US seeks to reduce waivers for immigration fees

2018/10/06 Leave a comment

Consistent with other restrictive measures (Canada does not offer a waiver to lower income immigrants despite the 5 fold increase in citizenship fees in 2014-15):

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services is proposing changing the eligibility for fee waivers for lower-income immigrants on the path to legal permanent residency and U.S. citizenship.Immigration advocates say the move is like building an “invisible wall.”

USCIS announced the change Friday in the Federal Register. Receiving means-tested public benefits from the states would no longer result in automatic USCIS fee waivers, the proposal states. Instead, fee waivers would only be tied to two criteria: the federal poverty threshold or particular financial hardships.

The change is necessary, USCIS said, because “eligibility for these benefits can vary from state to state, depending on the state’s income level guidelines,” meaning that “individuals who would not otherwise qualify under the poverty-guideline threshold and financial hardship criteria have been granted fee waivers.”

In 2017, USCIS approved 285,009 fee waiver applications, totaling $173 million.

The new proposal restricts waivers only to applicants who are at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty threshold or financial hardship.

“It’s a significant narrowing of those who would be eligible for the fee waiver. Our estimates indicate that this would reduce the total population of those eligible for a fee waiver by two-thirds,” said Jill Marie Bussey, advocacy director for the Catholic Legal Immigration Network. “It’s an extremely troubling proposal for our network.”

CLINIC’s 330 affiliates provide pro bono immigration services to thousands of low-income immigrants across the United States. Bussey said 95 percent of CLINIC’s affiliates assist with fee waiver applications.

In California, where 20 percent of the population is foreign born, the federal poverty threshold to claim state benefits is 200 percent.

For 2018, a four-person family in California is eligible for means-tested state benefits with a household income at or below $50,200. Thus, an immigrant household at that income level and receiving state means-tested benefits are currently eligible for a USCIS fee waiver.

But with the proposed change, that same four-person Californian household would only be eligible for the USCIS fee waiver if household income was at or below $37,650.

USCIS is like the U.S. Postal Service in that most of its funding comes from fees paid for its services, rather than from U.S. taxpayers.

USCIS fees for immigrants to use its services can run into the thousands. The application for a “green card”, formally known as the “application to register permanent residence,” costs $1,140. The application for naturalization to become a U.S. citizen costs $640.

The waiver proposal is an attempt to reverse a change to immigration policy under President Barack Obama. In 2011, USCIS standardized a process of using means-tested benefits as a way to prove eligibility for its fee waivers.

“When this agency waives fees, it’s hurtful to the quality of the agency and it pushes fees off from one population to another. If you can’t get fees from group A, then you have to run up the fees for groups B, C, and D. So there is a reason to be careful with waivers,” said David North, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank advocating for low immigration.

“The change works against and secures some fee money from the near poor while leaving the poor untouched. So this is not a program that rolls back benefits for the really poor people, it rolls back benefits for some of the working poor and the income level above that,” North said.

CLINIC’s Bussey said the proposal is like an “invisible wall,” “a back-door way of limiting family immigration and reunification.” She fears it will suppress naturalization rates

“And that hurts us all. Studies really show that low-income immigrants are able to improve their financial status through naturalization. They have access to better jobs, educational opportunities and resources,” she said. “So limiting access to naturalization through limiting this fee waiver creates a poverty loop.”

North said the fees make sense because U.S. legal status brings “admission to the labor market, for instance, where you can make as much money as you want or can.”

The proposed change is open for comment until Nov. 27. Public comments have to be taken into consideration when finalizing a federal government rule change but may not necessarily be incorporated into its outcome.

Source: US seeks to reduce waivers for immigration fees

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Over 100 Million Immigrants Have Come to America Since the Founding

2018/10/06 Leave a comment

Nice charts and analysis. While I am far from being a libertarian, Cato Institute analysts do some really good work in this area:

America is a nation of immigrants, and throughout its history, it has received nearly 100 million immigrants. I almost wrote that America “welcomed” them, but the fact is that very few of those 100 million were broadly popular with the public when they arrived. They came nonetheless. They thrived, and those immigrants—at least those who stuck it out in the face of harassment and discrimination—and their descendants built the country that we have today.

The term “immigrants” refers to foreigners who come to the United States with the intention to settle permanently. They are distinct from “nonimmigrants” who make temporary visits to the country, such as tourists, students, and guest workers. Figure 1 provides the breakdown of immigrants by the last legal status that the immigrant held. An illegal immigrant who receives legal permanent residency is listed as a legal immigrant, even though he may have entered illegally or lived illegally in the United States at some point. It includes all immigrants since the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783, but does not include slaves imported involuntarily to the United States (the legal slave trade ended in 1808).

Figure 2 breaks down the number of new legal permanent residents admitted annually from 1783 to 2018. The bars show the absolute figures and the line the number as a share of the U.S. population. The government didn’t collect annual statistics prior to 1820, but a general consensus appears to have arrived at about 250,000 immigrants from 1783 to 1819. I estimated the annual figures for the period by assuming a modest jump after the French Revolution in 1789, a significant jump in 1793-94 following the Haitian Revolution, a significant decline during the Napoleonic Wars, and an almost  total elimination during the War of 1812. These assumptions produced period averages similar to those estimated in American Immigration by Maldwyn Allen Jones and which accord with other accounts of the period.

The average number of new legal immigrants per year from 1783 to 2017 was 370,169, and the average immigration rate was 0.4 percent of the population—that’d be the equivalent of 1.3 million people in 2018. For context, the United States is on pace to admit about 1 million new immigrants in 2018 or 0.32 percent of its population.

