Brexit: EU immigration to UK ‘to be slashed by 80%’ after we leave bloc

2018/12/18 Leave a comment

A taste of what is coming under Brexit. Noteworthy that EU migrants pay more into the public purse than British born residents:

The home secretary is said to have plans to cut European immigration by 80 per cent under stricter entry conditions after Brexit.

Sajid Javid is expected to publish plans to end free movement and preferential access for EU migrants after December 2020 – which will see net immigration from Europe reduced to as little as 10,000 a year, according to the The Sunday Times.

Official figures published last month revealed EU net migration has hit a six-year low at 74,000 in the year to June 2018 – 60 per cent lower than in June 2016 and the lowest level since 2012.

The government’s immigration white paper, expected to be published next week, will reportedly state this figure will be slashed further, to between 10,000 and 25,000 long-term migrants each year by 2025.

A source told the newspaper: “We are going to take full control over who can come to the UK, prioritising those with the skills the UK needs rather than on the basis of which country they come from.”

It is expected to lead to a cut in the number of highly skilled EU migrants from 15,000 last year to about 11,000, while those who are “medium skilled” will be slashed from 18,500 to around 4,500. Most of the 40,000 EU citizens with low skills are expected not to come at all.

Medium-skilled migrants will only be allowed in if they have a job paying at least £30,000 a year, while low-skilled workers will get short-term visas of up to a year if they are from a country that is a “low risk of immigration abuse”, according to the newspaper.

The reports will fuel concerns about the impact of Brexit on the economy after a study commissioned by the government found EU workers pay far more to the public purse than British-born residents – at £2,300 more in net terms than the average adult.

It found that over their lifetimes, migrants from the EU pay in £78,000 more than they take out in public services and benefits – while the average UK citizen’s net lifetime contribution is zero.

The reports will also stoke fears about gaps in the workforce in sectors that rely largely on EU workers, such as social care nursing and the hospitality industry.

Mr Javid is also set to distance himself from Theresa May’s “hostile environment” towards migrants and pledge to launch a “new conversation” on immigration with a “fair and transparent compliant environment” that helps protect legitimate migrants while cracking down on illegals.

The white paper is also expected to outline that EU nationals will no longer be able to travel to the UK using a national identity card but will have to use a passport.

Rather than a visa, they will be allowed to obtain an online Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), while Britons travelling to the EU will have to pay for an ETA costing £6.

The report comes after MPs expressed outrage that they would not view the government’s immigration plans before the meaningful vote on 11 December, which was subsequently postponed.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We do not comment on leaked documents. We plan to publish a white paper on the future borders and immigration system soon.”

Source: Brexit: EU immigration to UK ‘to be slashed by 80%’ after we leave bloc

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Many worldwide oppose more migration – both into and out of their countries

2018/12/17 Leave a comment

Latest good data and analysis by Pew Research, showing where Canada stands. Relatively large number on concerns about out migration in Canada (more than one-third) surprised me as I had not seen those numbers before:

As the number of international migrants reaches new highs, people around the world show little appetite for more migration – both into and out of their countries, according to a Pew Research Center survey of 27 nations conducted in the spring of 2018.

Across the countries surveyed, a median of 45% say fewer or no immigrants should be allowed to move to their country, while 36% say they want about the same number of immigrants. Just 14% say their countries should allow more immigrants. (Those who said no immigrants should be allowed volunteered this response.)

In Europe, majorities in Greece (82%), Hungary (72%), Italy (71%) and Germany (58%) say fewer immigrants or no immigrants at all should be allowed to move to their countries. Each of these countries served as some of the most popular transit or destination countries during Europe’s recent surge in asylum seekers. (In several countries, most disapprove of how the European Union has handled the refugee issue.)

People in other countries around the world hold views similar to those in Europe. Large majorities in Israel (73%), Russia (67%), South Africa (65%) and Argentina (61%) say their countries should let in fewer immigrants. In every country surveyed, less than a third say their nation should allow more immigrants to enter.

Worldwide, a record 258 million people lived outside their country of birth in 2017, up from 153 million in 1990. Their share of the global population is also up, reaching 3.4% in 2017, compared with 2.9% in 1990.

In recent years, a surge in migration has focused public attention on issues related to this, leading to the rise of political parties that question national immigration policies in some destination countries. More than 2 million migrants have sought asylum in Europe since 2015. In the Americas, thousands of Central American families and children have sought to enter the United States. (Recently, immigration has declined as an issue of public concern in parts of Western Europe, even as it has remained a top issue in U.S.)

Together, the 27 countries surveyed by the Center have more than half of the world’s international migrants. The U.S., with 44.5 million immigrants in 2017, has the largest foreign-born population in the world, followed by Saudi Arabia (12.2 million), Germany (12.2 million) and Russia (11.7 million).

Meanwhile, among the countries surveyed, immigrants make up the largest shares of national populations in Australia (29%), Israel (24%), Canada (22%) and Sweden (18%). About 14% of the U.S. population is foreign born, a share comparable to that of Germany (15%), the UK (13%) and Spain (13%).

See our interactive map of destinations and origins of migrants around the world.

