Salvini shifts Italy’s security focus from mafia to immigration

2019/02/13 Leave a comment

The cost of diverting police and related resources:

Organised crime increasingly being forgotten in favour of anti-migrant efforts, say observers

In recent decades, the ruthless Casalesi clan of the Camorra mafia has earned billions of euros by burying more than 150,000 cubic metres of toxic waste in the countryside north of Naples.

So last Thursday night, when 90 carabinieri paramilitary police officers surrounded several apartment buildings in Caserta, the provincial capital, many residents thought an anti-mafia blitz was under way. The targets were in fact immigrants, under scrutiny for sanitary inspections of their homes.

It is part of a trend since Matteo Salvini of the far-right League became interior minister in June 2018. Senator Pietro Grasso, a member of the national anti-mafia commission and former prosecutor responsible for the 2006 arrest of the Sicilian mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano, said: “Unfortunately, the Italian government […] is prioritising immigration, making people believe it is an emergency, rather than fighting the real problems, such as the mafia. Meanwhile, the bosses are getting richer and richer.”

On Sunday, Salvini announced the interior ministry would review spending on police protection for men and women under threat from the mafia, declaring “some people have been under police escort for too long”.

In Catania, the eastern Sicilian stronghold of the powerful Santapaola clan, prosecutors are investigating NGO rescue boats, one of which was ordered to be seized in November after fears that discarded clothes worn by people arriving from Libya could have been contaminated with HIV.

In Riace, part of Reggio Calabria, from where the feared ‘Ndrangheta is thought to control much of Europe’s cocaine trade, Mimmo Lucano, an anti-mafia mayor who revitalised his community by welcoming asylum seekers, has been under investigation since October on suspicion of aiding illegal immigration. Lucano has had repeated death threats from mafiosi, who also poisoned two of his dogs.

In the past eight months, nearly 250 of Salvini’s tweets have addressed immigration, compared with 60 about organised crime.

Nicola Gratteri, one of Italy’s most respected anti-mafia prosecutors, said: “I’ve heard him [Salvini] talking about immigration a lot. Haven’t heard him talking about the mafia yet.” When Salvini has tweeted about organised crime, for example the arrests in December of 90 people in Europe and South America accused of links to the ‘Ndrangheta, it has often concerned investigations that began before his tenure.

Arrivals to Italy have decreased by more than 80% since their peak. Thousands of police officers have conducted searches and inspections, and hundreds of people have been forcibly removed from welcome centres. Many of them are now homeless.

The evictions followed the approval of the “Salvini decree”, which removed humanitarian protections for those not eligible for refugee status and suspended the asylum application process for individuals considered “socially dangerous”.

Claudio Fava, the head of Sicily’s anti-mafia commission, whose father was murdered by the mafia in 1984, said: “The new security decree is a mirror of Salvini’s propaganda.

“The law addresses almost exclusively immigration, but a security decree should also be concerned with the mafia, which is clearly not a priority for Salvini. The only element in the decree that mentions the mafia regards the seizure of property.”

The Salvini decree established that villas confiscated from mafiosi would be auctioned off publicly after a certain time. Experts have questioned this, citing the likelihood that properties could be purchased by citizens acting as stand-ins for mafia bosses.

It feels as though the Italian mafias no longer make headlines, but others do. The interior ministry has carried out a ferocious campaign against what Salvini has described as a worse menace – the mysterious Nigerian mafia. In recent months, magistrates have arrested numerous individuals within the Nigerian community on suspicion of belonging to mafia clans.

Many investigators point out the Nigerian clans are subordinate to the Italian mafias, but Salvini and his supporters have been swift in justifying anti-immigration policies in the face of what they describe as an “invasion” of alleged African mafia bosses, which has risked aggravating racial prejudice.

The linking of migrant communities and organised crime has echoes of the past in Italy. Between 1880 and 1915, 4 million Italians reached the US, a small minority of whom were tied to the mafia, the largest criminal organisation in the world.

Mario Del Pero, a professor of international history at Sciences Po, said: “The anti-Italian prejudice, or rather ‘Italophobia’, was very strong in the United States. Its origins ranged from widespread hostility against the Catholic church to labelling Italians as criminals. Restrictive laws passed in 1921 and 1924 were written precisely to keep Italians out.”

In Caserta, the parallels are not lost. Moses, 34, who is from Nigeria and had his home searched by police, said: “[It is] the same sort of prejudice that migrants are facing in Italy more than 100 years later. History repeats itself, in this country more than anywhere else.”

In recent decades, the ruthless Casalesi clan of the Camorra mafia has earned billions of euros by burying more than 150,000 cubic metres of toxic waste in the countryside north of Naples.

So last Thursday night, when 90 carabinieri paramilitary police officers surrounded several apartment buildings in Caserta, the provincial capital, many residents thought an anti-mafia blitz was under way. The targets were in fact immigrants, under scrutiny for sanitary inspections of their homes.

It is part of a trend since Matteo Salvini of the far-right League became interior minister in June 2018. Senator Pietro Grasso, a member of the national anti-mafia commission and former prosecutor responsible for the 2006 arrest of the Sicilian mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano, said: “Unfortunately, the Italian government […] is prioritising immigration, making people believe it is an emergency, rather than fighting the real problems, such as the mafia. Meanwhile, the bosses are getting richer and richer.”

