Trump’s Vow to Cut Red Tape Doesn’t Extend to Legal Immigrants

2018/10/01 Leave a comment

Interesting take – using regulatory reform language to criticize Trump administration immigration policies:

A Trump administration proposal to make it harder for legal immigrants to remain in the U.S. could cause thousands of them to forgo $2.3 billion worth of food stamps and other government assistance each year.

But even with that apparent taxpayer savings, it still could be the costliest regulation the administration has proposed. That’s because of the paperwork burden it would impose on immigrants and the way the government measures the costs and benefits of regulations.

The Department of Homeland Security measure would make it more difficult for legal immigrants to get green cards authorizing them to permanently remain in the U.S. if they use public aid programs.

The proposal, expected to affect some 383,000 people annually, would boost the odds that U.S. citizenship officers would deem any legal immigrant a “public charge” — someone dependent on the government for assistance — making that person ineligible for legal resident status as a result.

The plan aligns with President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration — both legal and illegal — and is in keeping with the wishes of some hard-line advocates worried about a wave of low-skilled immigrants taking advantage of the U.S.

It also dovetails with conservative pushes to rein in federal assistance, because many immigrants would be so worried about risking their shot at green cards that they would forgo federal aid. The Homeland Security Department acknowledges there is a potential “chilling effect” that would discourage immigrants from using public benefits programs.

“Those seeking to immigrate to the United States must show they can support themselves financially,” Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said. The proposal aims to “promote immigrant self-sufficiency and protect finite resources by ensuring that they are not likely to become burdens on American taxpayers.”

Some 2.5 percent of affected immigrants would opt out of the government programs as a result, according to the administration’s estimates, potentially preventing the payout of some $19.3 billion in aid over the next decade, estimated at a 3 percent discount rate.

Even so, the administration’s analysts say the rule would cost society more than it saves.

Although federal and state governments would dole out less aid, the unspent money would be a loss for the immigrants, making the change a wash for the government analysts calculating the cost and benefits of federal rules across society. Under their accounting practices, the analysts haven’t treated those foregone transfer payments as a benefit since they “do not directly affect total resources available to society.”

Instead, the government’s analysis says the rule would actually impose big costs on society — largely by forcing immigrants to spend hours upon hours completing detailed paperwork instead of working and other activities. For instance, the government anticipates each immigrant subject to the proposed rule would spend, on average, four and a half hours just filling out a single new form tracking their assets and financial status, with the opportunity cost of that time calculated at $47.97 per applicant.

The total possible price tag: $1.1 billion over a decade. The Trump administration’s own analysis estimates that all of that lost time filling out paperwork, the cost of getting credit reports and other effects mean the rule would have a direct net cost of $318 million to $1.1 billion over 10 years, when discounted to reflect 2018 dollars.

If finalized, the rule would become one of the most expensive Trump administration regulations yet, based on a survey of proposed and final rules.

Immigration is one area “where Trump wants to regulate and doesn’t mind imposing costs,” said Amit Narang, a regulatory policy expert at the watchdog Public Citizen.

The Homeland Security Department will receive feedback on the quality of its analysis, including how potential costs and benefits are characterized, as part of a public comment period.

“As noted in the analysis, the estimated savings through transfers is roughly double the cost,” Homeland Security Department spokeswoman Katie Waldman said by email. “The main direct costs of the rule would be associated with paperwork burden imposed on alien applicants for adjustment of status, who have the burden to show that they are not likely to become a public charge.”

Representatives of the White House Office of Management and Budget, which analyzes proposed regulations and their cost, did not respond to requests for comment.

Under federal law, U.S. immigration and citizenship officers vetting green card applicants already weigh factors such as the immigrants’ health, education, skill levels and whether they have taken direct cash benefits from the government. Substantial reliance on cash aid is a strike against them.

But under the new proposal, use of an array of non-cash government benefits — even acquiring prescription drugs through Medicare Part D — would become part of the calculus in determining the immigrants’ admissibility.

Legal immigrants generally can get some public benefits after they have been in the U.S. for five years. By contrast, illegal immigrants who are not authorized to be in the U.S. can’t get them at all.

Ricky Revesz, director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University, said that the administration’s financial analysis of the proposal overlooks plenty of potential costs. For instance, it doesn’t account for the potential that illnesses and health expenses might climb as a result of immigrants rejecting food stamps that help them buy nutritional fare.

There was extensive analysis of the proposal’s paperwork burden, Revesz said during an event Monday at George Washington University’s Regulatory Studies Center. But “there’s virtually no discussion of the negative health consequences and other consequences to people who qualify for these benefits who might decide to forgo them in order to protect their immigration status.”

Source: Trump’s Vow to Cut Red Tape Doesn’t Extend to Legal Immigrants

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Thousands Could Be Deported As Government Targets Asylum Mills’ Clients

2018/10/01 Leave a comment

Similar to the aftermath of mass fraud in Canada (Special report: how Canadian immigration fraud saw 860 rich Chinese blacklisted):

NPR’s Planet Money has learned that more than 13,500 immigrants, mostly Chinese, who were granted asylum status years ago by the U.S. government, are facing possible deportation.

As the Trump administration turns away asylum-seekers at the border under more restrictive guidance issued by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Executive Office for Immigration Review are considering stripping asylum status from immigrants who won it years ago.

Immigration officials are moving against these immigrants in a sweeping review that federal authorities say is related to a 2012 investigation into asylum mills. During that probe, federal prosecutors in New York rounded up 30 immigration lawyers, paralegals and interpreters who had helped immigrants fraudulently obtain asylum in Manhattan’s Chinatown and in Flushing, Queens. The case was dubbed Operation Fiction Writer.

The federal government says the people convicted during Operation Fiction Writer had helped more than 3,500 immigrants, most of them Chinese, win asylum. Authorities accused them of dumping boilerplate language in stories of persecution, coaching clients to memorize and recite fictitious details to asylum officers, and fabricating documents to buttress the fake asylum claims.

In the years after the prosecutions, immigration officials have been reviewing those asylum cases to determine which clients lied on their asylum applications and therefore should be deported.

One of those rounded up during Operation Fiction Writer cooperated with authorities on the investigation. The man, who asked that we call him Lawrence, helped the government between 2011 and 2014. He says that he worked for lawyers who reassured their clients that they would be fine if they fabricated their claims of persecution in China and that those clients were just heeding legal advice.

He is in hiding now because of the government’s escalating demands that he continue cooperating — this time against those former clients. Planet Money spoke with him on Skype but does not know his exact location.

Lawrence, a Chinese immigrant himself, says the government pressured him in the past couple of years to help review asylum cases he may have worked on as an employee at more than one law firm. He helped with that effort initially but has backed away as the number of people the government is targeting has skyrocketed.

Lawrence says that he didn’t have a problem helping law enforcement arrest lawyers in 2012, but that he feels very different about helping law enforcement punish immigrants years after they won asylum.

“Because targets are different,” he says. “Those Chinese immigrants — those clients … their attorney just tell lie to them, to do that.”

The way Lawrence tells it, he is fighting a larger battle now against government agencies that are mixing up what is legal with what is right. He wants no part in helping the government use the letter of the law to strip asylum from people who won it years ago — even if that means he has to remain in hiding.

Lawrence says his disappearance will make it much harder for immigration officials to possibly deport thousands more people back to China, a country that he says does not treat people who had sought asylum kindly.