Outmigration also widely seen as a problem

At the same time, people in many countries worry about people leaving their home for jobs in other countries. Among surveyed nations, Greece and Spain – two countries that have seen significant numbers of people move abroad in recent years – have the highest shares of people who say this is a very or moderately big problem (89% and 88%, respectively).

About eight-in-ten (79%) say this in Mexico, which has one of the world’s largest numbers of people living outside of their country, at 13 million, according to the United Nations. (The country’s mass migration to the U.S. has slowed over the past decade or so.) In India, the nation with the largest international migrant population (16.6 million), 64% say people leaving for jobs elsewhere is a big problem.

In many countries that are home to large foreign-born populations (whether by total number or by share), few say people leaving their country for jobs elsewhere is a big problem. In the U.S., for example, 38% say outmigration for jobs is a big problem. In Sweden, 18% say the same.

In many countries, more people today say outmigration is a very big or moderately big problem than in 2002, when the Center began asking this question. In Russia, Japan, South Korea, Kenya, Poland and Italy, the share saying this has climbed about 15 percentage points or more during this time. (Fifteen countries have survey data from both 2002 and 2018.)

In fact, since 2002, the only surveyed countries where worries over emigration due to jobs abroad have declined significantly are Germany and Canada. The share who say outmigration is a big problem in Germany fell by almost half (from 64% in 2002 to 33% in 2018), while the share in Canada declined from 55% to 37%.

On Dec. 10, representatives of most countries worldwide are expected to gather in Morocco to sign the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, a non-legally binding agreement intended to manage migration for both origin and destination countries. However, the compact’s effect on future migration remains unknown, in part because several nations have said they will not adopt it. This list includes the U.S., Australia, Hungary and Poland.

Note: See full topline results (PDF) and methodology here.

Source: Pew Research Center

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Conservatives call for audit of immigration system after gangster twice released in Canada

2018/12/17 Leave a comment

His case should not have fallen through the cracks, suggesting communications issues between CBSA and the IRB, particularly in terms of timeliness. While in the end, the system did work, the issues should have been caught and acted upon earlier.

But it is somewhat ingenuous for Conservative immigration critic to state that the Liberal government is undermining public confidence in the immigration system while ignoring the contribution that some of her over-the-top language and positions (e.g., opposition to the Global Compact on Migration) also play. Fine line between legitimate criticism and stoking the fires:

Abdullahi Hashi Farah had an extensive criminal record, ties to a violent gang, and a long history of breaching probation. But Canadian immigration officials still released him after he crossed illegally into Canada in October 2017. (Supplied)

Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel is again calling for a complete review and audit of the immigration screening system in response to a CBC News investigation that revealed a Somali gang member with an extensive criminal record was twice released in Canada.

“The government has to acknowledge that there are serious flaws in the process and commit to fixing the system,” the Calgary MP said in a telephone interview Thursday.

In an earlier scrum outside the House of Commons, Border Security Minister Bill Blair was asked about the case of Abdullahi Hashi Farah.

Blair conceded Farah would not have been released had the full extent of his gang ties and criminal record been known. But he said he took “some comfort in the fact that the system has worked and we’ve identified the individual, and he is subject to deportation.”

Rempel said Blair’s response will only serve to further undermine public faith in the system.

‘This is pretty bad’

“People will read [the CBC News story] and they will look at the minister’s response and go, ‘This is somebody who is not taking this situation seriously, and it is a serious situation,’ ” Rempel said.

“And I worry that by doing this, the Liberals are actually eroding public confidence writ large. And that is not where we want to be in a pluralism like Canada. They need to restore order to the system. This [case] is pretty bad.”

As CBC News first reported Thursday, Farah was fleeing an arrest warrant and deportation in the U.S. when he crossed illegally into Canada at Emerson, Man., in late October 2017.

Then 27, Farah told Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officials about his criminal record and gang ties. The agency wanted him held for a few more days until it could retrieve his full criminal record from the U.S.

But an Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) hearing officer, impressed with Farah’s seeming honesty, ordered his release.

As a condition of release, Farah surrendered his cellphone to the CBSA so that it could be checked for evidence of criminal activity

Six days after Farah was set free in Winnipeg, he breached his release conditions and was arrested again.

That same day, the CBSA gained access to Farah’s cellphone. They found recent photos and videos of Farah playing with loaded handguns, doing cocaine, concealing cocaine, and flashing wads of cash. There were also photos of what authorities believed was a stolen credit card.

Released despite evidence of criminal activity

The CBSA has declined to explain why the evidence from Farah’s cellphone was not immediately provided to the IRB.

Without that evidence, another IRB hearing officer again released Farah in March 2018 and allowed him to move to Calgary.

In June, Edmonton police arrested Farah as a suspect in a string of armed convenience store robberies after a CBSA officer in Winnipeg picked him out of robbery photos taken from store security camera footage.

Edmonton police have declined to say why Farah is no longer a suspect in the robberies. He is now jailed in the Edmonton Remand Centre, awaiting deportation to Somalia.

The CBC News investigation revealed Farah had lied repeatedly about the extent and seriousness of his criminal record and the length of his involvement with the Somali Outlaws gang in Minneapolis and Nashville.