Source: Salvini shifts Italy’s security focus from mafia to immigration

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Hungary gives tax breaks to boost population, stop immigration

2019/02/12 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to see if this tax incentive results in a significant shift or not, or is this just more “virtue signalling” to his populist base:

Hungary’s anti-immigration prime minister announced on Sunday that the government would offer financial aid and subsidies for families to boost the birth rate.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in his annual State of the Nation speech that the policy was “Hungary’s answer” to population decline, “not immigration.”

“There are fewer and fewer children born in Europe. For the West, the answer (to that challenge) is immigration. For every missing child there should be one coming in and then the numbers will be fine,” he said.

“But we do not need numbers. We need Hungarian children,” he added.

In 2016, Hungary’s birth rate was 1.45 births per women, below the 2.1 replacement rate.

Loans, subsidies, no income tax

The seven-point program includes a loan of 10 million Forint (€31,352/$35,540) to women under 40 who marry for the first time. A third of the loan would be waived after a second child and the entire sum waived after a third child.

Another plank of the program would absolve any woman who has four or more children from paying income tax for life.

The new measures would also provide housing subsidies to families depending on the number of children they have and state support for the purchase of any seven-seat vehicle.

Orban slams EU

Orban also took aim at the European Union ahead of European Parliament elections in May and his nemesis, Hungarian-born American billionaire George Soros.

Read more: EU Parliament votes to trigger Article 7 sanctions procedure against Hungary 

“Brussels is the stronghold of new internationalism, its tool is migration,” he said.

Source: Hungary gives tax breaks to boost population, stop immigration

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Legault’s immigration bill would test newcomers on French, Quebec values

2019/02/11 Leave a comment

Good overview. On the cancellation of the 18,000 applications, the Conservatives under Jason Kenney cancelled some 300,000 applications for similar reasons in 2012 (Backlog wipeout will close thousands of immigration applications). Similarly, the shift towards greater matching of employer needs to immigrants in similar in intent to the federal express entry system.

The federal government has responded negatively to the changes in Bill 9 as it has with respect to the demand for Quebec to assume responsibility for federal tax return processing).

The values test will likely be challenged in the courts, as will restrictions on mobility rights.

And of course, it would be nice, but a dream, for the block grant to Quebec for immigration and settlement from the federal government would be tied to the number of immigrants coming to Quebec, rather than the total number of immigrants to Canada (not going to happen):

Premier François Legault said Thursday his government’s new immigration bill, calling for tests on the knowledge of French and Quebec values for newcomers respects his election promise.

“We said we would do it and we are doing it,” Legault said after Bill 9 was adopted on first reading in the Quebec National Assembly.

While immigration to Canada is federal jurisdiction, Quebec and Manitoba have agreements with Ottawa giving the provinces a say in the selection of immigrants.

Quebec now has a waiting list of over 18,000 immigration applications, which would take three years to process, Immigration Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette said.

Bill 9 would cancel all those applications, offering applicants a refund of the fees, averaging $1,000 each, that they have already paid and offering them a chance to reapply to immigrate to Quebec under the new rules.

The cost of the refunds is about $19 million, the minister said.

Liberal immigration critic Dominique Anglade said scrapping 18,000 applications, affecting 50,000 family members, was “very inhuman” and would hurt Quebec’s international image.

The new rules call for matching employers to prospective immigrants, and in particular streaming newcomers to jobs in Quebec’s outlying regions, which are feeling the impact of a labour shortage.

Jolin-Barrette said in replacing Quebec’s first-come, first-served immigration policy with a policy aimed at filling existing jobs in the province, the selection process would be reduced to six months.

But the minister did admit that once an immigrant has permanent resident status, granted by the federal government, they have the right to work anywhere in Canada.

Jolin-Barrette said French tests for prospective immigrants is a power Quebec used to have until 2016 amendments to the federal and Quebec immigration laws.

Ottawa will have to change its law as well, he said, adding that he has not yet spoken to his federal counterparts about such a change.

But federal Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc understands that Quebec is distinct and that Quebec has a say in immigrant selection, he said.

Jolin-Barrette was vague when asked what would happen to prospective immigrants who failed the French and values tests, saying regulations on how they would be evaluated would be presented after Bill 9 becomes law.

The minister promised immigrants to Quebec would be offered a “personal pathway,” teaching them French and Quebec values.

Parti Québécois immigration critic Catherine Fournier noted that Quebec’s existing measures to teach French to immigrants are inadequate, with only one-third of newcomers signing up for French courses and a 90 per cent failure rate.

“We have to improve the program,” Fournier said. “It won’t happen by magic overnight.”

Assembly committee hearings will be held before final adoption of the Bill 9, titled a “Law aiming to increase socio-economic prosperity of Quebec and to respond adequately to the needs of the labour market through the successful integration of immigrants.”

“We are giving ourselves the means to choose immigrants who respond to the needs of the labour market,” Legault told reporters.

“There are some who have been here for 10 years who are not interested (in learning French),” he added.

The premier said newcomers would be offered free French courses and would be required to pass a French language test.

Bill 9 calls for “favouring the integration of immigrants” through “learning French, democratic values and the Quebec values as expressed by the Charter of Rights and liberties of the person.”

Legault said Quebec values include the equality of women and men.

Quebec’s charter of rights also upholds fundamental rights, including freedom of religion, and has been interpreted by the courts as allowing believers to wear religious signs, such as the Islamic hijab and the Sikh kirpan.

Questioned by reporters, Jolin-Barrette said his bill is to set out new rules for immigrants and is not related to the Legault government’s plan to adopt another law to ban the wearing of religious signs by judges, prosecutors, law enforcement officers and teachers.

That law is planned for the current assembly session.

