is the first complication.

More asylum-seekers come to Canada

The purpose of the STCA from a Canadian perspective was to force the U.S. to take responsibility for asylum-seekers who travel to Canada via the United States. Canada had long wanted the STCA because the flow of asylum-seekers is asymmetrical. Far more asylum-seekers come to Canada from the U.S. than the reverse.

For the same reason, the United States has long refused to agree to the STCA. That only changed after 9-11, when Canada offered the U.S. greater border security integration in exchange for the STCA.

Canada now wants to expand the STCA, so the question is: What will Canada have to give the U.S. to get them to agree?

One might expect quite a lot, given that Trump has shown little interest in taking steps that would result in thousands of asylum-seekers who would otherwise go to Canada remaining in the U.S.

The need for a quid pro quo raises a second complication. The STCA is being challenged in Canadian courts by human rights organizations who say that the U.S. is not safe for refugees and that the STCA violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Given the anti-refugee policies of the Trump administration, there is a good chance that courts will strike down the STCA. By negotiating expansions to the STCA without waiting to see whether the regime is upheld, there is a real risk that anything Canada gives to the U.S. in exchange will be for naught.

A third complication: Even if Canada gets the U.S. to agree to expand the STCA, and even if the regime is upheld by the courts, the impact of any expansion is likely to be both counterproductive and dangerous.

A dangerous incentive

If asylum-seekers who are intercepted at irregular border crossings are returned to the U.S., this will create a strong incentive for such asylum-seekers to cross the border without being intercepted.

Currently, irregular border crossings are manageable and organized. Most occur in a single, well-monitored location in Québec. That crossing is not dangerous. Border officials and RCMP are present. Irregular border-crossers immediately enter into immigration and refugee processing, which includes health, criminality and security screening.

Other countries that have tried to stem flows of asylum-seekers by closing off safe and manageable routes have had a common experience. The flows do not stop but are instead diverted into more remote and hence more dangerous routes. Organized crime gets involved, bringing increased security risks and violence. The inevitable result is lost lives and decreased border security.

In the end, the political pressure on the government to be seen doing something on this file may outweigh these policy considerations. But politics lead to a fourth complication.

During the last federal election campaign, Justin Trudeau distinguished himself from former prime minister Stephen Harper partly through a more compassionate response to the Syrian refugee crisis and the death of Alan Kurdi — himself a tragic victim of cat-and-mouse games between smugglers and governments seeking to keep refugees at bay.

Shortly after Trump’s inauguration, Prime Minister Trudeau further sought the moral high ground when, in response to the president’s anti-refugee policies, he famously tweeted Canadians will welcome those fleeing persecution.

There is no way to close the STCA loophole without the Liberal party turning its back on those progressive values, on the eve of a federal election campaign.

In this context, attempting to expand the STCA may not only be bad policy, it may also be bad politics.

Source: Closing the Canada-U.S. asylum border agreement loophole? Not so fast

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Previous housing data understated number of non-resident buyers in Vancouver and Toronto

2019/03/26 Leave a comment

The importance of good data and how it could have made a difference in public discussion and debate (not that the real estate industry is likely to change its position given its business interests). Particularly worrisome that a government agency, CMHC, got it so wrong in 2015 with a flawed methodology:

Not so long ago, real estate industry and government officials were doing their best to shut down concerns that skyrocketing housing prices in Vancouver and Toronto were related to non-resident buying.

As it turns out, they were very wrong.

“Basically, if we put every residential property unit that was built in the city of Vancouver from 2006 to 2017 into a single building, every tenth unit [and a bit more] would have been owned by somebody who doesn’t live in the country,” says Andy Yan, urban planner and director of Simon Fraser University’s City Program.

The CMHC condo survey of 2015, a busy year for the real estate market, maintained that foreign ownership of condos was low in metro Vancouver and metro Toronto, at 3.5 and 3.3 per cent respectively.

In 2016, Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation chief executive Evan Siddall told the Vancouver Board of Trade that blaming foreign buying was creating an “unhealthy tension” between “existing residents and newer arrivals.” Instead, he pointed to local investors, population growth and lack of supply as the big factors in Vancouver’s affordability crisis.