The investigation also revealed Farah had breached immigration and parole conditions more than 30 times in the U.S and in Canada. He had also been imprisoned for contempt after he reneged on a promise to testify against his former gang in relation to a major sex-trafficking case in Nashville involving girls as young as 12.

Rempel stressed her party is pro-immigration but said this case, and others like it, show the system can’t handle the volume of immigrants while ensuring adequately rigorous screening.

“While certainly not every case is going to be like this, even one is unacceptable, and even one puts the integrity of the system — and the perception of the integrity of the system — at risk.”

Source: Conservatives call for audit of immigration system after gangster twice released in Canada

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Migration Flows in Mexico Have Challenged the Country’s Immigration Policies

2018/12/13 Leave a comment

Interesting overview of some of their challenges:

Mexico is facing new challenges as millions  of Mexican migrants return from the United States and Central Americans seek asylum and safe passage through the country. Historically, Mexico has been a predominantly immigrant-sending country. Political unrest and violence in Central America, heavy-handed immigration enforcement in the United States, and increased development in Mexico has made Mexico a country of destination, return, and transit. Each of these roles demands a unique, humane, and thorough policy response.

Until recently, Mexico has never had a coherent immigration policy. Past laws, such as the 1974 General Law of Population, focused solely on enforcing criminal penalties for immigrants entering or staying in the country without authorization. Throughout the past decade, however, several reforms to laws and policies have expanded the scope of Mexico’s immigration policy to reflect the realities of the country’s diversifying population. Yet while legislative changes to immigration and asylum laws have been implemented to expand services and protections for immigrants, they have not been sufficient to address the needs of return migrants and Central American asylum-seekers and have revealed large gaps in Mexico’s immigration policies and practices.

Mexico’s response to return migration is falling short

The Mexican government has made efforts to ease the transition of returnees through the creation of several programs and initiatives aimed toward reintegration. For example, the Somos Mexicanos initiative, which the National Institute of Immigration (INM) implemented in 2014, aims to facilitate the reintegration of Mexican nationals, providing them with food, medical attention, toll-free calling, free transportation, and employment assistance upon initial return. While such existing programs and initiatives are a step in the right direction, they have done little to ease the transition of many returnees, who continue to struggle with emotional trauma and lack access to employment, educational opportunities, and the long-term support they need to navigate life in Mexico.

With the government falling short, nonprofits have instead shouldered the responsibility of facilitating successful reintegration by directly working with returnees, providing them with long-term support, and serving as valuable networks. Certain organizations—such as Otros Dreams en Acción, New Comienzos, El Instituto para las Mujeres en la Migración, and Dream in México—offer free programs that assist returnees in pursuing educational opportunities, searching for jobs, accessing mental health services, securing emergency shelters, obtaining identification documents, and enrolling in mentoring programs. Yet while nonprofits have worked to fill the gaps that exist between the services that government-run programs offer, Mexico is still struggling to keep up with returnees. Moreover, if the Trump administration is allowed to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, stripping immigration status from approximately 700,000 current DACA recipients—nearly 80 percent of whom are from Mexico—the forcible or voluntary return of these long-term U.S. residents to Mexico would overtax the country’s already strained social services.

Central American migration poses another challenge for Mexico

Since early 2018, Mexico has responded to the increased number of Central American migrants with force. In response to pressure from the United States, Mexico has heightened security efforts along its southern border and has detained and deported thousands of Central American migrants. According to Mexico’s National Institute of Migration (INM), 80,000 Central American migrants were deported from January 2018 through September 2018. In 2017, due to worsening conditions and violence in the Northern Triangle region, which includes Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, 14,596people applied for asylum in Mexico—a 66 percent increase from 2016. Despite this increase, only 1,907 requests were approved in 2017. This surge in asylum claims has placed a strain on the severely understaffed and underfunded Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR), the department that processes asylum petitions. A 2016 study documented the difficulties Central American migrants face when seeking asylum in Mexico, including due process violations; obstacles in gaining access to asylum procedures; lack of information about their rights at migration stations; and lack of legal representation during the petition process.

With the arrival of the most recent Honduran caravan, however, Mexico’s response to Central American migration has begun to shift slightly. On October 26, former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto announced a plan called “Estás en tu casa,” or “You are home,” to facilitate the asylum process for those in the caravan. The program will grant migrants official documentation, temporary work permits, medical attention, and access to education for children if they return and file with the INM in Mexico’s southern states, Oaxaca and Chiapas. According to the Mexican Office for Domestic Affairs, more than 3,800 migrants have applied for refugee status, nearly 136 Honduran migrants per dayhave requested assistance to return, and thousands more have chosen to continue toward the United States due to concerns over long wait times and mistrust of Mexican authorities. Asylum-seekers in Tijuana now face extreme backlogs as U.S. Border Patrol only processes 40 to 100 asylum claims a day. As tensions and uncertainty in Tijuana continue to rise, Mexico has increased its efforts in response to a situation that remains both complex and ever-changing.