Québec solidaire immigration critic Andrés Fontecilla said Quebec must compete with other jurisdictions for immigrants and adding new hurdles would discourage newcomers from coming to the province.

“It will mean living in permanent uncertainty,” Fontecilla said and will not achieve the goal of attracting qualified workers.

Source: Legault’s immigration bill would test newcomers on French, Quebec values

On the federal government’s refusal to these changes:

Moins de 24 heures après avoir déposé sa réforme tant attendue sur l’immigration, Québec se fait fermer la porte à doubles tours par Ottawa quant à sa demande de retrouver le pouvoir d’imposer des conditions au statut de résidence permanente émis aux immigrants.

La réponse du gouvernement Trudeau a été rendue rapidement, dès jeudi soir, aux cabinets du premier ministre François Legault et du ministre Simon Jolin-Barrette. C’est « non », a pu confirmer La Pressevendredi matin.

« Les compétences en matière d’immigration sont clairement définies dans l’Accord Canada-Québec et nous respecterons toujours celles-ci. Plus d’analyses sur le projet de loi 9 est nécessaire, mais de prime abord, nous ne sommes pas favorables à la réintroduction de la résidence permanente conditionnelle », a finalement déclaré par courriel plus tard en journée le ministre fédéral des Affaires intergouvernementales, Dominic LeBlanc.

Un premier pas vers un test des valeurs 

Jeudi, à l’Assemblée nationale, le ministre de l’Immigration du gouvernement Legault, Simon Jolin-Barrette, critiquait sévèrement le gouvernement libéral de Philippe Couillard pour avoir enlevé une disposition qui permettait autrefois au Québec de dicter des conditions à l’octroi par Ottawa de la résidence permanente aux nouveaux arrivants.

Dans son projet de loi, déposé jeudi, M. Jolin-Barrette décrète désormais que « lorsque le ministre sélectionne un ressortissant étranger, il peut lui imposer des conditions qui affectent la résidence permanente conférée en vertu de la Loi sur l’immigration [fédérale] afin d’assurer, notamment […] la satisfaction des besoins régionaux ou sectoriels de main-d’oeuvre […] ou l’intégration linguistique, sociale ou économique du ressortissant étranger ».

Ces « conditions » pourraient notamment viser les connaissances du français et des valeurs québécoises, testées à l’aide d’un examen, ou bien déterminer les régions où les immigrants s’établissent. Or, pour ce faire, le gouvernement fédéral de Justin Trudeau devait modifier les règlements de sa propre loi sur l’immigration pour donner à Québec ce pouvoir.

À Québec, on s’étonnait vendredi du refus d’Ottawa de redonner au gouvernement provincial ce pouvoir qui était inclus, dit-on, dans l’accord historique négocié entre les deux paliers de gouvernement pour faire de l’immigration une compétence partagée.

Alors que se tiendront des élections sur la scène fédérale plus tard cette année, le gouvernement Trudeau devra expliquer aux Québécois pourquoi il ne leur permet pas d’évaluer les connaissances des valeurs et du français aux immigrants qui s’établissent au Québec, affirme-t-on vendredi à Québec.

Entre-temps, les équipes des deux ministères de l’Immigration – tant du côté d’Ottawa que du côté de Québec – poursuivront ces prochaines semaines des discussions afin de trouver « des pistes d’atterrissage » concernant les autres demandes du gouvernement Legault, notamment en matière des seuils d’immigration.

L’opposition réagit 

Les partis d’opposition à Québec ont réagi vendredi au refus d’Ottawa d’octroyer à Québec le pouvoir d’établir des conditions à l’octroi du statut de résident permanent pour les immigrants s’installant sur son territoire.

« Deux NON retentissants du gouvernement canadien en à peine quelques jours : pouvoirs en immigration et rapport d’impôt unique. On propose au gouvernement de la CAQ un projet emballant qui mettra fin à ces refus : l’indépendance du Québec », a écrit sur Twitter la députée péquiste Véronique Hivon.

« Québec solidaire veut tous les pouvoirs au Québec en immigration comme dans tous les domaines. Si le Québec détenait tous ses leviers en immigration on ne serait pas là à tergiverser sur les dissensions Québec/Ottawa, on parlerait du sujet de fond », a pour sa part déclaré par voie de courriel Andrès Fontecilla, député solidaire de Laurier-Dorion.

Source: Réforme sur l’immigration: Ottawa dit non à Québec

And Robert Dutrisac in Le Devoir:

Le ministre de l’Immigration, de la Diversité et de l’Inclusion, Simon Jolin-Barrette, a présenté le projet de loi no 9 qui établit le cadre légal d’une réforme majeure du système québécois d’immigration. Une telle réforme est nécessaire pour mettre fin au laxisme qui a caractérisé le règne libéral en matière de francisation, d’intégration et de pénurie de main-d’oeuvre. Mais soucieux de procéder rapidement, le gouvernement Legault annule cavalièrement les 18 000 dossiers en attente qui touchent plus de 45 000 personnes.

Les candidats se verront rembourser les frais engagés pour constituer leur dossier, soit environ 1000 $ chacun, ou 19 millions. C’est bien la moindre des choses. Or, il y a moins de dix jours, François Legault donnait l’assurance que ces dossiers accumulés seraient « traités selon les anciennes règles ».