An unprecedented review

In a written statement, USCIS confirmed the substance of Lawrence’s story — that immigration officials are now reviewing 3,500 asylum cases handled years ago by the people convicted during Operation Fiction Writer. Immigration authorities also confirm that they are reviewing the asylum cases of more than 10,000 family members who were granted what is called “derivative asylum status.”

Therefore, in total, more than 13,500 immigrants who were granted asylum before December 2012 could lose it.

At the time the prosecution was announced in 2012, officials in the Obama administration, including then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara, decided not to criminally prosecute any clients.

Today, “USCIS, ICE Office of the Principal Legal Advisor and the Executive Office of Immigration Review are reviewing these cases to maintain the integrity in our nation’s asylum system and to ensure that the original asylum grant was lawfully obtained,” says Katherine Tichacek, a spokeswoman for USCIS, in a written statement.

It isn’t unusual for immigration officials to review the case of a former client whose lawyer has been convicted of asylum fraud. But immigration lawyers say they have never seen officials systematically review old asylum cases on a scale like this in ICE’s history.

It is hard to say exactly how many of the cases handled by the guilty lawyers were in fact fraudulent. Fact-checking each requires confirming claims and stories that allegedly happened years ago, in other countries with separate legal systems.

Tichacek explained that when an old asylum case is flagged during this review for potential fraud, lawyers at ICE will file a motion to reopen the case with the Executive Office of Immigration Review. If an immigration judge grants the motion, the asylee is granted a hearing. The judge will then reaffirm the grant of asylum or terminate asylum status.

“The agencies are reviewing each case file and making lawful determinations in accordance with due process of law,” says Tichacek.

Someone whose case is “reopened” can pay thousands of dollars in legal fees to defend against the allegations, even if there was no fraud.

An immigrant’s struggle in New York — and an opportunity

In July 2005, Lawrence boarded a plane from China to New York City. In his mind back then, there was no question how his new life in America would turn out. “I think I would become millionaire … or something like that,” he says. “I always quite have a lot of confidence in myself.”

But Lawrence remembers his first year in the U.S. as a horrible year. He fell into a miserable string of odd jobs working illegally in the Flushing area — at a window and door company, at a glass factory and elsewhere.

Then in January 2007, he saw an ad in the paper: An immigration law office right next to Chinatown needed a Chinese translator. He faxed his résumé over, and they called him up immediately to ask him when he could start.

It turned out that the tiny law office specialized in asylum cases. Lawrence soon would learn that he had dropped into a world with huge stakes.

Asylum is a fast, direct path to staying in the country. It is hard to win, but if you do, you get immediate permission to work. You’re also eligible for a green card within a year — and then citizenship five years after that.

For years, the Chinese have won more asylum cases than immigrants from any other country. About 22 percent of the 20,455 individuals granted asylum in 2016 were Chinese immigrants, according to the most recent figures from USCIS. The next largest group is immigrants from El Salvador (10 percent) and then immigrants from Guatemala (about 9 percent).

The lawyer who ran the immigration office Lawrence joined back in 2007 was named Ken Giles. Lawrence says Giles’ law office had only three desks, crammed into a tiny room. Everything that happened, Lawrence says, happened out in the open.

“I realized this is open secret in Chinese immigrant community … many Chinese people making asylum fraud,” he says.

According to Lawrence, a client would walk in and tell the office manager that he or she would like to try for asylum because that is what a friend or relative suggested.

“The office manager would talk to the client about what kind of claim they should pursue and what kind of story they should make up, what kind of fake document they should provide,” says Lawrence. “And [the manager] made up those stories. She wrote them down and asked those client to copy it in their own words.”

One reason Chinese immigrants have been successful at winning asylum is because the most common stories submitted by Chinese applicants fit neatly into the criteria asylum officers and immigration judges use to grant asylum.

In the U.S., before you can get asylum, the government wants to hear a story from you — a story about “a well-founded fear of persecution.” That persecution has to be based on your race, religion or political opinion, or on some “particular social group” you belong to — and it has to have been targeted specifically against you.

Central American immigrants have had a tougher time for years getting asylum based on claims that they are fleeing criminal gang violence because it’s harder to prove that a threat is targeted or that the government is doing nothing to stop it. Chinese immigrants don’t have that problem — their most common asylum stories involve being targeted by the government.

The claims have fallen into three buckets: persecution under the country’s family planning policies, persecution by the government based on the person’s religion — usually Christianity or their membership in the spiritual sect Falun Gong — or persecution by the government based on the person’s activism in favor of democracy.

Inside the asylum mills

The way Lawrence tells it, he watched and learned the ins and outs of the asylum fraud business in Ken Giles’ office. About a year and a half later, he says he ended up at an even bigger operation: A law firm run by a woman named Feng Ling Liu.

Like Ken Giles, Lawrence says, she focused almost exclusively on asylum cases. Lawrence compared the office to a factory, with each worker having a designated task, whether it be translating, coaching or story-writing.

Lawrence says he started as a story writer at Feng Ling Liu’s firm. He would begin with certain details about a client that were actually true and weave them into a larger drama of government persecution. Lawrence learned that the stories had to be vivid and tell tales of great suffering. And only certain kinds of suffering, the kind that checked off the correct boxes, would do: targeted persecution, by the government, that was based on religion, politics or China’s family planning policy.

Lawrence estimates he wrote 500 to 600 fake stories for clients over the course of a couple of years. He compiled a massive study guide for coaches to use with clients. And he made the law firm’s interpreters collect field data for the guide — profiling asylum officers by what the kinds of questions they tended to ask and the answers they seemed to prefer.

Lawrence says he started rationalizing his behavior at this point: “Sometime I justify in this way: I say, ‘Okay, I’m helping people. I’m helping those lower-class Chinese people to get their status in United States. They don’t really commit crime. … What they want, just find a job here and work in the Chinese restaurant.’ ”

Around November 2010, Feng Ling Liu’s office fired Lawrence. He says they were tired of dealing with his part-time schedule. So a few months later, Lawrence found himself back at Ken Giles’ office, helping out with a few asylum cases.

It was spring 2011. That was when Lawrence met Zhenyi Li, an immigrant who had run out of ways to stay in the U.S. when her aunt told her, “go do asylum.”

“It felt like people all around me were doing it — people I worked with, people in my circles,” says Li. “From what I could tell, applying for asylum to stay in this country was just a normal thing to do.”

To Lawrence, Li was like a jackpot client. She was young, 29, and college-educated. Also Li had chosen to get an abortion back in China and had gone to church occasionally while growing up.

These were useful facts Lawrence could play with in her application. Within days, he had crafted a lurid asylum story for Li, recounting a brutal abortion forced by the Chinese government and a violent crackdown on Li’s Christianity.

Today, when Lawrence revisits this story, he starts laughing.

“I wrote so many ridiculous cases on daily basis,” he says. “For those asylum officers and those immigration judge, they are buried by this kind of fake story every day, so they don’t know what real story should be looking like.”

When Li first read the story, she wanted to laugh. “I thought, ‘This isn’t my story. It was not me,’ ” she says. “It was so exaggerated. So made-up. This was not my life.”

Li was granted asylum on June 28, 2011, on her first try.

Investigators make their pitch

Two weeks before Thanksgiving, Lawrence got a phone call from the FBI. He would soon learn, he says, that the FBI had been tailing him for more than a year. The agents told him that a big raid was coming and that there was nothing Lawrence could do to stop it. They told him he could either join his colleagues in prison, or he could help the FBI.

