A quiet change in US policy threatens immigrants who apply for a change in status

2018/07/09 1 Comment

Yet another example of US tightening of immigration, and removing some of the needed flexibilities for individuals and companies. It also suggests that the Trump administration is systematically going through the various policies in effect and making changes on both highly visible areas (detention) and more subtle but also impactful areas:

It went largely unremarked, just another bland procedural decision from a government agency. But a quiet policy change at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services last month is the next step toward a nationwide purge of non-citizens.

On June 28, USCIS announced that non-citizens who apply for a “benefit”–such as an extension or change of status, a green card, or citizenship—would be placed in deportation proceedings if that benefit is denied. For years, a criminal conviction has been required to be fast-tracked for deportation. Now, merely losing your petition for visa extension, being charged with a crime, or doing something DHS considers to be criminal (even if never arrested or charged) places you on the same fast-track.

Once in deportation proceedings, the non-citizen must prove she is eligible to stay in the United States. She will not be provided a lawyer; she may be detained, sometimes with no bond. There is no right to a speedy trial, nor trial by jury. Here are a few examples highlighting the full extent of the new rule.

Jack, a foreign student, files for an extension of his visa. He’s always been in status. He moves off campus, and properly files a change of address with USCIS (he even gets the receipt). Later, the agency sends a request for evidence to his old address anyway. Jack never receives it. USCIS denies the extension of status for failure to respond. Jack now faces deportation.

Maria is in the US on a fiancée visa and files for a green card. Her US citizen husband has a good job with health insurance. Before the green card interview, Maria is diagnosed with breast cancer. The officer finds out and denies Maria’s green card, saying she’s likely to become a public charge. Maria now faces deportation.

Sam is a software engineer. His employer sponsors him for a green card—but is then acquired by another firm. USCIS denies the petition, saying there is insufficient proof the new employer can continue the sponsorship in the shoes of the old employer. Sam now faces deportation.

Nancy is disabled and came to the US lawfully on a “medical visit” visa. Her doctors need her to stay for another 6 months of treatment. Once it finishes, she can return home, but leaving early will endanger her health. USCIS denies the extension request, saying doctors didn’t adequately explain the need for her to stay in lay terms. Nancy now faces deportation.

Jen was abused by her spouse and files for protection under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). She suffers from severe chronic depression, and misses the deadline for a request for evidence, asking for a doctor’s report detailing the abuse. As a result, her petition is denied. Jen now faces deportation.

It’s not always easy to stay in status. Life happens. Deporting everyone who fails to dot every “i” and cross every “t” is shelling a peanut with a sledgehammer. Under the new USCIS policy change, the United States’ already unforgiving system will become draconian.

While the USCIS has always had some authority to initiate deportation proceedings, the last policy guidance on deportation, issued in November 2011, centered on criminals, fraud, and other negative eligibility indicators. That guidance has been canned. This new policy greatly expands the categories of “enforcement priority” to most of the people trying to navigate a byzantine immigration system.

It is becoming harder and harder to comply with the immigration law. Asylum law is being gutted. Immigration judges are being robbed of the little independence they had, and pressured to order removals. Families have been ripped apart to “send a message” for the “crime” of exercising their human and legal right to seek asylum. There is now a task force dedicated to taking citizenship away from people. Millions of Muslims are now legally banned from entry. The list of countries designated for Temporary Protected Status continues to shrink, and the Dreamers who grew up in this country remain in limbo.

https://www.theatlas.com/embed/r143e-kTz

It’s no coincidence that brown and black people bear the brunt of these attacks. This is the result of years of nativist, protectionist rhetoric peddled by groups like the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the Center for Immigration Studies, and NumbersUSA. Their work hasn’t been cheap: hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into this effort since the inception of FAIR in 1979. Born from white nationalism, such groups have beaten the drums of war against imaginary hordes of brown and black invaders for decades.

Immigration courts currently face a staggering backlog of over 700,000 cases, and the Trump administration has complained extensively about the bureaucracy required to deal with them. Paradoxically, USCIS will now pump in another stream of cases. This system is going to explode. When it does, the next step in the white nationalist agenda will be to replace it with a new version, stripped of the due process of law.

Source: A quiet change in US policy threatens immigrants who apply for a change in status

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Martin Regg Cohn: Canadians should beware Premier Doug Ford using ‘illegal’ refugee claimants as a wedge to drive us apart

2018/07/09 Leave a comment

Agree that wedge politics being played here, arguably by both sides, with the more corrosive discourse and approach by Ford. One thing to argue over funding – yes, the federal government is largely on the hook – but another to refuse participation in all three level of government coordination and cooperation:

One week in power, and Doug Ford’s government has declared war against Justin Trudeau.

By taking aim at asylum claimants who cross into Canada.

That was fast. Don’t shed a tear for the prime minister, who can presumably take care of himself — whether rebuffing a Ford missive or repelling a Donald Trump tirade.