Il faut croire que le premier ministre parlait à travers son chapeau. D’une part, à la cadence avec laquelle les dossiers sont traités par les fonctionnaires du MIDI, il aurait fallu trois ans pour en venir à bout. D’autre part, les dossiers les plus anciens, mais non pas ceux qui correspondent le mieux aux besoins actuels en main-d’oeuvre, auraient dû être acceptés en priorité. Enfin, avec une limite à 24 000 du nombre d’immigrants admis en 2019 dans la catégorie visée, soit celle des travailleurs qualifiés — c’est 7000 de moins que l’année précédente —, le Québec ne pouvait tout simplement pas accueillir tout ce monde. C’est d’autant plus vrai que la moitié des immigrants qui seront admis cette année sont déjà au Québec, occupent des emplois et viendront du Programme d’expérience québécoise (PEQ). Bref, sans l’élimination des dossiers, il aurait été impossible, avant plusieurs années, de remplacer notre système d’immigration déficient par une procédure de déclarations d’intérêt sans liste d’attente, une réforme aussi essentielle que pressante, préparée, d’ailleurs, par le gouvernement libéral.

Il n’en demeure pas moins que la brutale annulation des dossiers contrevient à l’équité dont l’administration publique québécoise doit faire preuve. Déjà des avocats spécialisés en immigration fourbissent leurs armes en vue d’une contestation.

En outre, il y a sans doute dans cet inventaire des candidatures très valables que le ministre doit identifier et auxquelles il a le devoir d’accorder la priorité en vertu des nouvelles règles. 

Par ailleurs, le projet de loi no 9 répond aux constats accablants que la vérificatrice générale, Guylaine Leclerc, avait faits, en 2017, sur le dysfonctionnement du programme de francisation administré par le MIDI et les lacunes en matière d’intégration des immigrants. Ainsi, les nouveaux arrivants auront droit à de nouveaux programmes d’accueil et à des parcours personnalisés. Pour la première fois, le MIDI assurera un suivi de leur apprentissage du français et de leur intégration au marché du travail.

Enfin, Simon Jolin-Barrette a sorti de son chapeau un article de la Loi de l’immigration de 1993, abrogé par le gouvernement Couillard, qui lui permet d’imposer des conditions affectant le statut de résident permanent octroyé par le gouvernement fédéral. Dès son arrivée, l’immigrant obtient son certificat de sélection du Québec qui donne droit au statut de résident permanent, comme le prévoit la procédure actuelle. Mais, en vertu de cet article, le ministre peut lui imposer des obligations qui, si elles ne sont pas respectées, peuvent entraîner la perte de ce statut, c’est-à-dire sa caducité — le ministre a employé le terme juridique de « résolution » du statut.

Évidemment, pour obtenir le droit d’imposer des conditions aux immigrants — apprentissage du français, connaissance de la Charte québécoise des droits et libertés, obligation de s’installer dans une région donnée —, le gouvernement Legault a besoin de l’aval d’Ottawa. Mais il ne s’agit plus d’une modification à la loi fédérale mais seulement d’un changement réglementaire, a expliqué le ministre.

À l’heure actuelle, les nouveaux arrivants manquent de soutien mais font ce qu’ils veulent. Or le gouvernement Legault veut favoriser leur francisation et leur intégration en emploi ainsi que pallier les pénuries de main-d’oeuvre en région. Mais cela passe par un encadrement contraignant et inédit des nouveaux arrivants.

Le gouvernement fédéral comprend que le Québec est une société distincte, a avancé Simon Jolin-Barrette, non sans manifester un candide optimisme. Il est donc légitime que son État obtienne des pouvoirs qui s’inscrivent dans le prolongement de ses responsabilités de sélection des immigrants. La balle est maintenant dans le camp du gouvernement Trudeau, qui doit répondre favorablement aux revendications du Québec.

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Ottawa begins fast-tracking asylum claims from selected countries

2019/02/05 Leave a comment

While there are risks involved, there does appear to have been careful consideration in terms of the groups and circumstances subject to fast-tracking. And given the backlog and numbers, some form of triage is necessary to separate out more straightforward cases from more complex:

Overwhelmed by asylum claims from irregular migrants crossing the U.S. border, the Immigration and Refugee Board is fast-tracking “less complex” cases from selected countries.

On Tuesday, refugee judges began assessing claims under what is known as a file-review process — meaning a decision is made based on submissions from claimants — without a hearing — and a short-hearing process, where there are few disputable issues.

“These new instructions are examples of initiatives recently put in place to slow the growth of the inventory and wait times for claimants,” refugee board chairman Richard Wex told the Star. “By matching our efforts with the complexity of each claim, we are using our resources more effectively, which will result in more refugee claim decisions.”

The latest statistics show the board has more than 73,000 outstanding claims and the wait time for a hearing now hovers at around 24 months. Many of the claims are from asylum seekers who came through the U.S.-Canada border since late 2015 after U.S. President Donald Trump came into the office with a mandate to crack down on illegal migrants.

In December, the board started triaging the claims based on two newly created lists of countries and claims. In total, 25 refugee judges have been assigned to the new effort.

To qualify for the file-review process, a claimant must be from one of 14 countries: Afghanistan, Burundi, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, Venezuela and Yemen.

However, not every claim from these countries will be automatically expedited.

For instance, only those Saudi Arabian claims alleging persecution based on gender or religious sect can be assessed without a hearing. For asylum seekers from Libya, claims must involve corruption, extortion, kidnapping or threat of kidnapping by militias.

Only some claims from 11 countries are recommended for short hearings: sexual orientation persecution in the Bahamas, Barbados, Iran, Russia, Rwanda and Venezuela; fleeing criminality and corruption in Nigeria, Peru, Saint Vincent and St. Lucia; and threats in Djibouti due to one’s political opinion and activism.