There is opportunity for meaningful change

While Mexico has taken substantive steps to improve its immigration system, it should continue to partner with both the United States and international organizations such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in order to strengthen its capacity to effectively address surmounting immigration challenges and overhaul the bureaucratic process that continues to make it difficult for returnees to enroll in school, seek employment, and access social services. Mexico would also benefit from collaborating with nonprofit organizations on the ground so that it can better understand the needs of return migrants. Meanwhile, organizations such as COMAR should receive additional resources so that they can efficiently and fairly process and provide refuge to those seeking asylum. Finally, Mexico should work to demilitarize its southern border and build bridges with Central American countries in an effort to encourage meaningful change in the region.

The election of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a left-populist candidate of the National Regeneration Movement, may also catalyze a change in the way Mexico approaches migration. President López Obrador has been vocal in his critique of Mexico’s security policies, anti-immigration efforts on Mexico’s southern border, and the United States’ involvement in shaping Mexico’s immigration policy. He recently urged the United States, Canada, and Mexico to jointly address the migration influx by investing in development in Northern Triangle countries, though the focus of his immigration policies remains unclear.

Conclusion

Migrants and returnees who seek opportunities, refuge, and safe passage should be met by policies and programs that support their well-being and promote stability. With looming uncertainties in U.S. immigration programs such as DACA, as well as continued instability in the Northern Triangle region, it is critical that the López Obrador administration makes immigration policy a priority. As the new administration settles into office, it should focus not only on reforming its current immigration policies but also on adopting policies that transform the landscape of immigration toward a more humane and orderly system.

Source: Migration Flows in Mexico Have Challenged the Country’s Immigration Policies

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Dozens More Cambodian Immigrants to Be Deported From U.S., Officials Say

2018/12/13 1 Comment

Sigh….

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The Trump administration is preparing to deport the largest group yet of legal Cambodian immigrants to the United States over the next few days, according to human rights groups and an American official, continuing a wave of deportation that has fallen heavily on refugees who fled the upheaval surrounding the Vietnam War.

The new deportations include an expected 46 people who are scheduled to arrive in Cambodia on Dec. 19, the American official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of deportations that had not been officially announced.

Many of those being deported have few or no memories of Cambodia, as they were part of an exodus fleeing Khmer Rouge massacres and were granted refugee status in the United States. Some actually have green cards and have been convicted of a felony while in the United States, though often from many years ago.

“We are expecting more than 40 later this month,” Bill Herod, the founder of the Khmer Vulnerability Aid Organization, a Phnom Penh-based group that works to integrate Cambodian deportees into the country, said in an interview. Mr. Herod said that the exact number and arrival date of deportees often changes due to variables including last-minute legal challenges and weather complications.

Reached for comment, the United States Embassy in Phnom Penh referred The Times to the Department of Homeland Security, whose officials did not respond to requests for comment. The Cambodian government did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

President Trump has continued to place harsh limits on immigration and asylum at the center of his national policy, and over the past year, the White House has pushed to greatly expand the number of foreign residents of the United States who are eligible for deportation.

That effort has included what American officials describe as a renewed push by the White House this month to negotiate with Vietnam to take back a category of refugees in the United States — those who immigrated before 1995 — who had been considered protected under an earlier agreement.

In the case of Cambodians living in the United States, some deportations began in 2002 under a bilateral agreement signed by both countries. But the Trump White House has greatly stepped up the process, widening the numbers of Cambodians it considers deportable.

Rights groups have criticized the new deportation push because many of those designated for deportation will be separated from families who remain in the United States. Others are the children of Cambodians who fled torture and massacre by the Khmer Rouge regime and are being returned to a developing country in which they have never lived or of which they have little memory.

During the Vietnam War, the United States secretly bombarded Cambodia and dropped 2.7 million tons of explosives on the country in operations that some credit with partially enabling the Khmer Rouge’s rise to power.

“Virtually all are the children of Khmer Rouge refugees,” Mr. Herod said of those being deported from the United States. “Virtually all have a difficult time adjusting.”

Cambodia’s government began resisting the push for more deportations in 2017, citing human rights concerns and expressing an interest in negotiating a new agreement.

The Trump administration responded by classifying Cambodia as “recalcitrant” and imposing visa sanctions on some high-ranking government officials and their families. The American and Cambodian governments reached an agreement to resume deportations in February, and Cambodia has since accepted its nationals in increased numbers.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman, Brendan Raedy, declined to confirm the new deportations set for Dec. 19, citing security concerns. He did, however, say that as of Sept. 17, “there were 56 Cambodian nationals in I.C.E. detention with a final order of removal, and 1,799 non-detained Cambodians with a final order of removal.”

Mr. Herod, of the Khmer Vulnerability Aid Organization, said that American officials alerted him in December 2017 “to prepare to receive 200 new arrivals each year for the next several years.”

Only 74 and 29 Cambodians were deported in 2016 and 2017, respectively, according to I.C.E. reports. Mr. Herod said he was aware of 94 Cambodians who had already been deported this year.

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Tories pursue high-stakes strategy in condemning United Nation’s migrant pact: John Ibbitson and Chris Selley commentaries

2018/12/12 Leave a comment

John Ibbitson on the politics of the CPC’s opposition to the Global Compact on Migration:

A database search suggests that the first article in a mainstream Canadian news outlet that criticized the United Nations’ new migration compact appeared on the Toronto Sun website on Nov. 30.