The estimate for the number of illegal immigrants is much more tentative for obvious reasons. About 11.3 million immigrants without legal status show up in the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey in 2016. Broadly reliable estimates of the illegal population exist back to 1980. While relatively few people immigrated illegally prior to the 1980s, I estimated amounts using the available evidence. Based on estimates of the mortality and emigration rates of illegal immigrants in recent years, we can conclude that about 1.4 million immigrants died without status and 6.4 million illegal immigrants voluntarily emigrated. In addition to these, about 2.4 million were deported. It would be reasonable to increase these figures by 10 to 20 percent, but the overall picture of U.S. immigration in Figure 1 would hold.

America’s tradition of receiving people from around the world is admirable, but as Figure 2 shows, the rate of legal immigration right now is still far lower than its historic highs in the 19th and early 20th century. America can not only easily sustain a much higher rate of legal immigration than what it permits at the moment—it would benefit greatly from a much higher rate.

Source: Over 100 Million Immigrants Have Come to America Since the Founding

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Americans top the list of ‘inadmissible’ migrants to Canada

2018/10/05 Leave a comment

A smaller proportion of the total number of visitors to Canada, about 50 percent compared to the two-thirds of all visitors who are American:

Almost 267,500 migrants were deemed to be inadmissible to Canada between 2007 to 2016, most of them due to criminal convictions, according to Canadian border officials.

The 267,449 foreign nationals included convicted criminals, human rights violators and terrorists identified by Canada Border Services Agency, which is tasked with getting them out of the country afterwards.

These individuals had come to Canada as permanent residents, visa students, foreign workers, visitors or refugees. While for some, their previous records went undetected before arrival, others were found to be inadmissible for offences committed while in Canada and ordered to leave.

Border services data obtained under access to information legislation shows that the number of people deemed inadmissible each year has been on a gradual decline from a peak of 9,131 in 2008 to 6,365 in 2016.

Over the decade, Americans topped the list of those deemed inadmissible, with a total of 63,590 being told they had to leave. They were followed by Mexicans (22,104), Hungarians (13,082), Haitians (11,748) and Colombians (10,090).

Immigration experts said it’s not known if the annual decline in the number of inadmissible individuals was a direct result of effective pre-arrival screening procedures, which successfully stop undesirable migrants from coming here in the first place.

However, Vancouver-based immigration lawyer Steven Meurrens said the number of people deemed inadmissible from some countries appeared to fall dramatically after visa requirements were imposed for visitors from those countries.

The number of inadmissible Mexicans, for instance, dropped significantly from 6,739 in 2009 to just 1,041 in 2010. Other requirements such as pre-boarding electronic authorizations and biometric screening also help detect criminals before they get on a plane to come here, said Meurrens.

“We do have a robust screening system. People are checked against terror lists and criminals are caught before they get here,” said Meurrens. “And the majority of the hundreds of millions of people who come to Canada are not involved in crimes.”

In 2016 alone, Canada admitted 296,346 permanent residents, including 58,435 refugees and protected persons. More than half a million people came as temporary residents, including 266,000 international students and 287,117 foreign workers, in addition to more than a million visitors such as tourists here to visit family and friends.

Toronto refugee lawyer Raoul Boulakia said foreign nationals deemed inadmissible for criminality must apply for special permission to re-enter Canada and those who are banned as a security threat must get what’s known as ministerial relief to remain here — a process that takes a minimum of five years.

“The stats do not tell you the whole story. Without the facts, you don’t know how serious or frivolous their crimes are,” he said. “The big issue is this overbreadth of wording and interpretation of the inadmissibility grounds.”

The definition of membership to terrorist groups is broad and border officials have a lot of discretionary power to designate someone inadmissible with that label, said Boulakia, pointing to the case of Sugunanayake Joseph, a grandmother who came to Canada from Sri Lanka after her husband, a Tamil activist, was assassinated in 2005.

Officials associated her husband’s political coalition with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and alleged she was inadmissible because she had supported her late husband in his career and accompanied him to political events, which they said amounted to her complicity in crimes against humanity with the Tigers.

Joseph was ordered deported, but found to be in danger of torture or death in a pre-removal risk assessment if sent back to Sri Lanka. Her case is still in the system. She cannot be given refugee status or permanent residence unless the public safety minister grants her ministerial relief.

“There’s a wide gap in how people are being treated (by border services). Some are prosecuted zealously and others are not,” said Boulakia. “There is a lot of arbitrariness.”

Source: Americans top the list of ‘inadmissible’ migrants to Canada

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Interactive research map reveals multi-billion-dollar US immigration industry

2018/10/04 Leave a comment

Quite a contrast with Canada where the “immigration industry” is characterized by service provider organizations, immigration lawyers and academics in contrast to business interests in the USA:

An interactive website which investigates the rising investment in detention, enforcement, and deportation of immigrant families in the U.S has been released by a group of researchers and academics this week.

The virtual resource charts financial contracts that the U.S government has with companies to supply goods and services required for detention, surveillance, and deportation of immigrants. This includes everything from IT supplies and services for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) offices, toiletries for detainees and even ammunition and taser accessories.

The website was co-built by Associate Professor Rachel Hendery from Western Sydney University’s Digital Humanities Research Group. Associate Professor Hendery contributed to the programming, design and analysis work for the platform.

The interactive data exploration reveals that ICE government values have increased 987 percent since 2014— and they have almost doubled in the past year.