According to the refugee board, these countries and claims were selected for faster processing because they have an acceptance rate of 80 per cent or higher and the type of risks the asylum seekers face are generally well documented.

Officials said a failed claimant under the file-review process is entitled to a full hearing by a refugee judge.

Source: Ottawa begins fast-tracking asylum claims from selected countriesThe Immigration and Refugee Board now fast-tracks “less complex” asylum claims by reviewing evidence without a full hearing as backlog climbs to 74,000 cases with wait times of up to 24 months.

In contrast to the neutral reporting, a typical example of over the top conservative commentary rather than a measured discussion of the risks involved.

The Conservatives also introduced streamlined and tighter processes under the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and the Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act with mixed success (Former Tory government’s refugee reforms get failing grade | The Star:

The Trudeau government is fast-tracking the approval process for asylum claimants coming from the world’s most violent and dangerous societies.

As I first reported in April 2017, the government was looking at ways to rubber stamp claimants to address the massive backlog of asylum applications that has accumulated in recent years.

This week, they finally rolled out their new controversial process.

Under the new system, individuals from select countries will be accepted as refugees without ever having to present their case in person or appear before an Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) judge.

Instead, they’ll be waved through based on what they call a “file review” — a paper application often filled out by a trained immigration lawyer or consultant.

The government justifies these changes by saying the new rules only affect “less complex” cases — in essence, cases dealing with people coming from refugee-producing countries.

The problem is that refugee-producing countries can also be terrorist-producing countries.

According to a notice posted by the IRB, the new rubber stamp program will apply to “all claims” from Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Burundi and Eritrea.

Other countries whose citizens are now eligible for fast-tracked acceptance into Canada include Iran, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Venezuela, Turkey and Egypt.

These changes come just weeks after we learned that a person considered a “national security concern” was admitted to Canada and granted permanent residency.

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said this was “entirely unacceptable” and the CBSA president said it was the result of “a series of failures.”

Skipping IRB interviews will only make Canada more vulnerable.

The new fast-tracked system was designed to address the backlog of over 64,000 applications that has grown alongside the dramatic spike in asylum applications and the ongoing crisis of illegal border crossers circumventing Canada’s immigration and border laws.

In 2017, 50,390 migrants entered Canada legally and illegally to make refugee claims. That number jumped to 55,695 last year.

The Trudeau government has done little to stop the record surge in asylum claimants. In fact, there’s ample evidence that the feds are helping to facilitate illegal border crossers.

Just look at Roxham Road — home to 95% of all illegal crossings.

The feds built a land-bridge to make it easier for migrants to enter Canada illegally. They set up a makeshift border station to start processing asylum claims, and they began to offer shuttle bus services to bring migrants to Montreal and Toronto — where they’re given access to government-funded housing, healthcare and other taxpayer-funded services.

The Trudeau government has repeatedly created incentives and encouraged people to come to Canada to make asylum claims. And now, to deal with the backlog that they themselves created, they’re waving through asylum claimants from violent, dangerous and unstable parts of the world.

Rather than carefully and methodically reviewing cases presented by asylum claimants, the government is now skipping important steps and rushing through the process.

But without so much as a short interview with an immigration judge, how can we be sure that the individuals are fleeing violence and are not part of the violence?

The Trudeau government haphazardly opened our borders and invited the world’s migrants to come to Canada. Now, the government is quietly chipping away at the safeguards that were designed to keep Canadians safe.

Source: MALCOLM: Feds roll out fast-tracking for asylum claimants from dangerous countries

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with , ,

Maybe We Should Build A Wall To Keep Immigrants In

2019/02/05 Leave a comment

Nice reverse argument, with some numbers to back it up:

In the midst of overheated debates about immigration and an ugly upsurge in nativism, it’s worth reminding ourselves that entrepreneurial immigrants make an outsized contribution to new business creation. And new and young companies are the primary source of job creation in the American economy.

The contributions of entrepreneurial immigrants have been well documented:

  • Immigrants are twice as likely to become entrepreneurs as native-born Americans.
  • As of 2016, first generation immigrant entrepreneurs represented 30% of all new entrepreneurs in 2016, up substantially from 13% in 1996.
  • Forty-three percent of founders of the 2017 Fortune 500 are immigrants or the children of immigrants.
  • Immigrants constitute 15% of the general U.S. workforce, but they account for around a quarter of U.S. entrepreneurs (defined as the top three initial earners in a new business) and account for a about a quarter of U.S. inventors.
  • Immigrants account for more than 90% of the growth in self-employment since 2000, with particularly significant contributions since the Great Recession.
  • Firms founded by immigrants close at a faster rate than firms founded by natives, but those that survive grow at a faster rate in terms of employment, payroll, and establishments, a phenomenon called “up or out,” which is how young firms create more jobs.
  • Half of America’s startup companies valued at $1 billion or more (as of January 1, 2016) were started by immigrants.

Despite those contributions, our inadequate HB-1 visa system coupled with anti-immigration rhetoric and attempts to further limit legal immigration are driving many foreign students to return home when they’ve completed their education, driven away many other skilled immigrants who have tired of the interminable and uncertain wait for a green card and discouraged talented people abroad to seek more hospitable countries like Canada.