That document – officially the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration – is now a high-stakes controversy from which both Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau hope to profit. One of them is making a mistake. But right now, it’s hard to know who.

Liberal Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, along with representatives from more than 160 other countries, has signed the agreement in Marrakesh. Mr. Hussen called the compact “an effective way to address the challenges that migration can bring.”

This may well be true. But had it not been for the conservative media and Official Opposition sounding the alarm, most of us would never even have heard about the compact, much less Canada’s decision to join it.

Parliament hasn’t debated or voted on the agreement; the government hasn’t bothered to consult Canadians on whether they oppose or support it. This is foreign policy conducted in the dead of night.

However, there is one significant problem with Mr. Scheer’s claim that the compact will “erode our sovereign right to manage our borders.” The problem is that the thing is innocuous, a succession of bland paragraphs promising to promote this and consult on that.

The document stresses that it is not legally binding and “reaffirms the sovereign right of States to determine their national migration policy and to govern migration within their jurisdiction.”

There is a foolish clause on “sensitizing and educating media professionals.” Otherwise the document mostly commits states to sharing information, fighting human trafficking and abiding by the rule of law. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Except that’s not how others treat the document, pro and con.

Pro: Former Canadian Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour, who is now the United Nations Special Representative for International Migration, called the compact “one of the defining projects of our generation,” which “will remain the reference for all future initiatives dealing with cross-border human mobility.”

Con: The United States – well, of course, with Donald Trump as President – Australia, the Dominican Republic and Chile have not signed, along with Israel and a clutch of countries in Eastern Europe, where migrants are deeply unpopular. Rightly or wrongly, some analysts see things in those bland paragraphs that could force countries to increase their immigration and refugee intake.

This is one reason why the Conservatives are making such a big deal of the accord. Another is that demonizing the compact fits with a narrative they wish to construct: that the Liberals have lost control of the immigration system, that tens of thousands have streamed across the border illegally and that now the government is surrendering sovereignty to a dysfunctional, even corrupt, United Nations.

The truth is that, over the past six months or so, the government has managed to greatly reduce the flow of asylum claimants entering Canada from the United States. And, as I and wiser minds read it, the migration compact surrenders not a jot or tittle of Canadian sovereignty to the UN.

But many Canadians do worry about losing control of the border. This doesn’t make them anti-immigrant; it just makes them anti-uncontrolled-immigration. And even those who support increased immigration may shake their heads at the Liberal inability to manage major files. As the Tories might put it, the Liberals can’t build a pipeline, can’t control the border, won’t balance the budget.

But on the immigration issues, at least, this strategy comes with great political risk for the Conservatives. More than half the population of Mississauga is not Caucasian. Fifty-three per cent of the population of Richmond, B.C., is ethnic Chinese.

If suburban immigrant voters decide that the Conservatives have become anti-immigrant, even nativist, they will shun the party and the Conservatives will lose the next election. You cannot win at the federal level without substantial support from immigrant voters. There are just too many of them.

The Liberals take pride in how they’ve handled immigration and are happy to campaign on it. The Conservatives think the Liberals are vulnerable on immigration and are happy to campaign on it. Who is right? It will take an election to find out.

Source:     Tories pursue high-stakes strategy in condemning United Nation’s migrant pact Subscriber content John Ibbitson December 10, 2018     
And Chris Selley suggests the CPC could have made a more sophisticated critique of the Compact rather than playing the identity politics card (which the Liberals are also happy to play):
One hundred and sixty-four countries agreed to the UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration in Morocco on Monday. And while the ship has long since sailed, in theory, there are quite a few things in there that Canadian conservatives might have gotten behind.

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A Conservative Judge Torched Donald Trump’s Latest Illegal Assault on Immigrants

2018/12/12 Leave a comment

Canadian conservatives advocating simplistic solutions to asylum seekers should take note:

If there were any lingering doubt that Donald Trump’s latest plan to curb asylum is flatly unlawful, Judge Jay Bybee quashed it on Friday.

In a meticulous 65-page opinion, Bybee—a conservative George W. Bush appointee—explained that the president cannot rewrite a federal statute to deny asylum to immigrants who enter the country without authorization. His decision for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is a twofold rebuke to Trump, halting the president’s legal assault on asylum-seekers and undermining his claim that any judge who blocked the order is a Democratic hack. The reality is that anyone who understands the English language should recognize that Trump’s new rule is illegal. Like so many of Trump’s attention-grabbing proposals, this doomed policy should never have been treated as legitimate in the first place.

Friday’s ruling involves a proclamation that Trump signed on Nov. 9, ostensibly to address the “continuing and threatened mass migration of aliens with no basis for admission into the United States through our southern border.” The order alluded darkly to the caravan of asylum-seekers then approaching the border, which Trump tried and failed to exploit as a campaign issue. To remedy this “crisis” and protect “the integrity of our borders,” he directed the federal government to deny asylum to any immigrant who enters the United States unlawfully.

Ten days later, U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar halted the new rule, holding that it likely exceeded the president’s authority. Trump responded by dismissing Tigar, a Barack Obama appointee, as an “Obama judge.” The comment led to a rare rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts, who told the AP: “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.”