Associate Professor Hendery said the research found the U.S government and businesses are heavily profiting from the detainment of .

“Businesses like Deloitte have various ICE contracts which collectively amount to $250 Million— and they aren’t the biggest,” Associate Professor Hendery said.

“Amazon, LinkedIn and Dell are just some of the household names of organisations that are a part of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement ‘industry’.

“I don’t think people are aware of the scale of this immigration prison industry, nor that it really is an industry, with all kinds of financial and other incentives for the status quo to continue, or as our data suggests, scale up even further,” she said.

The map is divided into ‘visualisations’ which provide different data on the financial industry of the immigration system. The visualisations include:

  • Monetary amounts of ICE contracts in each congressional district
  • ICE contracts from 2014-2018 showing the exponential growth of economic activity within the immigration system.
  • An exposé of some of the most egregious participants in the ICE economy.
  • An in-depth look at the expenditure categories for ICE contracts.
  • Re-displacements from the US since 2012 by port of removal.
  • A map of allies, double vetted for trustworthiness.

Professor Hendery said that maps and other interactive data visualisations that were used in the project help extract narratives from complex figures in a way that looking at numbers does not.

“Most people reading or hearing about immigration in the U.S are operating without all the information. It’s hard to understand how large the ICE machinery is, or what the scale of their financial web is like.”

The research makes up the second volume of the Torn Apart/ Separados project which provides a deep and radically new look at the culpability behind the humanitarian crisis in the United States. The project is made up of an interdisciplinary cohort of researchers around the world who combine technical skills and classical research practices to help mobilise humanity.

Source: Interactive research map reveals multi-billion-dollar US immigration industry

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Sajid Javid backs plans for stricter citizenship rules after Brexit

2018/10/04 Leave a comment

Values tests play more heavily to the base and public rather than being effective as applicants can simply provide the desired response without believing in it.

Fact-based tests are more objective and do not encourage dishonesty:

The government has announced stricter immigration and citizenship rules to come into place after Brexit, with Sajid Javid later telling the Guardian’s editor-in-chief Katharine Viner that he was unworried by the suggestion such rules would have prevented his own father entering the UK.

The home secretary used his speech to the Conservative party conference to say people seeking British citizenship would face tougher English-language requirements, part of an immigration overhaul that will include the end of free movement from the EU.

In a broad speech set to intensify speculation about his leadership ambitions, Javid unveiled plans for a beefed-up “British values test” to replace the Life in the UK test for those looking to settle in the country.

Overnight, he and Theresa May had announced proposals for a single immigration system that treats people from EU countries the same as those from non-EU countries. Highly skilled workers who want to live and work in Britain would be given priority, while low-skilled immigration would be curbed.

Speaking later in an interview on the conference fringe with Viner, the home secretary said he was not concerned by the thought that under such a regime his father, who arrived from Pakistan in 1961 with £1 and no skills, would be barred from entry.

When his father came, Javid said, the entry system was very different as the governments of the time “wanted, needed, a route for low-skilled migration”.

Asked if it made him sad this would no longer be the case, he said: “No, it doesn’t make me feel sad. Actually, with today’s policy it makes me very optimistic about our future. Because what I have also set out is that we will remain the global-outlook nation that welcomes people from across the world, no matter where they’re from.”

In his speech, Javid announced plans aimed at improving integration and described the current Life in the UK test as a “pub quiz”.

“It’s about integration, not segregation,” he said. “And I’m determined to break down barriers to integration wherever I find them. Take, for example, the most basic barrier of all: language.”

Javid said 700,000 people living in the UK could not speak English.

“As home secretary, I will apply these principles to those who arrive in our country. So not only will there be a new values test but we will also strengthen the English-language requirements for all new citizens.”

Highly skilled migrants coming to the UK on a work visa will not face tougher language requirements than those already in place, the Guardian understands.

Javid said earlier he would consider scrapping the cap on the number of highly skilled migrants as part of the post-Brexit plan. The limit is currently 20,000.

Applicants will need to meet a minimum salary threshold – for highly skilled migrants this currently stands at £30,000 – but Javid has hinted that this will be reviewed.

In his speech in the main hall, the home secretary said: “Thanks to the [Brexit] referendum we now have a unique opportunity to reshape our immigration system for the future.

“A skills-based, single system that is opened up to talent from across the world. A system that doesn’t discriminate between any one region or country. A system based on merit. That judges people not by where they are from, but on what they can do.

“What people want – and they will get – is control of our own system. With a lower, and sustainable level of net migration. And, above all, that has to mean one thing: an end to freedom of movement.”

The government has said it intends to publish a white paper this autumn and a bill the following year, meaning it is highly unlikely MPs will get to vote on the legislation before the UK leaves the EU in March.

In the interview with Viner, Javid, who has previously spoken about how his mother did not learn to speak English until more than decade after she arrived in the UK, talked about his anger at the unfair targeting of people from the Windrush generation by immigration enforcement.

“The first thing that went through my mind is that it could have been my parents,” he said. “Imagine if this was my mum or my uncle, someone who had lived in Britain their whole life, contributed so much, being detained or, worse, removed from the country.”

But Javid vehemently rejected that the post-2010 Conservative government had been primarily responsible for the Windrush crisis with the so-called hostile environment policy, saying a lot of it had begun under Labour.

“If people portray this as a problem that happened under a Tory government, it’s incorrect. It’s either bad reporting or a deliberate attempt to twist the fact,” he said.