He says he agreed to cooperate immediately.

“I just felt so depressed for what I did for the last couple years,” he says. “And then I all of sudden find, find a chance to tell everything. To outburst it.”

He gave the bureau a detailed picture of all the people involved in pumping out fraudulent asylum applications in Chinatown and Flushing. He pored over photo books to identify suspects. He turned over his study guide, which plainly laid out every step of the fraud from story-writing to evidence-fabrication to interview prep.

He went back into the asylum mills wearing a hidden camera, making 16 secret recordings in all. His goal was to catch as many people as possible. One of his first targets was Ken Giles. And Lawrence helped flip three more people who became cooperating witnesses.

One of them was Li, who says the agents offered her a deal.

“They said that they wouldn’t prosecute me if I cooperated. And they offered to help me with immigration. They said they would tell immigration officials I helped the FBI,” says Li. “They said I might not be better off if I cooperated, but that I certainly wouldn’t be worse off.”

In 2014, Feng Ling Liu was tried and found guilty of conspiracy to commit immigration fraud. She could not be reached for comment. Ken Giles pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit immigration fraud and was sentenced to two years in prison.

In a recent interview, Giles maintains he never advised a client to lie on an asylum application.

“I never told anybody to pretend to be anything. Never,” says Giles. “That’s a lie. That is a lie.”

If there was coaching by anyone else in his office, Giles says he wouldn’t know because he doesn’t speak Chinese. But he says he pleaded guilty because he felt like he had no choice.

As for Lawrence, he discovered that cooperating witnesses don’t get to just start over.

The federal government decided to charge him with three felonies — two counts of immigration fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit immigration fraud — which meant it would be much harder for him to ever become a U.S. citizen. He faced a maximum of 25 years in prison, but the judge gave him credit for his cooperation and he was sentenced to just six months probation.

…

Source: Thousands Could Be Deported As Government Targets Asylum Mills’ Clients

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Provinces need to nix immigrant-investor visas

2018/09/29 Leave a comment

Nothing really new here in Alan Freeman’s commentary but well stated:

It’s time Canadian provinces stopped selling visas to the highest bidder.

They’re known as immigrant-investor visas, which promise wealthy migrants permanent residence and a path to Canadian citizenship in return for actively investing in a Canadian business or lending money to a provincial government. 

But in reality, these visa programs are simply fancy schemes to sell Canadian passports to wealthy businesspeople, mainly from mainland China, who want a bolt-hole for their family and often have little intention of ever settling in Canada, aside from buying a pricey condo in Vancouver or Toronto and leaving it empty. 

What’s worse, these schemes are an invitation to the unscrupulous to use Canada as a place to launder money, and encourage a slimy network of immigration counsellors, questionable lawyers and investment advisers to collect big fees from would-be migrants.

The fact that Canadian provinces — Quebec, in particular — have been actively courting this trade is an embarrassment and a massive failure of public policy, with shades of corruption thrown in.

The federal government wisely got out of the immigrant-investor visa business in 2014 but several provinces, through the so-called provincial nominee programs, kept them going. Prince Edward Island is a case in point.

Earlier this month, P.E.I. decided to shut down the entrepreneur stream of its provincial nominee program after a new scandal engulfed it, 10 years after a similar program in the province was shut down in the wake of irregularities.

Canada Border Services Agency recently charged two hoteliers in Charlottetown under the Immigration Act with providing fake addresses to 566 new immigrants to the province between 2008 and 2015 who declared the Sherwood Motel as their principal residence. Must have been pretty crowded. 

Under the P.E.I. scheme, would-be immigrants had to make a $200,000 provincial deposit to the province, refundable if they set up a business there, chump change for these would-be Canadians. Last November, the government said that two-thirds of participants had forfeited their deposits because they hadn’t followed through and set up businesses in the province.

It was clear to anybody who was looking that these so-called immigrant investors never intended to set up a souvenir shop or convenience store in Charlottetown or Summerside. They simply wanted a back-door route into Canada so they could set themselves or their children up in Markham or Richmond. P.E.I. officials and politicians, in their desperation to attract immigrants, have been shown to be rubes of the first order.

The Quebec Immigrant Investor Program is bigger and the abuse has been even more flagrant, as demonstrated in a fabulous investigative report this month by the Radio-Canada TV show, Enquête.

The program documents the underbelly of the Quebec program as a conduit for wealthy Chinese businesspeople to buy permanent residency in Canada by stating their intention to settle in Quebec, and seldom even setting foot there. An estimated 85 per cent of the thousands of investors who have passed through the program since 1986 have gone to Ontario and B.C.

In its report, Enquête created Mr. Chen, a would-be investor in Quebec from mainland China and secretly filmed him as he made the rounds of immigration lawyers and consultants in Hong Kong who specialize in the Quebec program. It’s an eye-opener.

When Mr. Chen tells these advisers that he doesn’t intend to live in Quebec, even though it’s a pre-condition of the program, he’s told it’s not a problem. One lawyer suggests he rent an apartment for three months in Montreal to prove he has a Quebec address and leave it vacant. And if that’s too expensive, the lawyer suggests giving the Montreal address of his law firm as the immigrant’s residence.

When Mr. Chen admits the source of his assets isn’t squeaky-clean and he actually runs a pawn shop and money-lending business on the side, one adviser suggests he hide his problem assets in the British Virgin Islands or even procure a second identity by buying a passport in one of the Caribbean islands that will sell one to anybody with cash. “You may be Mr. Chen, but you can change your name to Bruce Lee,” says the paralegal, who identifies herself as a lawyer.

If experience in other jurisdictions is any indicator, these programs are toxic, attract the wrong type of people and seldom reach their economic goals. 

South of the border, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services recently shut down the EB-5 immigrant-investor program in Vermont after the failure of state officials to stop promoters of the Jay Peak ski resort from misusing US$200 million in immigrant-investor money that flowed into a series of questionable projects. 

In Australia, the Productivity Commission, an independent federal advisory agency, recommended in 2016 that its “significant investor visa” program be scrapped after Austrac, the agency that tracks money laundering, said there were “difficulties in identifying the sources of funds and wealth for customers on significant investment visas, as this wealth is often acquired in foreign jurisdictions.” The Commission said there were minimal benefits from the program and “any benefits accrue mainly to those visa holders and fund managers.”

Australia has since significantly boosted the minimum investment required — to $5 million — and tightened oversight of the program. The result is that there are a lot fewer takers. Why bother with Australia if you can get to Canada through the Quebec scheme, which only requires participants to lend $1.2 million for five years to the Quebec government, interest-free?

While it’s true that the Atlantic provinces and Quebec have major problems attracting and retaining immigrants, it’s an illusion to think that the way to improve these numbers is by selling visas to wealthy migrants. In fact, these are the last people who want to settle in Corner Brook or Drummondville.

The major advantage of these places is the fact that they’re actually not as wealthy as Canada’s big cities, that housing is affordable, and they’re actually easier places to start a new life in Canada. Manitoba has shown that it’s possible to attract hard-working immigrants from places like the Philippines who will make real contributions to society rather than use Canada as a place to stash ill-gotten gains. 

Canada is one of the most attractive places in the world for immigrants to settle. Selling visas and passports is humiliating and counter-productive.