As Trump escalated his feud with Roberts, his Department of Justice appealed Tigar’s ruling to the 9th Circuit. It faced a seemingly propitious panel: Bybee, Judge Edward Leavy, and Judge Andrew D. Hurwitz. Bybee is a very conservative jurist who authored the original “torture memo,” justifying the Bush administration’s brutal interrogation of detainees. Leavy is a staunchly conservative Reagan appointee; only Hurwitz, an Obama appointee, leans to the left. Under Trump’s partisan vision of the judiciary, the DOJ would seem to have a good shot at reviving the asylum rule.

But Bybee didn’t bite. In a crisp and rigorous opinion for the court, he wrote that Tigar was correct to conclude that the policy almost certainly violates the law. The problem, Bybee explained, is that Congress expressly provided asylum-seekers with the right that Trump now seeks to revoke: an ability to apply for asylum regardless of how they came into the country. The Immigration and Nationality Act states that “[a]ny alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival …), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum in accordance with this section.” This provision implements the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which the United States has ratified. It directs signatories not to “impose penalties [on refugees] on account of their illegal entry or presence.”

The plain text of the law couldn’t be clearer: Immigrants in the U.S. are eligible for asylum whether they arrived legally (through a “designated port of arrival”) or illegally. If the president wants to change that fact, he’ll have to convince Congress to break its treaty obligations and alter the law.

Obviously, the Trump administration has not persuaded Congress to overhaul asylum law. So it tried to work around the existing statute by allowing unauthorized immigrants to request asylum—then directing the government to deny their application. Bybee easily disposed of this semantical workaround. “It is the hollowest of rights,” he wrote, “that an alien must be allowed to apply for asylum regardless of whether she arrived through a port of entry if another rule makes her categorically ineligible for asylum based on precisely that fact. … The technical differences between applying for and eligibility for asylum are of no consequence to a refugee when the bottom line—no possibility of asylum—is the same.”

In light of the proclamation’s fundamental illegality, Bybee, joined by Hurwitz, affirmed Tigar’s nationwide restraining order. Leavy dissented in a curious five-page opinion insisting that the INA grants the executive branch power “to bring safety and fairness to the conditions at the southern border.” His anemic analysis is no match for Bybee’s thorough demolition of the DOJ’s illogical position. It seems quite likely that a lopsided majority of the Supreme Court will eventually agree with Bybee’s majority opinion.

It is satisfying to see a “Bush judge” (in Trumpian parlance) hand the president such a stinging legal defeat. Roberts overstated the case in totally dismissing the role of partisanship in the judiciary; of course some judges are political. But for now, a majority of the federal judiciary remains willing to stand up to the president, at least when he issues blatantly illegal orders. Judges like Roberts and Bybee may let Trump manipulate ambiguous laws to do some very bad things to immigrants. But they are not willing to let the president ignore a clear and constitutional directive from Congress.

The next time Trump floats a flagrantly lawless idea, then, it’s worth remembering that nativist bluster cannot transmogrify an illegitimate command into a permissible executive order. Just because the president considers ending citizenship for the children of unauthorized immigrants, for instance, does not mean he can actually get away with it. Like the INA, the Constitution grants certain rights that the president cannot unilaterally rescind—including birthright citizenship. Bybee felt no compunction to pretend that Trump’s illicit scheme has any legitimacy. Neither should the rest of us.

Source: A Conservative Judge Torched Donald Trump’s Latest Illegal Assault on Immigrants

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Lawyer versus consultant? Immigration data shows visa applicants have best shot with former

2018/12/12 Leave a comment

There may also be some selection bias involved (e.g., nationals who engage lawyers may be stronger candidates for visa approvals):

Foreign nationals who prepare their own Canadian visa applications are nearly as successful in being accepted as those who spend money on a consultant to do the job.

But chances of success are much higher if they hire an immigration lawyer to help get their study, work or visitor visas, according to immigration data obtained under an access to information request.

Canada received 342,154 temporary resident applications in 2017, the data shows. While 86 per cent of applicants declared themselves as self-represented, 6 per cent were represented by consultants and another 5 per cent by lawyers. The remaining 3 per cent hired Quebec notaries or used “non-remunerated” representatives.

Overall, 18.9 per cent of the applications were rejected. Those who prepared their own applications had a 19.3 per cent refusal rate, slightly higher than the 18 per cent among those who paid a consultant to do it.

In contrast, only 10.4 per cent of applications prepared by a lawyer were rejected. The refusal rates for applications prepared by Quebec notaries and unpaid representatives were 13.1 per cent and 10.1 per cent respectively.

Marina Sedai, chair of the immigration section of the Canadian Bar Association, said she wasn’t surprised lawyers had the highest success rate.

“Canadian lawyers’ rigorous education, legal analysis skills, and high ethical standards enforced by an effective regulator, have long been understood to result in better outcomes,” Sedai said.

“Lawyers’ culture of the law being a calling rather than a business means that although lawyers will often take the tough cases, they will also protect clients by advising them against hopeless cases.”

When it comes to the lower success rate for consultants, lawyers are quick to point out that group has lower educational requirements and a less robust regulatory regime than lawyers. For their part, consultants say the immigration data is too general and doesn’t give the full picture.