Javid, who again spoke about a range of subjects well beyond his official brief, was similarly blunt about Labour’s interventionist economic policies, saying: “The trouble is, Jeremy Corbyn really believes what he says. And he’s completely deluded.”

Elsewhere in his speech, he announced a package of new measures to tackle forced marriage, including proposals to refuse spousal entry to the UK where there is evidence a marriage is forced.

Source: Sajid Javid backs plans for stricter citizenship rules after Brexit

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New German immigration laws agreed at government meeting

2018/10/03 Leave a comment

Significant given the political debates and tensions with the coalition:

Germany’s coalition government announced in the early hours of Tuesday that they had agreed on new immigration laws after several months of back and forth over immigration policy. The new laws will be inspired by the oft-touted Canada model, and would make it more difficult for the poor and uneducated to immigrate to Germany, according to a draft of the deal seen by journalists.

The deal “adheres to the principle of separating asylum and labor migration,” and ensures that those who have a legal right to claim asylum under German law will still be able to do so.

The outline of the proposed law states however, that non-EU citizens without higher education or, preferably, a concrete job offer, will not be able to live in Germany: “We do not want any immigration from unqualified third-country nationals,” the deal states.

Like the Canada model, prospective immigrants would be ranked according to level of education, age, language skills, job offers, and “financial security.”

No special treatment for well-integrated rejected refugees

The agreement was signed by the Social Democrat (SPD) Labor Minister Hubertus Heil and Interior Minister Horst Seehofer of the CSU, the Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU). Seehofer has been pushing for immigration reform since taking office, going so far as to threaten to resign in June if his demands were not met.

“Skilled workers from abroad are already making an important contribution to the competitiveness of the German economy,” the paper states, noting the need for more highly-qualified employees.

One issue not included in the deal is a special dispensation sought by the SPD for refugees whose asylum applications have been rejected but are already well integrated in German society.

Heil told German news agency DPA that Seehofer had agreed, however, that the government should more closely take care “not to deport any of the wrong people.”

The government will also retain the right to close off immigration for certain job categories as it sees fit.

Source: New German immigration laws agreed at government meeting

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USA: Immigrants’ Health Premiums Far Exceed What Plans Pay For Their Care

2018/10/03 Leave a comment

While not necessarily a perfect analysis as some of the comments indicate, far closer to the truth than the Trump administration political rhetoric. Same likely applies in Canada save for the parents and grandparents category:

President Donald Trump has repeatedly condemned U.S. immigration policy, arguing that many immigrants pose a threat to the nation and drain U.S. resources. But a study released Monday about health insurance challenges the president’s portrayal.

The study in the journal Health Affairs found that immigrants covered by private health insurance and their employers contributed nearly $25 billion more in premiums in 2014 than was spent on their care. Those in the country without legal status contributed nearly $8 billion toward the surplus.

In contrast, U.S.-born enrollees spent nearly $25 billion more than they paid for in premiums.

These findings surface as the Trump administration’s immigration policies — including a plan to tie migrants’ efforts to get permission for permanent residency to their use of federal benefit programs — have come under scrutiny.

Earlier studies also found that immigrants contribute more to Medicare than they receive in benefits, but the authors of this study say it is the first to look at the effect in private insurance plans.

Leah Zallman, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and lead author of the study, said her findings allude to the potentially negative consequences that tighter immigration policies could have on the health care industry.

“I think in today’s era … there’s so much concern about immigrants and immigration really sort of draining our resources in the U.S.,” Zallman said. “This really points to the critical role that immigrants have in actually subsidizing and maintaining our current systems.”

Researchers calculated the financial contributions and expenses of enrollees and their employers using two surveys created by the federal government. Plans sold on the federal health law’s insurance exchanges were not included because they “differ from other private insurance in important ways and are unavailable to undocumented people,” the study authors noted.

Anyone born outside of the United States was categorized as an immigrant. However, the surveys did not ask non-citizens with private coverage about their legal status. Researchers used national data on undocumented immigrants to estimate how many people in the study group illegally resided in the country.

In 2014, immigrants and their employers contributed $88.7 billion in private insurance premiums, but spent only $64 billion for care, according to the study’s findings. Of that group, undocumented immigrants alone paid more than $17 billion to private insurers but used only $9.4 billion.

Native-born consumers paid $616 billion in premiums and received nearly $641 billion in insurers’ payments for care. They also consistently outspent immigrants across all age groups. Among enrollees 65 and older, the U.S.-born made a net contribution of nearly $10,000 more toward their care than those born overseas, according to the study.

The researchers reported that, on average, individual immigrants paid $1,123 more for premiums in 2014 than they received in insurance-covered care. U.S. natives instead cost insurers $163 on average.

Leighton Ku, director of the Center for Health Policy Research at George Washington University who was not involved in the study, said several factors contribute to immigrants’ low health care expenses. The group tends to be healthier and younger when they arrive in the United States. Cultural and language differences also hinder them from accessing care.

The study noted that immigrants’ health care expenditures increased the longer they remained in the country. But it added that since their premiums also increased at the same time, they continued to make a net contribution to their private health plans.

The findings come about a week after the Department of Homeland Security proposed redefining how it would determine “public charge,” a term used to describe a person likely to become dependent on the government for assistance. The proposal would make it harder for immigrants to live and work permanently in the U.S. if they receive certain types of federal assistance, such as Medicaid, food stamps and housing subsidies.

Trump has vowed to be tough on immigration standards. During his campaign, he berated U.S. health expenditures on immigrants, arguing that the U.S. spent $11 billion for care to people who were in the country without authorization, the study’s authors note.