Source: Provinces need to nix immigrant-investor visas

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What happens when artificial intelligence comes to Ottawa

2018/09/28 2 Comments

More on the note of caution of government adoption of AI for decision-making (Ottawa’s use of AI in immigration system has profound implications for human rights):

There is a notion that the choices a computer algorithm makes on our behalf are neutral and somehow more reliable than our notoriously faulty human decision-making.

But, as a new report presented on Parliament Hill Wednesday points out, artificial intelligence isn’t pristine, absolute wisdom downloaded from the clouds. Rather, it’s shaped by the ideas and priorities of the human beings who build it and by the database of examples those architects feed into the machine’s “brain” to help it “learn” and build rules on which to operate.

Much like a child is a product of her family environment—what her parents teach her, what they read to her and show her of the world—artificial intelligence sees the world through the lens we provide for it. This new report, entitled “Bots at the Gate,” contemplates how decisions rendered by artificial intelligence (AI) in Canada’s immigration and refugee systems could impact the human rights, safety and privacy of people who are by definition among the most vulnerable and least able to advocate for themselves.

The report says the federal government has been “experimenting” with AI in limited immigration and refugee applications since at least 2014, including with “predictive analytics” meant to automate certain activities normally conducted by immigration officials. “The nuanced and complex nature of many refugee and immigration claims may be lost on these technologies, leading to serious breaches of internationally and domestically protected human rights, in the form of bias, discrimination, privacy breaches, due process and procedural fairness issues, among others,” the document warns. “These systems will have life-and-death ramifications for ordinary people, many of whom are fleeing for their lives.”

Citing ample evidence of how biased and confused—how human—artificial intelligence can be, the report from the University of Toronto’s International Human Rights Program (IHRP) and the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy makes the case for a very deliberate sort of caution.

The authors mention how a search engine coughs up ads for criminal record checks when presented with a name it associates with a black identity. A woman searching for jobs sees lower-paying opportunities than a man doing the same search. Image recognition software matches a photo of a woman with another of a kitchen. An app store suggests a sex offender search as related to a dating app for gay men.

“You have this huge dataset, you just feed it into the algorithm and trust it to pick out the patterns,” says Cynthia Khoo, a research fellow at the Citizen Lab and a lawyer specializing in technology. “If that dataset is based on a pre-existing set of human decisions, and human decisions are also faulty and biased—if humans have been traditionally racist, for example, or biased in other ways—then that pattern will simply get embedded into the algorithm and it will say, ‘This is the pattern. This is what they want, so I’m going to keep replicating that.’”

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada says the department launched two pilot projects in 2018 using computer analytics to identify straightforward and routine Temporary Resident Visa applications from China and India for faster processing. “The use of computer analytics is not intended to replace people,” the department said. “It is another tool to support officers and others in managing our ever-increasing volume of applications. Officers will always remain central to IRCC’s processing.”

This week, the report’s authors made the rounds on the Hill, presenting their findings and concerns to policy-makers. “It does now sound like it’s a measured approach,” says Petra Molnar, a lawyer and technology and human rights researcher with the IHRP. “Which is great.”

Other countries offer cautionary tales rather than best practices. “The algorithm that was used [to determine] whether or not someone was detained at the U.S.-Mexico border was actually set to detain everyone and used as a corroboration for the extension of the detention practices of the Trump administration,” says Molnar.

And in 2016, the U.K. government revoked the visas of 36,000 foreign students after automated voice analysis of their English language equivalency exams suggested they may have cheated and sent someone else to the exam in their place. When the automated voice analysis was compared to human analysis, however, it was found to be wrong over 20 per cent of the time—meaning the U.K. may have ejected 7,000 foreign students who had done nothing wrong.

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation that came into force in April 2018, on the other hand, is the gold standard, enshrining such concepts as “the right to an explanation,” or the legal certainty that if your data was processed by an automated tool, you have the right to know how it was done.

Immigration and refugee decisions are both opaque and highly discretionary even when rendered by human beings, argues Molnar, pointing out that two different immigration officers may look at the same file and reach different decisions. The report argues that lack of transparency reaches a different level when you introduce AI into the equation, outlining three distinct reasons.

First, automated decision-making solutions are often created by outside entities that sell them to government agencies, so the source code, training data and other information would be proprietary and hidden from public view.

Second, full disclosure of the guts of these programs might be a bad idea anyway because it could allow people to “game” the system.

“Third, as these systems become more sophisticated (and as they begin to learn, iterate, and improve upon themselves in unpredictable or otherwise unintelligible ways), their logic often becomes less intuitive to human onlookers,” the authors explain. “In these cases, even when all aspects of a system are reviewable and superficially ‘transparent,’ the precise rationale for a given output may remain uninterpretable and unexplainable.” Many of these systems end up inscrutable black boxes that could spit out determinations on the futures of vulnerable people, the report argues.

Her group aims to use a “carrot-and-stick approach,” Khoo says, urging the federal government to make Canada a world leader on this in both a human rights and high-tech context. It’s a message that may find a receptive audience with a government that has been eager to make both halves of that equation central to its brand at home and abroad.

But they’ll have to move fast: If AI is currently in a nascent state in policy decisions that shape real people’s lives, it’s growing fast and won’t stay there for long.

“This is happening everywhere,” Khoo says.

Source: What happens when artificial intelligence comes to Ottawa

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Des cours de francisation jugés inefficaces

2018/09/28 Leave a comment

Basic level versus advanced level for professionals. Likely unrealistic to expect immigrant language training to cover the latter (just think of the mixed success of federal official language training for anglophones trying to learn French and the amount of time required).

Much better to address during selection process (as current Express Entry give weight to language):

Les programmes de francisation ne sont pas efficaces pour permettre aux immigrants de bien s’intégrer au marché du travail et à la société québécoise, déplore Nima Madani, immigrant d’origine iranienne installé au Québec depuis 2015.

En suivant les débats autour de l’accueil des nouveaux arrivants, cet ingénieur mécanique de 40 ans a l’impression, comme beaucoup d’autres immigrants, que les chefs politiques ne comprennent pas vraiment les enjeux et qu’ils proposent des solutions sans lien avec la réalité.

«Ils parlent du taux élevé d’échec aux cours de francisation, mais personne n’a comme priorité de les améliorer», souligne-t-il, se basant sur ce qu’il a vécu depuis son arrivée à Montréal.

La CAQ propose d’abord de réduire le nombre d’immigrants, tandis que le PQ veut exiger qu’ils connaissent mieux le français à leur arrivée.

«Mais on a tellement de choses à faire quand on se prépare à quitter notre pays, c’est très exigeant», témoigne Nima Madani.

«Les politiciens ne semblent pas savoir comment ça se passe pour un immigrant qui arrive. La majorité fait de gros efforts pour s’intégrer, mais on a l’impression d’être abandonnés, même en étant très motivé pour apprendre le français.»

Inquiétude

Ses observations sur les lacunes en francisation sont corroborées par plusieurs études, notamment celle du Conseil supérieur de la langue française (CSLF), publiée en février dernier, ainsi que par le dernier rapport de la Vérificatrice générale du Québec, dévoilé en novembre 2017. «L’offre de francisation de base ne permet pas aux immigrants d’atteindre un niveau de maîtrise de la langue suffisamment élevé pour réaliser une intégration socioprofessionnelle réussie», a démoncé le CSlF dans son rapport sur La francisation et l’intégration professionnelle des personnes immigrantes.

De nombreux immigrants sont inquiets de ce qu’ils entendent depuis le début de la campagne électorale, renchérit Stephan Reichhold, directeur de la Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes (TCRI).