But the CMHC’s latest Housing Market Insight report, released last week, shows the previously released data were off by as much as two to three times the actual rate of non-resident participation in home ownership. Based upon the new study, the numbers are actually 11.2 for metro Vancouver and 7.6 for metro Toronto.

The CMHC’s new Housing Market Insight report, in partnership with Statistics Canada, now reveals the extent of non-resident buying in Vancouver. The CMHC had begun releasing its Condominium Apartment Survey in 2014, after collecting information on non-resident ownership, in response to the affordability crisis. But the CMHC only had access to condo data and its methodology was limited. It partnered with Statistics Canada to form the Canadian Housing Statistics Program (CHSP), to address the major gaps in data on housing. In 2017, as part of the federal budget, StatsCan got extra funding to delve deeper into offshore buying, which is when the data got more interesting – and far more accurate. It meant that instead of interviewing building managers about the number of foreign owners in the buildings – an obviously problematic method – the CMHC had data from Canada Revenue Agency and the provincial land titles office to verify tax residency.

Perhaps the most surprising revelation is the rate of non-resident participation in the buying of newly built condos across the region.

“Of the housing units owned by non-residents, 55 per cent are condos,” says Jordan Nanowski, senior CMHC analyst and co-author of the report.

Where non-resident ownership is concerned, metro Vancouver overshadowed Toronto by a wide margin. And new builds were a particular draw. Non-resident owners played a part in 19.2 per cent of Vancouver condos built between 2016 and 2017. In other words, almost 20 per cent of condos built that year had at least one non-resident on title. In Toronto, meanwhile, the number falls to a mere 9 per cent.

Mr. Yan dug deeper into the CHSP data, and came up with more numbers. Non-residents have participated in the ownership of a shocking 14 per cent of all housing types built in the city of Vancouver in the past decade (as in, at least one person who owns the property is a non-resident). For metro Vancouver, that rate is 11.2 per cent. For the city of Toronto, the rate is 8 per cent; metro Toronto is 5.2 per cent.

In Coquitlam, B.C., 20.8 per cent of new condos had at least one non-resident on title. In Surrey, B.C., the figure is 20.5 per cent of condos in that time period. Burnaby, B.C., is at 25.1 per cent. Richmond, B.C., has the highest percentage of all, at a whopping 25.8 per cent, he says.

“In Richmond, condos built between 2016 to 2017, we’re talking about 26 per cent have non-resident participation. That’s one in four.”

The numbers are big in the broader housing market picture as well, with 7.8 per cent of all single detached houses built in metro Vancouver from 2006 to 2017 owned by at least one non-resident purchaser. For condos, the numbers jumps to 18 per cent of all condos built in that time period.

“This is something that people have denied for so long,” Mr. Yan says. “It measures a form of foreign ownership that many have denied was happening, and in proportions that few could imagined.”

Mr. Nanowski says that non-resident participation tended to increase when density increased and prices increased. Across all age groups, non-residents tended to own more expensive homes. But a number that stood out for him was the higher prices of detached homes owned by non-residents in the city of Vancouver. Detached homes in the city owned by non-residents were, on average, assessed at $1.1-million more than those owned by residents. In Toronto, the difference of a detached house owned by resident and non-resident was only $89,000.

“Big difference,” Mr. Nanowski said. “Yes, non-resident premiums are largest in Vancouver and the prevalences are largest in Vancouver as well.”

Using new methodology, the crown corporation has revealed that many properties have a mix of resident and non-resident ownership. They analyzed this mix in the category of “non-resident participation,” meaning at least one owner on title was a non-resident. Put another way, at least one person on title is a non-tax resident, which means they do not have a principal tax residence in Canada. They earn their income and pay their income taxes elsewhere. This is a key difference from the CMHC’s previous methodology, which was to define “non-resident” ownership as a property that was owned entirely by non-residents, or majority-owned by non-residents.

The definition of a “non-resident” is someone whose principal residence is outside of Canada, irrespective of their nationality.

Also, these rates do not include pre-sale purchases, or what units were not owner-occupied and held as investments. The study authors did not provide data on the source countries of origin for non-resident owners.

“The summary of all this is the globalization of Canadian residential real estate,” Mr. Yan said, “and what are you going to do or not do about it, on a federal, provincial and local policy basis? This is about transparency, taxation and fairness, and how we build housing and for who, in our communities.”