But the real flashpoint in the immigration debate has been around Latin American immigrants, fueled by baseless claims of an “invasion” on our southern border. (From the end of the Great Recession, more Mexican immigrants returned to Mexico from the U.S. than migrated here, according to a 2015 Pew Research Center study.) Meanwhile, Hispanics have made significant contributions to the entrepreneurial economy:

  • The five areas with the highest startup activity in the 2017 Kauffman Startup Activity Index were, in order, the metropolitan areas centered on the cities of Miami, Austin, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Las Vegas—all cities with heavy concentrations of Latinos.
  • Among minority ethnic and racial groups, Latinos have the highest rate of new entrepreneurs.
  • The Latino share of all new entrepreneurs rose from 10% in 1996 to 24% in 2016.

Far from the hothouse of Silicon Valley and its venture capital-backed startups, the vast majority of Latino entrepreneurs, like 99% of all entrepreneurs, are what I call bedrock entrepreneurs. Typically, they start modest businesses (sometimes with themselves as the only employee), largely fund those businesses out of their own pockets and the pockets of their family and friends. They start small; they try to minimize losses and avoid failure, and methodically grow their businesses over the long haul.

Although there are no definitive studies, many observers ascribe higher rates of entrepreneurship among immigrants to personal characteristics like a willingness to take risks (as they did when they moved to an unfamiliar country), a strong sense of identity and intrinsic motivation. Many Latino immigrants, facing discrimination and lacking good English skills, have little choice but to be entrepreneurial. As a result, they are likely to perceive opportunities that other people miss, possess an ability to persist through the myriad difficulties of entrepreneurship and draw on deep reserves of motivation to succeed.

In addition, as politicians debate the ultimate fate of people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, they might want to remember this: Immigrants that came to the U.S. as children are more likely to start larger firms than immigrants who arrived as adults and have lower closure rates. Moreover, a 2017 survey conducted by the Center for American Progress found that among the DREAMers under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) some 5% of respondents started their own business after receiving DACA. Among respondents 25 years and older, that figure rises to 8%. Meanwhile, among the American public as a whole the rate of starting a business is only about 3.1%. According to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which represents the interests of more than 4.37 million Hispanic-owned businesses, if both the DREAMers and recipients of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) were forced to leave the United States, the U.S. economy would experience a $597 billion reduction in gross domestic product (GDP) over the next decade.

With entrepreneurship in long-term decline, we need all the entrepreneurs we can get. Thirty years ago, about 800,000 new companies in the US were being formed per year, and in some years there have been as many as 13 million people aspiring to start their own businesses. Today only about 600,000 businesses are being formed per year and the number of aspiring entrepreneurs has dropped to about 10 million. Immigrants, with their strong propensity for new business creation, can help reverse that decline, create jobs, help lift our economy and contribute to the general well-being of the country—but not if we drive them away.

Source: Maybe We Should Build A Wall To Keep Immigrants In

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Is there a better way to reunite families? Thousands left in lurch by chaotic immigration application process

2019/02/02 Leave a comment

Good balanced discussion regarding the challenges of devising a system that pleases everyone – or displeases everyone equally:

The chaos around a new application process to bring parents and grandparents to Canada has left advocates and would-be applicants wondering if there is a better — and more fair — way to reunite families.

The immigration department’s new first-come-first-serve online application process launched Monday saw 27,000 “expression of interest” spots snapped up in mere minutes, leaving tens of thousands of other potential sponsors frustrated and angry at being shut out.

“Whatever system we have, there’s always the question of fairness,” said Surrey, B.C., lawyer Marina Sedai, chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s immigration division. “No one can come up with a perfect solution that satisfies the needs of all Canadians.”

For decades, any Canadian citizen or permanent resident interested in sponsoring parents and grandparents could apply in an “all-in” system where they simply waited for their turn, based on the order applications were received. However, due to overwhelming interest and limited resources, the backlog had grown to 165,000 people and applicants had to wait for up to eight years for their relatives to arrive.

In 2011, the then-Conservative government suspended new applications for two years before reopening the process and, in 2014, imposing a cap of 5,000, to be accepted on a first-come-first-serve basis. Paper-based applications had to be sent by mail or registered courier to a single government processing centre in Mississauga and were assessed in order of their time stamp. Applicants complained that this forced them to spend large amounts of money on couriers each year in an attempt to make it into the top 5,000 spots.

In 2016, the Liberals raised the annual quota to 10,000. And in January 2017, Ottawa introduced the lottery process. Sponsors were asked to submit an expression of interest form, and from that pool, people were randomly selected to continue with the application process. That year, some 95,000 would-be sponsors vied for the 10,000 spots; only 6,020 applications were completed because some were deemed ineligible, others never completed the process, and multiple entries by the same applicants were discarded.

This year, applicants had to compete to fill out a 10-page interest-to-sponsor digital form and only the first 27,000 submissions were accepted. Based on the time of receipt, the first 20,000 eligible ones will be invited to submit a formal application for sponsorship.

A spokesperson for Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said more than 100,000 people attempted to access the digital form when it went live online at noon on Monday but “no technical issues” were reported. In less than seven minutes, the quota of 27,000 was reached. Failed applicants took their frustration and anger to social media, blasting the government’s efforts.

Toronto immigration lawyer Clifford McCarten said people were unhappy with the old lottery system because they didn’t want to be subjected to a random process where they could miss out repeatedly and be separated from their family perpetually. “People want predictability,” he said.

McCarten offered three alternatives as possible solutions:

  • Taking in everybody and pre-screening them for eligibility before sponsors could bid for a place in the lottery;
  • A hybrid system where equal spots would be allotted for a lottery, for first-come-first-serve, and for humanitarian screening based on personal circumstances and factors such as the number of previous failed attempts;
  • A point system similar to one used to rank skilled immigrant applicants on personal attributes to decide which parents and grandparents were more deserving to come here.