«Ils se sentent dénigrés, alors que plusieurs font de gros efforts pour apprendre le français et que les inscriptions aux cours de francisation augmentent, dit-il. Certains se demandent s’ils devront quitter le Québec si la CAQ prend le pouvoir.»

Le test des valeurs proposé par François Legault cause aussi de l’irritation. «M. Legault ne semble pas réaliser qu’on fait déjà tout ce qu’il demande, note Nima Madani. Dans les entrevues de sélection, nous sommes interrogés sur les valeurs québécoises.»

Il rappelle aussi que la demande de certificat de sélection du Québec inclut la signature d’une Déclaration portant sur les valeurs communes de la société québécoise. «Si je n’étais pas d’accord, je ne serais pas venu au Québec», fait-il remarquer.

Les immigrants invisibles

Alors que le thème de l’accueil des immigrants occupe une place centrale dans la campagne électorale, on a peu entendu les nouveaux arrivants se prononcer eux-mêmes sur cet enjeu, alors qu’ils sont les premiers concernés.

Sollicités pour ce reportage, les représentants du Regroupement des organismes de francisation du Québec ont décliné notre demande d’entrevue, préférant «ne pas se mêler de politique», a expliqué un porte-parole.

Nima Madani veut contribuer au débat de façon constructive en témoignant de son expérience d’immigrant très motivé à apprendre le français: il a suivi plusieurs sessions de cours à Téhéran, en plus de deux séjours d’un mois à Paris dans des programmes d’immersion, pour se préparer à son arrivée au Québec.

«On m’a dit que mon français était assez bon, même si j’avais encore besoin de cours de francisation, raconte-t-il. Mais les cours ici ne sont pas efficaces, les progrès sont beaucoup trop lents pour atteindre un niveau suffisant pour travailler. Et quand on a terminé le programme de francisation, c’est très difficile de trouver des cours pour continuer de progresser.»

Trop élevé d’élèves par classe, trop peu de temps consacré à la conversation, méthodes d’enseignement archaïques et inefficaces, groupes composés d’élèves aux objectifs disparates, peu adaptés aux besoins des travailleurs qualifiés, horaires qui ne conviennent pas à tous, faibles moyens financiers des élèves… La liste des observations de M. Madani est longue!

«Je ne veux pas avoir l’air de chiâler!», dit-il, dans un français teinté d’un très léger accent, en hésitant à peine sur certains mots. «Les professeurs étaient très gentils et accueillants, mais certains n’enseignaient simplement pas bien. C’était un monologue. C’est bien que les cours soient gratuits, mais il faut surtout qu’ils soient performants.»

Autre aberration, selon lui: les enseignants donnaient à l’avance aux élèves les questions des examens du ministère de l’Immigration visant à vérifier les acquis.

Pour continuer ses progrès en français, M. Madani s’est inscrit à un cours à HEC-Montréal et a trouvé des Québécois avec qui se pratiquer.

«Dans mon réseau, dans la communauté iranienne, la plupart des gens parlent anglais, alors je ne peux pas compter sur mon entourage pour pratiquer», souligne-t-il.

Il se désole aussi de voir que l’on ne parle pas de cinéma québécois, ni de littérature ou de chanson dans les cours de francisation, mais qu’on apprend aux élèves comment se débrouiller si leur lavabo coule.

«Tout est fait en fonction de survivre et non de vivre, dit M. Madani. On ne parle jamais de ce qui est agréable dans la culture québécoise. Je n’ai jamais eu de lavabo qui coule depuis que je suis arrivé ici, ça ne me sert à rien pour entrer en contact avec les Québécois!»

***

UN GUICHET UNIQUE QUI SE FAIT ATTENDRE

Un projet de guichet unique pour faciliter l’accès aux cours de francisation, dans les cartons du ministère de l’Immigration, de la Diversité et de l’Inclusion (MIDI) depuis plus de 15 ans, n’a toujours pas vu le jour, malgré des années de travaux. Un contrat de plus de 200 000$ a même été accordé en 2009 pour la mise en place de ce guichet unique, visant à simplifier l’inscription aux cours, qui peuvent être offerts dans les commissions scolaires, les cégeps ou les organismes communautaires. Le ministère promet maintenant que ce service sera implanté en 2019. «Depuis août 2017, le MIDI est devenu la porte d’entrée unique pour les personnes immigrantes admissibles à l’allocation de participation et aux cours à temps complet, qu’ils soient offerts par un partenaire du MIDI ou en commission scolaire», note cependant une porte-parole du ministère, soulignant que le dernier budget prévoyait 50 millions sur cinq ans pour bonifier les services.

MAUVAISE NOTE POUR LA FRANCISATION

Les principales lacunes des cours de français destinés aux immigrants:

«La capacité de communiquer en français ne garantit pas l’intégration professionnelle et sociale, certes, mais ce facteur constitue néanmoins le premier élément d’intégration à la société québécoise.»

«L’hétérogénéité de la composition des groupes de francisation est considérée comme un frein à l’apprentissage de la langue.»

«Même s’ils reçoivent une allocation, il n’est pas rare que des immigrants qui suivent le programme de francisation soient obligés de travailler en même temps.»

Source: Conseil supérieur de la langue française, La francisation et l’intégration professionnelle des personnes immigrantes, février 2018.

«La vaste majorité des participants aux cours de français du ministère n’ont pas atteint le seuil d’autonomie langagière, lequel facilite l’accès au marché du travail et permet d’entreprendre des études postsecondaires. Les personnes immigrantes qui ont commencé des cours de français offerts par le Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Diversité et de l’Inclusion (MIDI) en 2015 ont atteint ce seuil dans une proportion de 9,1% à l’oral et de 3,7 et 5,3% à l’écrit.»

«Le MIDI ne mesure pas le délai d’attente réel des personnes immigrantes entre leur demande d’inscription et le début d’un cours à temps complet. De plus, il ne collige pas de données sur les raisons des désistements et l’information qu’il collecte au sujet des motifs d’abandon de cours durant une session est incomplète.»

Source: Rapport du Vérificateur général du Québec sur la francisation des personnes immigrantes, novembre 2017.

Source: Des cours de francisation jugés inefficaces

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Dozens of Doctors Who Screen Immigrants Have Record of ‘Egregious Infractions,’ Report Says

2018/09/28 Leave a comment

Not unique to the US I suspect, given the power imbalance and potential for abuse. In percentage terms small (0.2 percent) but still unacceptable:

The doctors tapped by the federal government to medically screen immigrants seeking green cards include dozens with a history of “egregious infractions,” according to a report from a federal watchdog agency.

The report looked at more than 5,500 doctors across the country used by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services as of June 2017 to examine those seeking green cards. More than 130 had some background of wrongdoing, including one who sexually exploited female patients and another who tried to have a dissatisfied patient killed, the report said.

The report, made public Tuesday by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, said the failure to effectively screen the doctors put immigrants “at risk of abuse.”

“USCIS is not properly vetting the physicians it designates to conduct required medical examinations of these foreign nationals, and it has designated physicians with a history of patient abuse or a criminal record,” the report states. “This is occurring because USCIS does not have policies to ensure only suitable physicians are designated.”

Alma Rosa Nieto, an immigration lawyer and vice chairwoman of the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s media advocacy committee, called the report’s findings “very troubling and frightening,” particularly given that the people undergoing the examinations are vulnerable.