Mr. Nanowski says the previous data they used weren’t flawed, but useful for following trends. The new data is much more comprehensive, he says.

“When we look at this data, we want to compare it to itself only, as a kind of cross section and not compare it to previous data. Because there is a change in methodology,” he says.

Josh Gordon, assistant professor at the School of Public Policy at Simon Fraser University, says that the delay of such important data has likely been a setback. He points out that industry voices used the previously limited CMHC data to bolster their arguments that foreign buying was exaggerated. Prof. Gordon had questioned the CMHC’s reports at the time, and received some flak for it.

“Imagine in 2015 if we had a sense that non-resident buyers were buying 15 per cent or so of new condos. How would that have changed the nature of the debate? Would that not have indicated that there was an issue that needed addressing?,” Prof. Gordon asks.

“Those who wanted to push back against possible restrictions were able to use the ‘authority’ of the CMHC in the debate to good effect, and this delayed possible policy action. More accurate data would have helped build the case for policy restrictions, and that might have mitigated the sharp escalation of prices.”

Mr. Yan found it ironic that the report was released the same week as the City of Vancouver announced its annual homeless count was underway.

“Perversely, this week saw the release of measures on two drastically different ends of Vancouver’s housing situation. With the CMHC release, we see the numbers of homeowners who don’t live in the country, juxtaposed with Vancouver doing its homeless count of those who actually live here, but don’t have the benefit of a home.”

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UN Compact needs a substantive discussion, says ex-Harper aide

2019/03/26 2 Comments

Interesting the focus on the Global Compact but I understand that the panel’s discussion was more wide ranging. It is hard to argue against more discussion and debate over any issue, including the Global Compact (although I find the fears overblown).

However, the question arises whether a more open discussion of the Global Compact in the Citizenship and Immigration committee have assuaged fears over its actual and potential impact and altered some of the political posturing (virtue signalling) on both sides or not:

Canada needs to have a substantive policy debate about the UN Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, and how it will influence domestic law, said Rachel Curran, former Harper-era staffer, at a panel discussing Canada’s immigration policy.

Speaking at the Manning Networking Conference on Sunday, Ms. Curran recalled that, last year, when the Trudeau government announced it would sign the first-of-its-kind compact on migration, there was immediate backlash from the other side.

There’s been a lot of rhetoric, but not enough policy analysis, she said, attributing the lack of substantive debate prior to its adoption to the Trudeau government. “[It] does Canadians a real disservice,” Ms. Curran, who served as then-prime minister Stephen Harper’s director of policy, said in a post-panel interview.

When asked why the Conservative party itself hasn’t had the policy conversation, Ms. Curran said she doesn’t think political parties have the appropriate resources to do a detailed policy analysis.

“When a party is in opposition, in particular, its capacity to do policy work and policy analysis is eroded quite significantly,” she said.

She would like to see the Opposition Leader’s Office and the Conservative Party to do some more digging, but the primary responsibility lies with the government, she said, as it has more resources.

“The opposition party, its primary role is to oppose the government, right? They don’t have a policy shop, or a host of policy analysts or experts who are on call to answer those questions,” she said after the panel.

Ms. Curran spoke alongside Tim Uppal, a former Harper-era minister of state for democratic reform, and later multiculturalism, and Eric Duhaime, Quebec radio host and commentator. The panel, centred on a discussion about Canada’s immigration and refugee policies, including the arrival of irregular migrants and the contention that conservatives are anti-immigration, was moderated by Andrew Lawton, an unsuccessful Progressive Conservative candidate in last year’s Ontario elections. The annual Manning conference is organized by the Manning Centre, headed by former Reform Party leader Preston Manning, and brings together conservatives to discuss and debate political issues.

The rhetoric around the UN migration compact has deemed those opposed to it as racist, said Ms. Curran, and given that Conservatives won’t want to talk about “issues around racism for the entire campaign,” they probably won’t bring it up.

“But again, that does a real disservice to Canadians who want to know what’s in it,” she said.

In response to a question about how Canada should address the UN Global Compact, Ms. Curran said during the panel that the point of these international agreements is to influence international law, and eventually, domestic policy. Canada should figure out, for example, if it would have an impact on how it responds to the issue of irregular migrants from the U.S.