Heather Otto, one of the would-be sponsors left in the lurch on Monday, said the good thing about the lottery was that everyone had an equal chance.

“They said it’s first-come-first-serve, but I was excluded right off the bat on Monday,” said the Toronto computer programmer, who would like to sponsor her parents here from South Africa. “I had everything ready by noon and started refreshing my computer every few seconds. By the time I saw the (apply) button at 12:08 p.m., it said the program had already closed.”

Otto said she wasn’t sure how a point system could work for parents and grandparents, but everyone interested in getting in the pool should be asked to pay the $1,040 fee ($75 for sponsorship, $475 for processing and $490 for the right of permanent residence) upfront so only serious applicants would get a chance.

Natalya Sakhno, another disappointed sponsor, said she preferred the lottery system to the mad-rush chaos on Monday, which ended up being a race of who had the fastest keystrokes and internet speed.

“Every system has its positives and negatives,” said the Toronto human resources professional, who wants to bring her father here from Ukraine. “It’s a gamble.”

Another failed applicant, Behnam Esfahanizadeh, said a real first-come-first-serve system is when the process is open to all and everyone waits in order.

“They just have to get the applications in line and let everyone wait for their turn,” said the Toronto IT consultant, who has made three unsuccessful attempts to bring his wife’s parents here from Slovakia.

Sedai said the debate over the “fairness” issue is bound to continue unless Ottawa is ready to raise the annual admission quota for parents and grandparents and deploy more resources to process applications.

Source: Is there a better way to reunite families? Thousands left in lurch by chaotic immigration application process

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Majority of Americans continue to say immigrants strengthen the U.S.

2019/02/01 Leave a comment

More data from Pew, confirming the highly partisan nature of views:

The American public’s views of the impact immigrants have on the country remain largely positive – and deeply partisan.

Partisan gap in views of immigrants as wide as at any point in at least 25 yearsAs in recent years, a majority (62%) say immigrants strengthen the country because of their hard work and talents. Just 28% say immigrants are a burden on the country because they take jobs, housing and health care, according to a new survey by Pew Research Center.

These attitudes have changed little in the past few years, but they are very different from a quarter-century ago. In 1994, attitudes were nearly the reverse of what they are today: 63% of Americans said immigrants burdened the country and 31% said they strengthened it.

An estimated 45.1 million immigrants were living in the U.S. in 2016, accounting for 13.9% of the nation’s population. Most (76%) are in the country legally.

Republicans and Democrats have never been further apart in their views of immigrants than they are currently. Democrats and those who lean to the Democratic Party overwhelmingly say immigrants are a strength to the nation (83% say this); just 11% say immigrants burden the United States. Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 38% say immigrants strengthen the country, while nearly half (49%) say they burden it.

Generational differences in views of immigrantsThere also are sizable generational differences in opinions about immigrants. Three-quarters of Millennials (75%) say immigrants strengthen rather than burden the U.S. That compares with 63% of Gen Xers, 52% of Baby Boomers and 44% in the Silent Generation. In 1994, roughly comparable shares of Gen Xers, Boomers and Silents expressed positive views of immigrants.

Generational differences are evident in both parties but are particularly stark among Republicans. More than half of Millennial Republicans (58%) say immigrants strengthen the country, compared with just 36% of Gen Xer Republicans and even smaller shares among older GOP generations. Among Democrats, there are only modest generational differences in these views, with no fewer than seven-in-ten of those in all generations saying this, including nearly nine-in-ten Millennial (88%) and Gen Xer (87%) Democrats.

Note: See full topline results and methodology. 

Source: Majority of Americans continue to say immigrants strengthen the U.S.

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MALCOLM: It’s time to rethink Canada’s family reunification system

2019/01/31 Leave a comment

The simple answer is that significant numbers of immigrants want to bring their parents and grandparents to Canada to be with them and assist with childcare, and that their votes matter in a significant number of ridings.

So apart from her over the top rhetoric, the economic concerns are valid but neglect the humanitarian aspects of the policy. The “super visa” was and is a creative way to address the demand but one that appears not to satisfy the demand.

As Malcolm notes, all major parties support this program and the two major parties also support annual levels of around 20,000. We will see if Bernier’s party includes a specific reference in its proposed immigration policies:

Why do we allow elderly immigrants to come to Canada as permanent residents?

Why do we have a special immigration program — the “parents and grandparents” category — geared entirely towards relocating retirees to Canada, putting them on citizenship track and, eventually, giving them full access to our government-funded universal health care system?

Are we insane? No other advanced economy has a program that is anything like this.

The parents and grandparents program made the news this week — not because of the sheer ridiculousness of admitting elderly immigrants as permanent residents, but because many immigration lawyers complained to the media that the 2019 program filled up too quickly and many foreigners didn’t have a chance to apply.

It’s programs like this that show the extent to which Canada’s immigration system is broken.

Canada already has a visitor visa program dedicated to family reunification and welcoming parents and grandparents — as visitors.

The “super visa” has no annual cap, no backlog and no waitlist.

It allows relatives to stay in Canada for up to two years at a time, and the visa is good for ten years. Frankly, it’s more generous than comparable programs in other Western countries.

The super visa offers the best of both worlds. It shows Canada’s openness by allowing extended family units to stay together and for the older generation to offer a helping hand in immigrant households.

But it also provides a protection for Canadians and our taxpayer-funded social welfare programs. The super visa requires visiting seniors to purchase health insurance — a basic requirement for any world travel and something most immigrants are more than happy to do.