“These are people that are in great need,” she said. “They are desperate to get their green card.”

Doctors must apply to be part of the government’s pool of screeners. Once approved, they conduct the mandatory medical exams for immigrants who are looking to become permanent residents and get green cards. Immigrants can be turned down if they are found to have a disease that could be a public health threat, have a mental disorder that could threaten others or are drug addicts.

The report did not identify the doctors who engaged in misconduct, nor did it reveal whether they are still on the government’s approved list.

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services said it “agreed that stricter eligibility requirements for civil surgeon designation and a strengthened vetting process will improve the quality and integrity of the program.” The agency said it was working to strengthen its screening process with new regulations by 2019.

A spokeswoman for the Office of Inspector General declined to comment further on the report Wednesday.

From a total pool of 5,569 doctors, 132 had been convicted of crimes, been penalized by state medical boards or had faced some other form of punishment, the report found. They included doctors convicted of health care fraud, doctors who had defaulted on health education loans or scholarships and doctors “engaged in dishonest, gross, and repeated negligent conduct in patient care and treatment.” It did not give a specific breakdown.

In a sample of 135 physicians, 14 percent were missing required papers, including proof of medical degrees.

“To guard against risking the health and safety of these foreign nationals, USCIS should more thoroughly scrutinize physicians before allowing them to become civil surgeons,” the report advises.

The report also found fault with the medical tests themselves, saying they possibly exposed the public to health hazards. An analysis of 151 files of immigrants approved for green cards found errors in 44 forms, such as missing proof of vaccinations or required medical tests.

“As a result, USCIS cannot be certain the civil surgeons actually administered all required tests and vaccinations and may have granted lawful permanent residence status to medically inadmissible foreign nationals who could pose a health risk to the U.S. population,” the report said.

Ms. Nieto said that she was not surprised at the findings, and that her clients routinely had errors in their files. She said she advised clients to get independent medical tests done, if possible, even if it costs extra money and time.

“I see my clients coming back with reports that are either incomplete or inaccurate,” she said.

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Ottawa’s use of AI in immigration system has profound implications for human rights

2018/09/27 Leave a comment

Good discussion of the main issues and the need for care and accountability frameworks in the development of AI and its algorithms.

The authors also note that “Human decision-making is also riddled with bias and error” (unfortunately, we don’t have any comparable analysis to that of Sean Rehaag with respect to IRB and Federal Court immigration-related decisions – Getting refugee decisions appealed in court ‘the luck of the draw,’ study shows):

How would you feel if an algorithm made a decision about your application for a Canadian work permit, or determined how much money you can bring in as an investor? What if it decided whether your marriage is “genuine?” Or if it trawled through your Tweets or Facebook posts to determine if you are “suspicious” and therefore a “risk,” without ever revealing any of the categories it used to make this decision?

While seemingly futuristic, these types of questions will soon be put to everyone who interacts with Canada’s immigration system.

A report released Wednesday by the University of Toronto’s International Human Rights Program (IHRP) and the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy finds that algorithms and artificial intelligence are augmenting and replacing human decision makers in Canada’s immigration and refugee system, with profound implications for fundamental human rights.

We know that Canada has already introduced automated decision-making experiments as part of the immigration determination process since at least 2014. These new automated techniques support the evaluation of immigrant and visitor applications such as Express Entry for Permanent Residence. Recent announcements signal an expansion of the uses of these technologies in a variety of applications and immigration decisions in the coming years.

Exploring new technologies and innovations is exciting and necessary, particularly when used in an immigration system plagued by lengthy delays, protracted family separation and uncertain outcomes. However, without proper oversight, mechanisms and accountability measures, the use of AI threatens to create a laboratory for high-risk experiments.

The system is already opaque. The ramifications of using AI in immigration and refugee decisions are far-reaching. Vulnerable and under-resourced communities such as those without citizenship often have access to less-robust human rights protections and fewer resources with which to defend those rights. Adopting these technologies in an irresponsible manner may serve only to exacerbate these disparities and can result in severe rights violations, such as discrimination and threats to life and liberty.

Without proper oversight, automated decisions can rely on discriminatory and stereotypical markers, such as appearance, religion, or travel patterns, and thus entrench bias in the technology. The nuanced and complex nature of many refugee and immigration claims may be lost on these technologies. This could lead to serious breaches of internationally and domestically protected human rights, in the form of bias, discrimination, privacy breaches, due process and procedural fairness issues, such as the right to have a fair and impartial decision maker and being able to appeal your decision. These rights are internationally protected by instruments that Canada has ratified, such as the United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, among others. These rights are also protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and accompanying provincial human rights legislation.

At this point, there are more questions than answers.

If an algorithm makes a decision about your fate, can it be considered fair and impartial if it relies on biased data that is not made public? What happens to your data during the course of these decisions and can it be shared with other departments, or even with the government of your country, potentially putting you at risk? The use of AI has already been criticized in the predictive policing context, where algorithms linked race with the likelihood of re-offending, or when they link women with lower paying jobs, or purport to discern sexual orientations from photos.

Given the already limited safeguards and procedural justice protections in immigration and refugee decisions, the use of discriminatory and biased algorithms have profound ramifications on a person’s safety, life, liberty, security, and mobility. Before exploring how these technologies will be used, we need to create a framework for transparency and accountability that addresses bias and error in automated decision making.

Our report recommends Ottawa establish an independent, arm’s-length body with the power to engage in all aspects of oversight and review all automated decision-making systems by the federal government, publishing all current and future uses of AI by the government. We advocate for the creation of a task force that brings key government stakeholders, alongside academia and civil society, to better understand the current and prospective impacts of automated decision system technologies on human rights and the public interest more broadly.

Without these frameworks and mechanisms, we risk creating a system that – while innovative and efficient – could ultimately result in human rights violations. Canada is exploring the use of this technology in high-risk contexts within an accountability vacuum. Human decision-making is also riddled with bias and error, and AI may in fact have positive impacts in terms of fairness and efficiency. We need a new framework of accountability that builds on the safeguards and review processes we have in place for the frailties in human decision-making. AI is not inherently objective or immune to bias and must be implemented only after a broad and critical look at the very real impacts these technologies will have on human lives.

Source: Ottawa’s use of AI in immigration system has profound implications for human rights

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Immigration In Germany: Separating Signal From Noise After Chemnitz

2018/09/27 Leave a comment

Informative regarding the divide between former East and West Germany and those with an immigrant background or not.

There is a theory in migration and integration studies that the more foreigners one is exposed to the less hostile one becomes to them. It is known as the Contact Hypothesis. The inverse is that the less interaction between groups the more hostility one could expect.

The recent anti-immigrant rioting in Chemnitz and Köthen, two of the cities with the lowest immigration in Germany, appears to bear this idea out in a vivid way. It was a display that shocked many Germans and has caused a somewhat separate political scandal. Above all, the hand-wringing is about how, in politically liberal Germany, such displays of outright xenophobia could be possible. This is where the Contact Hypothesis comes into it and can help us to understand what’s going on.

“I think it makes perfect sense to think (in terms of the hypothesis) because there are so few people coming from abroad or from foreign countries into Eastern Germany,” said Dr. Hans Vorländer, German political scientist and member of the Expert Council of German Foundations on Integration and Migration (SVR). “There is a kind of xenophobia, they just don’t know what these people are all about so they are not used to contact with them.”