“It is based on the flawed assumption that all applications are equally complex. In reality, applications completed by unpaid representatives may be far simpler, thus having a much higher chance of success,” said the Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants in a statement to the Star.

Currently, licensed immigration consultants must meet a minimum language requirement and graduate from an accredited immigration practitioner program, which takes about a year to complete full time. While only about 1,000 lawyers practise immigration law, there are five times more licensed consultants in Canada.

“Immigration lawyers typically have completed a four-year bachelor’s degree before undergoing a very competitive process for admission to law school. Law school degrees take three years to complete and are also no cakewalk. Then there is the bar admissions course which must be passed, the articling process, etcetera,” said Toronto immigration lawyer Ravi Jain.

“Many immigration consultants have only completed online courses at a community college. The education and training is just not comparable.”

The immigration consultants’ association, which has more than 2,000 members, said it’s pleased more people are using consultants and believed that’s due to the generally higher fees charged by their lawyer counterparts.

Regulatory bodies for lawyers and consultants do not mandate how much their members can charge clients, but fees can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars.

Jain, who is also vice chair of the bar association’s immigration division, said the success rate for lawyers would likely be even higher if not for the fact lawyers often take up very difficult and complex cases.

“A lot of my clients come to me after they have gone to a consultant or tried on their own,” Jain said, adding many are reluctant to lodge a complaint against their former consultant and prefer just to have him reapply.

“It’s much more difficult to obtain approvals when applications have already been refused,” he added.

Source: Lawyer versus consultant? Immigration data shows visa applicants have best shot with former

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Douglas Todd: B.C. coroner fails to release suicide data for international students

2018/12/11 Leave a comment

Surprising that they are not releasing the data. In my experience, British Columbia is better than most in responding to ATIP requests:

International students in Canada and around the world are not only under pressure to achieve high grades. Many are increasingly expected to become permanent residents in their chosen country so they can eventually sponsor their parents and siblings as immigrants.

Given the intense expectations placed on many young students navigating existence in a foreign country, reports of suicide among them are rising in Canada, the U.S., Australia and Britain, their most sought-after destinations.

The China Daily newspaper recently ran a story headlined, ”Suicide stalking too many Chinese studying overseas,” which detailed a spate of suicides among the 330,000 Chinese students studying and working in the U.S.

The large newspaper, which many see as a guide to China’s government policy, urged public officials to find out why. Is it because of “fear of failing and disappointing their parents” or “the loneliness that comes with having to struggle on their own?”

After the suicide last year of Linhai Yu, a young Chinese foreign student in Richmond, China’s consul general for Vancouver also expressed worry about suicide among the 53,000 Chinese students in Metro Vancouver. “Incident rates among the group,” Xuan Zheng said, “have been quite high.”

The grim stories of foreign-student depression and suicide are pouring in from across Canada and the world. This fall, friends of an Indian student in Ontario blamed his self-inflicted death on Canada’s immigration department not granting him a work visa to stay longer. Similar stories from around the world show foreign students at higher risk of mental-health stress.

Given that B.C. has the most foreign students per capita in Canada — being home to more than 130,000 of the Canadian total of 500,000 — my senior editor suggested contacting the B.C. Coroners Service to put some numbers on how many international students have taken their lives.

We thought the information wouldn’t be difficult to determine, since the Coroners Service says it is a “fact-finding” agency responsible for investigating all “unnatural” and “sudden” deaths and making recommendations to “prevent death in similar circumstances.”

My first contact with the Service was in May. In the ensuing seven months, despite numerous communications, the service has failed to provide any information at all about suicide rates among international students. It has, however, offered a steady string of delays and excuses, mixed with large doses of obfuscation.

The B.C. Coroners Service either has no idea how many international students in B.C. have been committing suicide. Or it worries that being frank about it would be insensitive; politically, socially, educationally or psychologically. Perhaps its leadership team, with Lisa LaPointe as long-time chief, just doesn’t think the public has a right to know. We’re just guessing.

Meanwhile, a dire mental-health phenomenon continues to expand along with the unprecedented rise of international students, which politicians and educational administrators welcome for the billions of dollars they pour into local economies and educators’ salaries.

The suicide rate among all students in higher education has long been grave. A British report found university students were killing themselves at the rate of one every four days, the large majority being male.

But emotional stress is even more extreme on students coming in from other countries, according to Australian researchers, who are ahead of professionals in Canada in tracking the emotional difficulties they face with isolation, housing, language, education and immigration status.

Even though Australian coroners, consulates and universities were found to be suppressing details about overseas students’ deaths, the country’s federal government admitted earlier that 51 foreign students had died in one 12-month period. But it took outside investigators to point out that suicide was a key cause of the deaths.

One study in the Australian Journal of Psychology found that Chinese international students experienced significantly higher levels of stress than their Australian counterparts. Education Minister Simon Birmingham this year responded to pleas to better support international students by promising to release more detailed comparative data on their mental health.

Australian sociologist Helen Forbes-Mewett discovered some parents send their mentally unwell children overseas in the hope the health system in their host country is superior to that at home. But extra pressures and traditional cultural stigmas about mental illness, said the Monash University professor, typically compound foreign students’ vulnerability.