Nonetheless, Canada maintains a bizarre parallel program that admits a lucky 20,000 elderly immigrants each year as permanent residents.

Canada has a broad immigration program for two specific reasons: one, to help boost the economy, and two, to offset declining birth rates.

But bringing in elderly immigrants directly contradicts the stated purpose behind our immigration system.

It creates an added burden on our social welfare programs from people who never meaningfully contributed to the tax base, yet will eventually displace Canadians — folks who worked their entire adult lives to fund universal health care through their taxes — in doctors offices and emergency waiting rooms across the country.

Both major parties maintain this reckless program because most Canadians don’t notice it and the ones who do — immigrants from select communities who practice vote-bank politics — vocally demand it.

Unlike Canada, most Western democracies have built safeguards into their immigration system. They have strict rules when it comes to granting citizenship, designed to protect the country’s finances and prevent free-riders from manipulating the system.

Canada has no such qualms. When it comes to welcoming elderly immigrants as citizens, we don’t even ask that they learn a little bit of English or French — enough to communicate in an emergency or spark a friendship with a neighbour.

Instead, it’s all about entitlements and handouts.

Canada has long enjoyed something of a national consensus on immigration. Canadians, by and large, recognize the economic benefits of growing our population and welcoming like-minded people from around the world who will work hard, play by the rules, join the Canadian family and contribute to our country.

But when both major parties condone a program that so blatantly contradicts basic principles of both fairness and economics, it leaves many Canadians feeling resentful towards the immigration system as a whole.

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Immigrant share in U.S. nears record high but remains below that of many other countries

2019/01/31 Leave a comment

Good recap of comparative statistics:

Nearly 14% of the U.S. population was born in another country, numbering more than 44 million people in 2017, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.

Immigrant share of U.S. population approaches historic highThis was the highest share of foreign-born people in the United States since 1910, when immigrants accounted for 14.7% of the American population. The record share was 14.8% in 1890, when 9.2 million immigrants lived in the United States.

The foreign-born population in the U.S. grew substantially during the late 1800s, when immigration from Europe and elsewhere brought millions of new residents to the nation’s shores. In the 1920s, the U.S. adopted a series of more restrictive immigration laws, eventually leading to the establishment of a national-origin quota system in 1924 and a subsequent decline in the foreign-born share of the nation’s population. That immigration system was not changed until 1965, when the Immigration and Nationality Act created the same overarching immigration laws that the U.S. still uses today. Since 1965, at least 59 million immigrants have come to the United States.

Immigrant share in U.S. is lower than in many other countriesEven though the U.S. has more immigrants than any other country, the foreign-born share of its population is far from the highest in the world. In 2017, 25 countries and territories had higher shares of foreign-born people than the U.S., according to United Nations data.

In 2017, large majorities of populations in some Persian Gulf nations, such as the United Arab Emirates (88%) and Kuwait (76%), were born in other countries. (Most foreign-born persons living in Persian Gulf nations are labor migrants and live in the region temporarily.)

Foreign-born people also accounted for a substantial share of the population in Australia (29%), New Zealand (23%) and Canada (21%), as well as in several European countries, such as Switzerland (30%), Austria (19%) and Sweden (18%).

Explore detailed tables on the number and share of immigrants and emigrants by country.

The share of foreign-born people has changed over time in many nations, just as it has in the U.S. Several European countries, as well as other immigrant destinations (Canada and Australia, for example), have seen steady increases in recent decades. But some nations have seen their immigrant shares drop. In several Central and Eastern European countries – such as Latvia and Estonia – more people are leaving than entering, and remaining immigrants are getting older and dying, all leading to a decreasing share of foreign-born people.

In several immigrant destination countries, larger shares of publics want fewer or no immigrants to move to their country, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in the spring of 2018. However, support for taking in high-skilled immigrants and refugees fleeing war remains high in some destination countries.

Worldwide, most people do not move across international borders. In all, only 3.4% of the world’s population lives in a country they were not born in, according to data from the UN. This share has ticked up over time, but marginally so: In 1990, 2.9% of the world’s population did not live in their country of birth.

Source: Immigrant share in U.S. nears record high but remains below that of many other countries

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Online immigrant-sponsor application claimed ‘profoundly discriminatory’ after it opened and shut within 10 minutes

2019/01/30 Leave a comment

One could argue that the online system was designed to select those more likely to integrate easily, given computer skills and official language knowledge (or engaging a good lawyer or consultant).

The over-subscription suggests that the 10 year multiple entry visa approach is not viewed by many as an adequate substitute.

See Howard Anglin’s good tweet thread on the ongoing challenges to the parents and grandparents program :

A new first-come-first-served online application for immigrants seeking to sponsor their parents and grandparents to come to Canada is being condemned as “profoundly discriminatory” after the program opened and closed in less than 10 minutes on Monday.

All 27,000 openings for the family-reunification program in 2019 were spoken for within minutes of the application form’s going live online Monday, sparking outcry from disappointed would-be applicants.

Matthew Genest, a spokesman for Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, says an initial analysis shows no technical problems with the system.

He says anti-bot features were also used to ensure all applications were legitimate and not from automated computer programs grabbing spots faster than humans could.

Genest says with over 100,000 people competing for 27,000 spots, there was simply more demand than there were spaces.

But immigration lawyer Clifford McCarten is among many now raising concern about the fairness of access to the program, as only those with reliable Internet access, quick typing skills and good understanding of English or French would have had any hope of success.

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