But they point out that earlier research shows that immigrants have low rates of health care use and spending, compared with native residents. Their payments to private plans and Medicare in essence prop up care for patients who are U.S.-born, the authors say.

A study Zallman published earlier showed unauthorized immigrants contributed $35.1 billion more to Medicare from 2000 to 2011 than they used in services.

Benedic Ippolito, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, cautioned using the study’s findings to draw conclusions on a large scale about immigrants and their role in health insurance. An estimated 20 percent of immigrants — including nearly half of the undocumented population — are uninsured, according to the study. Ippolito said the cost of their uncompensated care affects whether immigrants’ financial contributions actually lead to surpluses for health care overall.

“I would be careful about how much I extrapolate these results to a) other parts of the health insurance market and b) even further to what this means for immigration policy,” Ippolito said. “This paper alone does not tell us everything we need to know.”

Ku echoed the uncertainty. He said he is not certain how the Trump administration’s latest actions will affect immigrants enrolled in private insurance. Having a private plan may suggest they are employed with a certain income stability. However, if enough immigrants leave the insurance market, he added, it may have the unintended consequence of making health plans more expensive for everyone else.

“That does have the following implication that to the extent that we do things to suppress immigrants or make it harder for them to purchase insurance then in that case we may do harm to the citizens,” he said.

Source: Immigrants’ Health Premiums Far Exceed What Plans Pay For Their Care

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EU citizens lose priority under post-Brexit immigration plans

2018/10/03 Leave a comment

Hard to know whether this is part of the UK’s negotiating strategy, internal Conservative party politics, or substantive policy proposal. And of course, reciprocity works both ways, with impact on UK expatriates in Europe:

EU citizens will no longer be given priority to live and work in Britain in a radical overhaul of immigration policy after Brexit, Theresa May has said, admitting Britons may in turn have to apply for US-style visas to visit and work in Europe.

The prime minister said the terms of the final deal with the EU could include mobility concessions, but insisted that would be within the control of the British government.

Announcing the policy overnight, May said it “ends freedom of movement once and for all”, and that British tourists and workers would also be likely to face restrictions travelling in the EU, depending on the final outcome of the Brexit talks.

However, when questioned during a morning tour of broadcasters about the difficulties UK citizens might face when travelling to Europe, she would only say it was “part of the negotiations”.

She did rule out Britons having to apply for US-style visa waiver forms to visit the EU after Brexit, saying she expected arrangements to be “reciprocal”.

Under the policy, she said, highly skilled workers who wanted to live and work in Britain would be given priority, while low-skilled immigration would be curbed, though the final terms are expected to be subject to the Brexit negotiations.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, May said she was not ruling out mobility concessions as part of a future Brexit deal, and that tourism and business travel were a component of the negotiations.

“In any trade deal countries do, there are normally parts of that which are about things like movement of businesspeople, and so forth,” she said. “But if we do a deal like that with the European Union, those elements will be open for trade deals with others as well.”

May said the government wanted British people to fill the vacancies in areas such as hospitality and social care, which rely heavily on EU migrants, effectively ruling out an exemption for certain sectors.

“We’ll ensure we recognise the needs of the economy,” she said. “If you look at these low-skilled areas, we hope there will be the ability to train people here in the UK to take jobs.”

May said the government was already piloting a seasonal scheme for agricultural workers but said she was reluctant to commit to exemptions for other sectors.

“I’m not saying there are suddenly going to be lots of sectors of the economy which are going to have exemptions, which means you no longer have an immigration policy,” she said. “This is reflecting what a lot of people in this country want.”

The regime is likely to be popular with the Tory grassroots, many of whom have been been making their unhappiness felt at the annual party conference over May’s post-Brexit trade proposals.

The announcement came before a speech at fringe event by the former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, a harsh critic of the prime minister’s Brexit plans, which was expected to dominate the third day of the conference in Birmingham.

May said in a statement announcing the policy: “For the first time in decades, it will be this country that controls and chooses who we want to come here. For too long people have felt they have been ignored on immigration and that politicians have not taken their concerns seriously enough.”

May said the system would reduce low-skilled immigration and bring net migration down to “sustainable levels”, a coded reference to the “tens of thousands” manifesto pledge made eight years ago that Conservatives have thus far been unable to meet. “We retain our commitment to that target,” she told Today.

The proposals follow a report from the government’s Migration Advisory Committee, which recommended that visa applications from highly skilled workers be given priority over those from low-skilled workers.

The committee also said that offering concessions on immigration to the EU could be “potentially something of value to offer in the negotiations”, though it did not formally recommend this.

The government has said it intends to publish a white paper next year and a bill the following year, meaning it is highly likely MPs will not get to vote on the legislation before the UK leaves the EU in March.

Downing Street said there would be “routes for short-stay business trips and tourists and for those who want to live and work for longer in the UK” as well as passport e-gates to make travelling faster for short-stay visitors.

In-country security checks would be carried out to make operations faster at passport control, similar to the prior-authorisation system used by the US, and applicants for working visas must meet a minimum salary threshold and have their families sponsored by their future employers.

Adam Marshall, the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said: “Ministers must recognise that businesses in every corner of the UK are facing severe skills gaps at every level, and must be able to recruit great people from both here at home and from overseas.

“Immigration policy is not just about the ‘best and brightest’, but straightforward access to the skills needed to help grow our economy.”

The home secretary, Saijd Javid, will announce further details of the policy in a speech timetabled for midday on Tuesday, an hour before Johnson speaks.