Forbes-Mewett says it is impossible to lay blame for foreign students’ mental health or elevated risk of suicide on any one agency. As she suggests, it’s “everyone’s problem.” But at the least more B.C. officials could follow the lead of Australia and release relevant data on suicide rates.

Otherwise the public is kept in the dark, and the private anguish of many overwhelmed international students will silently persist.

Source: Douglas Todd: B.C. coroner fails to release suicide data for international students

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Migrations: un discours pernicieux

2018/12/10 Leave a comment

Manon Cornellier in Le Devoir on the Global Compact and Conservative opposition:

La planète traverse actuellement la pire crise migratoire depuis celle apparue dans la foulée de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Environ 260 millions d’humains ont quitté leur foyer pour échapper à toutes sortes de tourments ou améliorer leur sort. La grande majorité se retrouvent ailleurs dans leur pays ou dans un pays voisin. Une infime partie arrivent à fouler le sol canadien comme immigrants indépendants, membres de la famille, travailleurs temporaires ou demandeurs d’asile.

Tous cependant auront droit à un traitement modèle, le Canada ayant un des systèmes les plus élaborés, ordonnés et justes en la matière. Il est cité en exemple à travers le monde pour son équité procédurale et son professionnalisme.

L’arrivée de migrants irréguliers depuis l’hiver 2017 a semé le doute, mais ce n’est pas le système qui est défaillant, comme l’a démontré un rapport récent du directeur parlementaire du budget. Sous tous les gouvernements, il a souffert et souffre encore d’une insuffisance de ressources pour traiter sans délai ces dossiers particuliers. C’est là que le bât blesse.

À entendre les conservateurs fédéraux, visiblement influencés par Maxime Bernier et autres chantres d’une politique d’immigration plus restrictive, le gouvernement devrait simplement bloquer la route à ces migrants irréguliers. Mais aucun pays ne peut se mettre à l’abri ou freiner à lui seul les mouvements migratoires qui agitent la planète.

 C’est pour cette raison que la plupart des pays membres des Nations unies se réunissent au Maroc lundi et mardi pour signer le nouveau Pacte mondial pour des migrations sûres, ordonnées et régulières. Le Canada entend bien s’y associer, mais les conservateurs s’y opposent. Prenant le relais de Rebel.media et du chef du nouveau Parti populaire du Canada, Maxime Bernier, le chef conservateur Andrew Scheer laisse entendre que le Canada perdrait le contrôle de sa politique d’immigration. « Les Canadiens — et les Canadiens seulement — devraient décider qui vient dans notre pays et dans quelles circonstances, pas des entités étrangères comme l’ONU », a-t-il déclaré.

Le troisième principe directeur du document est pourtant clair. « Le Pacte mondial réaffirme le droit souverain des États de définir leurs priorités migratoires nationales et leur droit de gérer les migrations relevant de leur compétence, dans le respect du droit international. » Comme le fait déjà le Canada.

En entrevue au Devoir, l’ancien ministre conservateur de l’Immigration, Chris Alexander, invitait M. Scheer à rectifier le tir. Selon lui, ce pacte « n’est pas une menace pour le Canada parce qu[’il] est basé surtout sur notre expérience » et il peut avoir le mérite « d’encourager des dizaines, sinon des centaines de pays à légiférer et mieux réglementer leurs politiques d’immigration. Et si on fait ça, il y aura moins de migration irrégulière, moins de crises politiques causées par l’immigration, et cela, indirectement, est très bon pour le Canada ».

 Ce pacte n’est pas parfait et verse à maintes occasions dans l’angélisme, mais ce qu’il espère réaliser est non seulement rationnel, mais nécessaire. Comme le confiait à l’AFP Louise Arbour, représentante spéciale de l’ONU pour les migrations, l’objectif est de « maximiser les bénéfices de la migration tout en mettant en lumière ses aspects négatifs et en limitant les pratiques migratoires chaotiques et dangereuses ».

En faisant leurs choux gras depuis des mois de l’arrivée de migrants irréguliers, en préconisant la méthode forte, en entretenant une impression fausse à propos du Pacte, Andrew Scheer ne cherche pas à calmer ni même à répondre aux inquiétudes d’une partie de la population, mais à nourrir une méfiance inutile. Voilà un jeu dangereux dans un pays d’immigration comme le Canada, où la cohésion et le vivre ensemble imposent de susciter une meilleure compréhension des enjeux liés au traitement et à l’intégration des nouveaux arrivants, pas à propager des faussetés.

Soumis à des pressions internes, bon nombre de pays qui cet été approuvaient le texte négocié s’opposent maintenant au Pacte ou hésitent à le signer. C’est désolant. Le Canada, lui, doit garder le cap. Il est écrit noir sur blanc que ce pacte « établit un cadre de coopération juridiquement non contraignant ». C’est avant tout une déclaration d’intention de la communauté internationale pour mieux encadrer ces mouvements de population. Comment peut-on être contre ?

Source: Migrations: un discours pernicieux

The demos against it in Ottawa (Clashes over immigration outside Canada’s Parliament) and Vancouver (VIDEO: Highway overpass protest against United Nations ‘compact’ on immigration) were sparsely attended and Bernier was a no show in Ottawa.

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