As of the end of 2017 both Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, the East German states that contain Chemnitz and Köthen respectively, had around 48 foreigners per thousand inhabitants. That is less than half the national figure of 128.4 and significantly lower than national leaders Berlin (246.7) and Bremen (185.1). In fact, the combined average for all the states of former East Germany (excluding Berlin as the statistics don’t discriminate between former East and West) is 47.1 while the average for the former states of West Germany is nearly three times that at just under 137.

Eastern states, however, show markedly more anti-foreigner attacks than in the west. According to the annual Status of German Unity report for 2016, which looks at the continuing divides between East and West, there were significantly more violent attacks motivated by right-wing extremism in the former East German states, with an average of 45.7 attacks per million inhabitants, compared to the 10.5 attacks per million inhabitants in former West German states.

At the same time, support for the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is strongest in East Germany, and Dresden, Saxony’s second largest city, is the home turf of the far-right anti-Islamist movement PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West).

But despite all the hand-wringing about the rise of xenophobia in Germany, things long-term might not be quite as extreme as the headline numbers would lead one to think. The SVR just released their 2018 Integration Barometerwhich measures public sentiment on the integration of first- and second-generation migrants into German life. The barometer shows that despite a slight drop in their key metric on integration, from 65.4 in 2015 to 63.8 in 2017/18, people still had a positive attitude overall toward integration in the country.

Drawing conclusions from the barometer is a little tricky, as certain ethnic and cultural groups tend to push the overall number in one or another direction on certain issues. For instance, according to the barometer, 60% of those without a migration background believe Germany should continue to receive refugees, “even if it were the only EU member state to do so.” This overall number is pushed up by the overwhelmingly positive response from people of Turkish descent, while the majority of ethnic Germans were against receiving more refugees.

Despite those caveats, one thing is clear, and it brings us back to the Contact Hypothesis. From the report: “It is above all people without a migration background who have hardly any or no contact with cultural diversity who regard integration more pessimistically, especially those living in Germanyʼs eastern federal states.”

For a long time, Dr. Vorländer has been researching the far-right in Germany, and he says it’s clear there is an anti-immigrant sentiment in East Germany but it is not at the level of an existential problem for the country: “There is hostility, there is xenophobia and there is Islamophobia, to a greater extent than in West Germany. But it’s not that high, it’s a small percentage that makes the difference.”

Nonetheless, and even though studies such as the SVR integration barometer point towards the relative health of the system, it’s understandable some people want to see something done to lessen the hostility in East Germany and improve relations between migrants and “native” Germans.

Though the solution will never be simple, for researchers such as Dr. Vorländer the Contact Hypothesis provides something of a road-map: “The authorities have to support any kind of network within civil society that increases interaction between refugees, migrants and the people.” He said he’s optimistic in the long run but, as with so many problems, integration in East Germany is not one to be fixed overnight: “It takes time, you know, it takes time and it takes an awful lot of constant work, maybe it takes 20 to 30 years to find some forms of successful integration.”

And indeed such integration could be vital to the country’s future overall, and to reviving East Germany’s flagging economy. The same Status of German Unity report quoted above also suggested skilled immigration from the EU and beyond would be beneficial to East Germany, as Dr. Vorländer emphasizes: “We need migration for reasons of the job market, it’s very essential. We need labor migration, we need people coming in and it’s the only solution for the future in East Germany.”

Source: Immigration In Germany: Separating Signal From Noise After Chemnitz

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Here’s how to beat the populists: stop talking about immigration

2018/09/27 Leave a comment

Not sure whether this approach will be anymore effective but it does have the advantage of addressing the more fundamental and broader threat of populism to the rule of law:

While the British Brexit debate rages on, it continues to ignore entirely a more important European political battle: the search for the best way to defeat populists on the continent within the next eight months – the time left before the EU parliamentary elections. That little of this seems to get factored into internal British discourse is not surprising: for all the headlines about Theresa May’s “Salzburg humiliation” or “EU dirty rats”, Brexit is essentially the British talking to themselves.

Across the Channel, a new line of attack against Europe’s populists is taking shape: it focuses on breaches to democratic rule of law, rather than the issue of immigration. That’s why the most important piece of EU news this month was not the Salzburg situation (entirely predictable) but the 12 September vote in the EU parliament on the rule of law in Hungary (much less so). For the first time, an EU institution which is hard to describe as “anti-democratic” (it is elected directly by its citizens) called for the activation of article 7 procedure against a member state’s government because of the way it has been disemboweling essential democratic institutions and rights.

For a long time now, Europe’s liberal democrats have been struggling to curtail political forces that threaten core principles. But since the 2015 refugee crisis they have let themselves get dragged into precisely the debate that populists can thrive on: migration. Not only was the EU at a loss over how to deal with the arrival of a million people in 2015, but its liberals have mostly failed to convince large swaths of the population that immigration is needed, that it needn’t upend social services, and that it does not spell the end of a certain sense of European or national identity.

Migration conjures up fears that rational argument struggles to cope with. Hungary’s avowedly “illiberal” Viktor Orbán and Italy’s far-right Matteo Salvini have secured major electoral breakthroughs by relentlessly pounding away at migration, depicted as a “Muslim invasion” (Orbán) or as something that requires “mass cleansing, street by street” (Salvini). With that rhetoric, they are now preparing to launch their bid to take control of the EU parliament, along with like-minded European politicians.

With that rhetoric also, the Swedish far right has won a position that allows it to foster political instability, as shown by this week’s no-confidence vote in Stockholm. Pushing back at these forces with talk of multiculturalism and inclusiveness will go only so far. A better strategy is to nail them on the democratic rule of law. That’s where the populist achilles heel is found; and it’s where the EU has tools to act, such as article 7, which can suspend EU voting rights, or European court rulings.

By this, I certainly don’t mean that the moral and legal argument for saving people fleeing war and persecution should not be made. But it may be too late now, before the May 2019 vote, to shift those parts of public opinion in Europe that have come to believe asylum is shorthand for demographic upheaval or “replacement”. Studies show European citizens overestimate the percentage of migrants in their countries (Italians believe it is three times higher than the real figure). The bare fact that migration flows have dropped steeply since 2015 does not register in perceptions. It is no coincidence that anti-immigration narratives have now spread from Europe’s hard right to its hard left – with Germany’s Sahra Wagenknecht and France’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon arguing that the arrival of migrants is a capitalist European plot to suppress workers’ wages.

At this point, to shift the argument against Europe’s extremes away from migration makes much better sense.

Saying that the democratic rule of law is under siege holds more political potential. This is what happened on 12 September, when two-thirds of European lawmakers drew a line marking what is acceptable and what isn’t. Think of it as a case of European checks and balances at last kicking in. The resolution voted through that day is a clear indictment of everything Orbán has done to violate democratic standards, from restricting freedom of the press to undermining the electoral system. It ought to serve as a template for a wider grassroots European campaign to protect the democratic rule of law.

Rather than lambasting Orbán for rejecting the 2015 EU refugee redistribution scheme (compulsory quotas that never translated into reality), cornering him on the dismantling of mechanisms that give citizens a proper say in democracy, and allow them to make informed decisions, is likely to be more rewarding. A better way to counter Orbán and Salvini is to focus on how they threaten what protects citizens. Populists aim to destroy the safety that comes from being able to count on an independent judge if you have been the victim of abuse; the safety that comes with getting pluralistic information, not state propaganda; the safety that comes from being confident your shop or your business won’t be choked by kleptocratic, corrupt power networks.