Johnson is expected to urge the party to focus on law and order, tax cuts and housebuilding as well as restating his opposition to May’s Chequers proposal.

May said she expected Johnson’s fringe meeting to be “lively”, but was focused elsewhere.

Asked how long she expected to remain Conservative leader, May told Today: “I’m in this for the long term, not just for the Brexit deal but actually for the domestic agenda we are setting out at this conference.”

Source: EU citizens lose priority under post-Brexit immigration plans

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How Will The Public Charge Rule Impact Employers And Immigrants?

2018/10/02 Leave a comment

One of the better pieces I have seen on the potential impact of these changes, from a former staffer at the Obama White House:

On September 22, 2018, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a notice of proposed rulemaking that could have a dramatic impact on immigrants, temporary visa holders and U.S. employers. If fully implemented, the “public charge rule,” as it is known, could be the most far-reaching immigration policy change made during Donald Trump’s time in office.

To better understand the proposed rule and its potential impact, I interviewed Doug Rand, who served as assistant director for entrepreneurship at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (September 2010 to January 2017) and is president and co-founder of the technology startup Boundless.

Stuart Anderson: Under current law, what does the term public charge mean?

Doug Rand: Congress long ago established that the U.S. government can deny certain green cards and temporary visas to anyone who “is likely at any time to become a public charge” – but without defining precisely what “public charge” means. The law allows immigration officers to “at a minimum consider the alien’s age; health; family status; assets, resources and financial status; and education and skills.” They can also consider a sworn statement of financial support from a sponsoring relative and, in fact, this “affidavit of support” is required for many family-based green card applications.

Anderson: How is public charge currently applied?

Rand: There have been periods of confusion, especially after major immigration and welfare reform bills were passed by Congress in 1996. Even though the new laws did not prohibit immigrants from using public services, such as emergency rooms and school lunch programs, families read the headlines and became worried.

In 1999, to clear things up, immigration officers adopted the guiding principle that a public charge is a foreign national with “the likelihood of . . . becoming primarily dependent on the government for subsistence,” as evidenced by use of a short list of government benefits: cash assistance (“welfare”), Supplementary Security Income (SSI) for the disabled, or assistance for long-term institutional care like a nursing home or mental health institution.

Anderson: How has that affected immigrants and visa applicants so far?

Rand: Very few people have traditionally been denied a green card or temporary visa on public charge grounds for two primary reasons.

First, Congress has already barred most non-citizens from using welfare, SSI, and non-emergency Medicaid, so that’s not an issue.

Second, Congress requires most green card applicants to have a financial sponsor – typically a family member who is a U.S. citizen – who declares their willingness and ability to support their relative and prevent them from becoming dependent on government benefits. So, under current rules, you know you won’t be considered “likely to become a public charge” as long as you have a sponsor who demonstrates income greater than 125% of the federal poverty guidelines (currently $20,575 for most couples without children).

Anderson: What is different in the new DHS proposed rule?

Rand: DHS wants to turn more than a century of precedent on its head. Instead of keeping the current definition of a “public charge” as someone “primarily dependent on the government for subsistence,” DHS would start denying green cards and temporary visas to anyone who is deemed likely at any time in the future to receive any government benefit from a specified list.

Anderson: What would that mean in practice?

Rand: Most press coverage so far has focused on the expanded list of government benefits that would be off-limits for the first time. Basically, you can’t touch food stamps, federal housing and rental assistance, non-emergency Medicaid benefits, or Medicare Part D healthcare subsidies – even if you’re eligible for these programs – without taking on the risk that DHS denies your green card or visa application down the road.

But that’s just the beginning. Remember, immigration officers have to determine whether someone is “likely to become a public charge” at any point in the future, and actual use of government programs is only one of some 15 factors that DHS wants to start scrutinizing.

Any of the following factors could become a “negative factor” that convinces DHS you are likely to become a public charge:

  1. Prior or current use of certain public benefits.
  2. Being older than 61.
  3. Being younger than 18.
  4. Having any medical condition that could interfere with school or work.
  5. Not having sufficient resources to cover such a medical condition.
  6. Not having private health insurance.
  7. Having several children or other dependents.
  8. Having financial liabilities.
  9. Having “bad credit” or a low credit score.
  10. Having no employment history.
  11. Not having a high school diploma or higher education.
  12. Not having “adequate education and skills” to hold a job.
  13. Not speaking English.
  14. Receiving an application fee waiver from DHS.
  15. Having a sworn financial sponsor whom DHS feels is “unlikely” to follow.

The only way to sail above this thicket of new criteria would be to demonstrate a household income above 250% of the federal poverty guidelines. That’s currently $41,150 for a couple with no children and $73,550 for a family of five.

Anderson: How does this rule affect the practices of the Department of State and the Department of Justice?

Rand: For the most part, DHS only decides who gets to stay in the United States, by deciding whether to approve or deny applications for extensions and change of status (i.e., international student to H-1B), or applications for green cards from people who are already here. But it’s clear in this latest rule proposal that DHS wants these heightened public charge standards to also be adopted by the State Department, which decides who gets to come to the United States from abroad. (The State Department has already instructed its consular officers to apply a stricter set of public charge standards since January 2018, but the DHS rule is even more demanding and the ultimate plan is for the two agencies to be in lockstep.)

Then there’s the Department of Justice, which largely decides which permanent residents could be deported on public charge grounds. Historically, if you had a green card, this wasn’t something you had to worry about. But the Trump administration just quietly revealed that the Department of Justice intends to issue its own “parallel rulemaking” on deportability that would mirror the new and expanded DHS standards.