“There’s never been really, I think, a truly honest and detailed discussion about what’s in the compact and how it’s intended to influence our domestic law over time,” she said.

The compact is not a legally binding document and is grounded in state sovereignty, responsibility sharing, non-discrimination, and human rights. It aims to foster a collaborative approach among the 160 signatory nations in their response to the leveraging the benefits of migration and addressing the challenges. While Canada was among the 160 countries that signed the agreement in December, the U.S did not.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer (Regina-Qu’Appelle, Sask.) opposed the signing in December, saying it would give foreign entities influence over Canada’s migration system and would erode nations’ sovereignty. “We don’t need a global compact that binds Canada to provisions that are agreed to at the United Nations. We can do that already. … By signing onto this compact, our sovereignty to make those decisions ourselves will be eroded,” Mr. Scheer told reporters in December. Mr. Scheer’s statement on the issue drew criticism from Chris Alexander, an ex-Harper minister of immigration, who said that the compact is “not a legally binding treaty” and that has “no impact on our sovereignty.”

Some demonstrators in the United We Roll rally also expressed their opposition to the compact. Mr. Scheer netted further criticism for speaking at the rally, which was attended by Faith Goldy, a white supremacist and former Rebel Media personality.

Mr. Uppal agreed during the panel with Ms. Curran’s suggestion that it sets a direction, and added he’s happy that Mr. Scheer opposed its signing.

Mr. Duhaime, for his part, said during the panel that, Canada needs to close its borders in all places other than designated ports of entry.

“We cannot welcome people by asking them to break the law,” he said, adding the government should negotiate with Washington so that, no matter what, no one can cross at non-official points of entry.

All three panellists said they supported a fair, compassionate, and orderly migration system, suggesting that anti-immigrant rhetoric gains traction only when the file is mishandled by the government, but there is still strong support for immigration in Canada. Canada takes in about 300,000 immigrants annually, but the numbers are expected to rise to 340,000 by 2021.

Irregular migration issue also discussed

On the issue of irregular migration, the three panellists said the Liberal government has failed to get a handle on it.

Policy decisions by U.S. President Donald Trump have led refugee claimants in the U.S. to seek refugee status in Canada in fear that their claims will be denied. Under the Third Safety Country Agreement between Canada and the U.S., those who cross at official ports of entry in Canada from will be forced to turn back. That has led refugee claimants to cross the border at non-designated entry points, where they are apprehended by the RCMP, and are able to file their claims.

International refugee agreements mean the government must allow those on Canadian soil to make claims, regardless of how they got across the border.

Quebec and Manitoba, in particular, have had to contend with the arrival of refugee claimants more so than other provinces, according to numbers from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. In 2017, there were 20,593 RCMP interceptions that resulted in asylum claims. About 18,000 were in Quebec, while about 1,000 were in Manitoba. In 2018, that total number dropped to 19,419 claims, with roughly 18,500 in Quebec,  and some 400 in Manitoba.

So far this calendar year, the RCMP has intercepted 1,696 refugee claimants, with about 1,670 in Quebec and two in Manitoba.

The Liberals have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the issue since early 2017. Budget 2019 budget proposed another $1.18-billion over five years, with the aim of strengthening the border. Some $55-million for year after was proposed.

“In recent years, elevated numbers of asylum seekers, including those that have crossed into Canada irregularly, have challenged the fairness and effectiveness of Canada’s asylum system,” according to the budget.

Some $450-million of the money is earmarked for the Immigration Canada, while $382-million will go to Canada Border Services Agency, and $208-million is for the Immigration and Refugee Board, which reviews claims.s

Mr. Duhaime said the current backlog of claims is unsustainable and is “going nowhere,” and a new government should better secure the borders.

“It’s not fair for those people; it’s not fair for those who entered legally; and it’s not fair for taxpayers,” he said.

Refugee advocates have disputed the notion that there’s a queue for making a refugee claim.

Ms. Curran said that a new government should work with other countries to stop the flow in the first place, but also to work at speeding up the claims process. The hearings  can take years and are likely to be appealed.

People know how long the process takes and use it to their advantage, Ms. Curran said, so speeding up the process could create a disincentive for those trying to game the system.

Source: UN Compact needs a substantive discussion, says ex-Harper aide

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