It helps to picture populists as a bulldozer over which a large banner reading Migrants Out has been slapped to hide the grinding wheels and huge metal shovel that are busy dismantling the democratic rule of law. It’s happened in Hungary and Poland, and it’s threatening to happen in Italy if Salvini gets his way. Ask a European citizen if they want more migrants and they may answer uneasily. Ask them if they want their government to deprive them of the tools that give people a say and the protections that come with democratic rule, and the response will be more forthright.

Rule of law – as a shield against abuse of power and corruption – should be the signature theme of next year’s election.

Choice of vocabulary matters too. Framing the debate as a battle of “progressives versus nationalists” has limits because populists will push back by equating “progressivism” with enforcing “open-border” or “anti-Christian” policies. A shrewder approach would be to cast this existential battle for Europe’s soul as “democrats versus authoritarians”. At the end of the day, our common enemy is autocracy. Arbitrary rule leaves citizens unprotected; Europe’s body of law protects them. Populists want that to come undone, so they can redraw the continent as they like. That’s where the real, immediate danger lies – not in all the fantasising that, from Brexit to Orbán, has surrounded migration.

Source: Here’s how to beat the populists: stop talking about immigration

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Des demandeurs d’asile revendiquent l’accès aux services de garde subventionnés

2018/09/26 Leave a comment

I understand the logic as labour market permits, school attendance and healthcare already available to claimants. However, given shortage of childcare spaces, expect some political pushback.

Will be interesting to see how Commission responds:

Dans une démarche inusitée, des demandeurs d’asile portent plainte pour discrimination devant la Commission québécoise des droits de la personne et de la jeunesse, parce qu’ils n’ont pas accès aux services de garde subventionnés, a appris La Presse.

Cette exclusion oblige plusieurs d’entre eux à refuser un emploi et les contraint à vivre de l’aide sociale, ce qui retarde leur processus d’intégration.

Parallèlement, dans une lettre ouverte, un comité qui regroupe une quarantaine de demandeurs d’asile appelle le gouvernement à ouvrir les garderies subventionnées aux personnes en attente de statut.

Une réglementation laissant place à interprétation a longtemps permis aux demandeurs d’asile d’inscrire leurs enfants dans un CPE. Dans une directive envoyée en avril dernier, le ministère de la Famille a clairement fermé cette brèche.

Les demandeurs d’asile n’ont pas non plus accès aux remboursements anticipés du crédit d’impôt qui aident les familles à faible revenu à assumer les frais des garderies privées. Concrètement, cela exclut des centaines d’enfants nouvellement arrivés au Québec du réseau des garderies.

Cette politique «nous empêche d’accéder à la francisation et à l’emploi, nous isole avec nos enfants de la société qu’on voudrait activement intégrer et affecte surtout les femmes demandeuses d’asile», déplore le comité des demandeurs d’asile dans sa lettre ouverte, qui réclame l’accès aux CPE et aux versements anticipés du crédit d’impôt pour frais de garde.

Effets dévastateurs

La politique d’exclusion a un effet «dévastateur» sur les familles, dénoncent les demandeurs d’asile.

C’est ainsi qu’une des plaignantes, Blessing, Nigériane de 30 ans arrivée au Québec en avril dernier, a dû refuser deux offres d’emploi, l’une dans une usine de matériel électrique, l’autre dans un centre d’appels, parce qu’elle n’avait pas les moyens de payer une garderie privée pour son enfant de 4 ans.

«Je me sens coincée, impuissante et déprimée», confie la demandeuse d’asile, qui préfère taire son nom de famille et qui veut gagner sa vie en attendant que la Commission de l’immigration et du statut de réfugié (CISR) statue sur son sort – ce qui peut prendre jusqu’à 18 mois.

Au lieu de ça, déplore-t-elle, elle est dépendante de l’aide sociale.

Un autre plaignant, Vladimyr Mathieu, arrivé d’Haïti en juin 2017, vit une situation particulière. Son fils né à Montréal n’a pas accès au service de garde. Pourtant, il est citoyen canadien. Sa fille aînée, née en Haïti, a été admise en garderie avant la directive d’avril dernier, et continue à profiter de son droit acquis – pourtant, elle n’est pas citoyenne. La garderie qu’elle fréquente est disposée à accueillir son petit frère, mais Québec refuse de contribuer aux frais. La demande d’inscription a donc été rejetée.

Pour que Valdimyr et sa femme, qui occupent tous deux un emploi, puissent continuer à travailler, ils se sont résolus à faire garder leur plus jeune enfant, âgé de 1 an, par un voisin, une situation que les deux demandeurs d’asile jugent insatisfaisante.

«Je ne comprends pas, le système nous demande de travailler, nous recevons un permis de travail, mais nous n’avons pas accès aux garderies; c’est comme si on nous disait de rester sur l’aide sociale pour prendre soin de nos enfants», déplore Valdimyr Mathieu.

Au total, six demandeurs d’asile vivant des situations semblables, à un moment où les délais de traitement des dossiers s’allongent, ont demandé à la Commission des droits de la personne d’examiner leur plainte.

L’exclusion des services de garde est discriminatoire, tout particulièrement pour les femmes, qu’il s’agisse de mères seules ou de conjointes étant les plus susceptibles de rester à la maison pour prendre soin des enfants, soutient le comité de demandeurs d’asile dans sa lettre ouverte.

«Les travailleurs temporaires ont bien accès aux garderies, alors que les demandeurs d’asile, qui disposent d’un permis de travail, en sont exclus, je ne comprends pas la logique de cette politique», s’étonne l’une des signataires de la lettre ouverte, l’avocate Claude-Catherine Lemoine, selon qui ce traitement à géométrie variable n’a pas de raison d’être et entraîne à moyen terme des coûts sociaux importants.

«C’est complètement contre-productif, ça pénalise non seulement les familles, mais aussi la société québécoise, parce que ça retarde l’apprentissage du français et l’intégration au marché du travail», croit Stephan Reichhold, de la Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes.

«En barrant l’accès aux CPE aux demandeurs d’asile, on se tire simplement dans le pied», résume-t-il.

Écoles, mais pas les garderies

Depuis l’adoption du projet de loi 144, à la fin de 2017, tous les enfants, incluant ceux des demandeurs d’asile, ont accès au système scolaire. «Si on veut être cohérent, on devrait étendre ça aux garderies», plaide Geneviève Binette, du Comité d’aide aux réfugiés.

D’autant plus que ce n’est pas par manque de places que les garderies refoulent les enfants de demandeurs d’asile, mais à cause d’une politique gouvernementale.

La quarantaine de demandeurs d’asile qui ont formé le comité demandant l’accès aux services de garde ont dû surmonter des résistances intérieures, souligne Rachel Shugart, du Collectif Bienvenue, qui vient en aide aux nouveaux arrivants.

Membre, à titre personnel, du comité formé par les demandeurs d’asile, Rachel Shugart souligne que plusieurs d’entre eux viennent de pays qui ne respectent pas les droits. La démarche était «effrayante pour eux, ils se sentent inquiets, nerveux», selon Rachel Shugart.

Mais ces nouveaux venus en attente de statut sont aussi déterminés à accéder aussi vite que possible à l’autonomie financière et à ne plus dépendre de l’aide de l’État.

Source: Des demandeurs d’asile revendiquent l’accès aux services de garde subventionnés

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