Anderson: How could the rule affect a U.S. employer or a temporary visa holder?

Rand: First, there are the direct effects. A U.S. employer is going to find it more difficult and much less predictable to extend the status of a highly skilled worker on an H-1B visa or to help switch a key recruit from a student visa to an H-1B. Unless the employer is paying the worker more than that newly made-up threshold – 250% of the poverty line – they might not be able to renew their work visa and stay in the United States. Assuming $73,550 for a family of five, that’s potentially going to be some portion of H-1B professionals.

Then there’s the bureaucratic cost. By DHS’s own estimate, its new public charge rule would affect over 500,000 temporary visa applications each year and compliance costs could top $1.3 billion over the next decade. And that’s a huge underestimate if the State Department starts applying the same standards to millions of applicants abroad.

It’s probably going to take longer for employers to get applications approved because a number of applicants may be required to submit an entirely new form (the I-944, or “Declaration of Self-Sufficiency”) and accompanying evidence. USCIS adjudicators and consular officers will have to sift through these new forms to make complex and subjective public charge determinations, which could create delays even for those not subject to the new requirements.

Anderson: Will adjudicators look only at benefits used after the date the final regulation is published?

Rand: Yes, the proposed rule is clear that nobody should be penalized for using public benefits until DHS implements a final regulation and officially puts these benefits off-limits, which won’t happen until next year at the earliest. That’s a really important point for people to understand, that nothing has changed yet.

Anderson: Is there a way for an applicant to know ahead of time if their application is likely to be approved?

Rand: There’s always some uncertainty involved in any application, since immigration officers exercise a fair amount of case-by-case discretion. But the DHS public charge plan would turbo-charge that uncertainty by introducing so many new factors for officers to scrutinize. DHS is demanding that its officers go beyond the usual determination of eligibility for a given green card or visa category and engage in fortune-telling: Is this applicant likely to be financially vulnerable at any point in their natural lives? If so, then deny the application.

Anderson: If a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident petitions for their spouse, how could their spouse be denied under the rule and what would be the consequences of that denial?

Rand: We asked ourselves this question at Boundless, since we assist married couples who apply for spousal green cards. We evaluated our own customers as a reasonably representative sample of the marriage green cards issued each year and estimated how many of them would fall below the new income threshold that the public charge rule would impose. Remember, that’s 250% of the federal poverty guidelines, currently over $41,000 for most couples without children.

We found that if this new requirement were strictly enforced by both DHS and the State Department, then the administration could begin denying more than half of all marriage green card applicants each year. That could force nearly 200,000 couples annually to either leave the United States together or live apart indefinitely.

Anderson: How would a parent, adult child or sibling be denied under the rule?

Rand: It’s possible even more parents of U.S. citizens would be denied than spouses. If you look at the list of new criteria DHS wants to impose, a great many parents could be denied on the basis of age, income, medical condition or English proficiency. The Migration Policy Institute used Census data to estimate the impact of the 250% income threshold and found that some 56% of all family-based green card applicants could be denied.

Anderson: What is the role of sponsors under the rule?

Rand: Ironically, the DHS proposal doesn’t directly change the role of a sponsor – whether that’s a U.S. citizen or permanent resident sponsoring a family member, or a U.S. employer sponsoring a worker. However, by heaping new scrutiny on the health, financial condition and other aspects of the applicant, DHS would effectively minimize the role of the sponsor in assuring that the applicant has a high chance of getting their visa or green card approved.

Anderson: Do you expect there will be legal challenges to the rule? When do you expect the rule could take effect?

Rand: Given that just about every other immigration policy executed by this administration has been challenged in court, it would be odd if the public charge rule were an exception. But that won’t happen immediately.

First, after DHS officially publishes this proposed rule, it will be open for public comments for 60 days. After that, DHS has to read through all of the public comments, prepare a response to each substantive concern, and potentially make major changes to its regulatory plan and economic impact analysis. This process usually takes a long time – six months would be light speed, and well over a year isn’t uncommon for a complex regulation like this. Only then would DHS publish the “final rule” and, if it’s not blocked by a federal judge, then it would take effect.

Anderson: What do you think is the biggest problem with the rule?

Rand: When it comes to the public charge standards, the status quo policy has served us well. Congress already decided who’s eligible for public benefits and who isn’t, and established a clear income threshold for sponsors.

The proposed rule is designed to impede and reduce legal immigration. Never in our nation’s history have we said that you have to be comfortably middle class to become an American. We didn’t say that to Alexander Hamilton, or Andrew Carnegie, or the founders of Google and WhatsApp, or countless other immigrants who came here with next to nothing, worked hard and made this country great.

Source: How Will The Public Charge Rule Impact Employers And Immigrants?

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Japan’s New Foray into Immigration Policy

2018/10/02 Leave a comment

Interesting overview on the degree of change:

Japan has traditionally imposed one of the most stringent immigration policies among developed nations. But with aging demographics, its increasingly critical labor shortage is prompting more radical approaches, including relaxing a virtual ban on unskilled workers.

Of the world’s developed economies, Japan has shown the most resistance to accepting immigrants into its labor force. The number of working foreigners in Japan has more than doubled in the past decade to 1.3 million, but that remains below 2 percent of the labor force, compared with 13 percent in Britain and 39 percent in Singapore.

Japan long ago adopted a policy to accept just high-skilled foreign workers, and only as non-immigrants. But chronic labor shortages, especially in construction, shipbuilding, agriculture, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing, have caused the Japanese government to liberalize its immigration policy.

In June, the Cabinet announced plans to create a new, five-year permit system, based on the proposal of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, chaired by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. It is reported that this system would accept 500,000 low-skilled non-Japanese laborers by 2025.

The era of “Abenomics” – referring to the economic policies enacted since 2012 under Abe’s second prime ministership –has seen remarkable developments regarding Japan’s immigration policy. These have occurred against a background of falling birth rates and an aging population, as well as globalization. Japan’s points-based system has been newly revised by the government; and the discussion on immigration has, for the first time, embraced the possibility of accepting unskilled workers, such as foreign domestic helpers and agricultural laborers.

New to the Notion of Immigration

Generally, national immigration policy determines how many foreign workers a country admits, and under what conditions, while labor policies determine what protections are provided after foreigners are admitted. The two aspects influence each other, as well as realize the ideas of “selection,” in terms of immigration, and “integration,” whereby foreign workers are absorbed into the host country’s domestic labor market.

Japan is a relative newcomer to the global debate on migration. One important but as yet unresolved issue is whether the country should accept immigrants who are given open-ended permission to stay (i.e., permanent residency) or accept foreigners only as non-immigrant guest workers who are allowed to stay temporarily.

Until recently, Japan had not taken the policy to accept foreign workers as immigrants. Nowadays, however, it is becoming easier for a foreigner who once entered Japan as a non-immigrant to acquire permanent resident status after a certain period of time.

A second issue for Japan is the qualitative assessment of foreign workers: should it accept only workers with special talents in professional fields, or include unskilled workers as well, to address labor shortages? Japan has tended to promote acceptance of foreign workers in skilled or professional fields, and reject acceptance of non-skilled workers. However, the program that the government is reportedly introducing would open a door for substantial numbers of unskilled workers.

Changes for Skilled and Unskilled Workers

In May 2012, a points-based system for highly skilled professional (HSP) workers was introduced in three fields: advanced academic research, advanced specialty/technology, and advanced business management. Points are assigned according to various criteria, such as education, work history, annual income, age, and research record. A foreigner who earns 70 points or more is recognized as an HSP and thus receives preferential treatment for entrance into and residence in Japan.

In subsequent years, the government has eased HSP requirements. The most significant change has been resetting the annual income minimum requirement at ¥3 million (US$26,773). This requirement is even waived for advanced academic research professionals. One downside to this is that this loosening of requirements may negatively impact HSPs’ work prospects.

Building upon this, the government introduced a faster-track points-based application process in April 2017. Under this system, HSPs who earn 70 points or more can apply for   apply after only one year. Although the government says that this is not a policy to accept immigrants, there is not much difference between giving permanent resident status at the time of entry and giving such status soon after entrance.

The situation is similarly changing for foreigners who are not recognized as skilled or professional workers. Given a rapidly aging workforce, several sectors are experiencing labor shortages. A third of Japan’s construction workers are at least 55 years old and the demand for construction workers is intensifying before the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games. The increasing number of Japanese citizens over 65 years of age has intensified the need for caregivers for the elderly. Foreign caregiver qualifications are not recognized in Japan and migrant nursing workers must pass a certification course.

Furthermore, foreign domestic helpers are being admitted under the National Strategic Special Zones Act, covering Tokyo, Kanagawa prefecture, Osaka prefecture, and Hyogo prefecture. Revisions to that act in 2017 are likely to open the doors to foreign agricultural workers being allowed to work in Kyoto prefecture, the city of Niigata, Aichi prefecture, and Okinawa prefecture.

There has been much recent debate on the Technical Intern Training Program, which was originally established to transfer skills acquired at Japanese companies to developing countries. But it has been criticized as a backdoor route for Japanese entities to acquire cheap labor from poorer countries. In order to improve the program, the 2016 Technical Intern Training Act was enacted to ensure the proper implementation of the program as was intended.

The Future of Immigration in Japan

The Japanese government is currently moving toward amending the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act. This could lead to major changes in immigration policy; specifically, wider acceptance of unskilled workers. While some stakeholders see unskilled foreign workers as a source of cheap labor, others worry about the cost of educating and managing them, citing cultural and language barriers. Further concerns include “integration” factors, such as welfare costs, as well as public safety and social stability.

The Japanese government is moving toward wider acceptance of unskilled workers.

Although Japan has toughened some aspects of its immigration policy—such as the rules of the Technical Intern Training Program—this will be offset by the possibility of more relaxed requirements for HSPs and greater immigration by unskilled workers. At the same time, it is becoming easier for foreigners who have entered Japan as non-immigrants to acquire permanent resident status.

Recent pushback from the domestic labor market indicates that the government might need to conduct more extensive consultations. It might become necessary to introduce certain labor market tests, such as requiring employers who plan to hire foreign workers to show they have attempted to recruit domestic workers beforehand. In addition, the idea of “integration,” which should be considered within the framework of labor and employment policy, is not being given enough thought currently. In order to avoid negative impacts on the domestic labor market and problems regarding working conditions and foreign worker unemployment, it is necessary to integrate and adjust these policies with a long-term perspective.

Chizuko Hayakawa is a researcher at Saga University. Her research focuses on Japan’s foreign worker policies.  This article was written for AsiaGlobal Online, the website of the Asia Global Institute at Hong Kong University.

Source: Japan’s New Foray into Immigration Policy – Asia Sentinel

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

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