But ask yourself what happens to the inevitable casualties of this conflict between Queen’s Park and Ottawa:

No, not just the people crossing the border to claim refugee status. Think about the rest of us, and what this does to us — the way we treat border crossers, and the way we treat each other.

This will test all of us, not just Ontario’s new premier and his federal counterpart.

The rise in migrants slipping across the border has already challenged our border security and police officers, who have comported themselves with Canadian decency and dignity. It is testing our refugee determination system, which (lest we forget) is burdened and bound by due process.

Now, the border-crossing story that landed in Quebec a year ago, and then crossed over into eastern Ontario, has landed hard on Toronto’s doorstep. Just in time for Ford’s new Progressive Conservative team to seize on it as a wedge issue that drives people apart.

Beware the wedge that exploits refugee claimants — for while many may indeed be economic migrants gaming the system, a good number might well be legitimate victims of persecution seeking sanctuary. You never know, until you know for sure (see: due process).

Yet Ford’s government is wagging its finger at “illegal border crossers” in official statements that misstate reality and incite hostility. It is an axiom of international law that desperate refugee claimants often cross borders by hook or by crook, but that doesn’t make them criminals (it’s precisely how both my parents escaped post-war Communist Europe).

Ontario’s new minister of children and social services, Lisa MacLeod, points an accusing finger at Trudeau for supposedly triggering a mass migration when he “tweeted out that everyone was welcome here, and as a result of that, we’ve had thousands of people cross the border illegally.”

Was this truly the tweet that launched a thousand ships? Or dispatched thousands of taxis to our border, there to disgorge their human cargo on our doorstep as per the PM’s precise GPS directions?

Were it so simple, Trudeau need only delete the troubling tweet. But he never offered directions to those unauthorized border pathways, nor invitations to cross over at leisure.

Yes, Trudeau and countless Canadians took turns humble-bragging and boasting about our supposed virtue in welcoming Syrian refugees after Stephen Harper’s Conservatives behaved churlishly and Barack Obama’s America acted ungenerously. But to draw a direct line between a Trudeau tweet and an imagined human stampede to the border is to elevate the prime minister’s Twitter feed to Trumpian influence.

Let’s be clear here. The migrant movement that began last summer emanated not from any misplaced magnanimity by the PM, but from fear of a looming Trump clampdown on Haitians still enjoying sanctuary in the U.S. after a 2010 earthquake.

It bears repeating that Canada had previously ended that sanctuary status — yes, faster than the Americans — and was systematically deporting Haitians who were here back to their homeland. Oblivious to that fact, thousands of Haitians crossed over into Canada, making up 85 per cent of migrants at the outset.

Under an existing bilateral agreement, the U.S. automatically takes back any refugee claimants who show up at our side of official border crossings. But by slipping over out of sight of those official crossings, migrants exploited a loophole by which the Americans wouldn’t take them back.

Since then, there has been a long and awkward debate about what to do to avoid turning a trickle into a tide.

Federal Conservatives have suggested we declare the entire border one big crossing — as if this would force the Americans to take back their asylum claimants. But Trudeau can no more demand that Trump do as we say on refugees than he can insist that the president undo the tariffs he slapped on our steel and aluminum.

Shall we stand our ground and instruct our police to point guns and draw bayonets at asylum-seekers to keep them on the American side? Or heave them back across the border, throwing their bags after them? Do we build a Trump-style wall across our undefended border and demand Mexico pay for it?

Not really so easy, except in the virtual reality of Twitter.

It’s perfectly fair for the provincial and municipal governments to demand that Ottawa come up with the money and plans to deal with the pressure points in local facilities — in Ontario as in Quebec. To his credit, Mayor John Tory has been pressing the case for Toronto’s needs without turning people against migrants in need.

Ford’s government could learn from the mayor’s approach, instead of delegitimizing asylum-seekers as illegal, and demonizing Ottawa for following a legal framework. On Thursday, when Trudeau met him at Queen’s Park, a statement from the premier’s office declared, provocatively:

“This mess was 100 per cent the result of the federal government.”

In truth, there are no easy answers, just the certainty that public support can easily be turned against asylum-claimants if politicians want to press those buttons (see: Europe and America). All the more reason for all levels of government to start working together, rather than driving people apart.

Source: Martin Regg Cohn: Canadians should beware Premier Doug Ford using ‘illegal’ refugee claimants as a wedge to drive us apart

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Trump administration extends special immigration status for Yemen citizens in US

2018/07/07 Leave a comment

A rare sensible policy decision:

The Department of Homeland Security on Thursday announced the extension of a special immigration status for citizens of Yemen living in the United States.

About 1,250 Yemeni nationals are covered by the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program, which allows citizens of countries that have undergone natural or man-made disasters to live and work in the U.S. The program protects foreign citizens who are already in the U.S., legally or illegally, when their home country is designated for protection after a disaster.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced the 18-month extension, the longest period TPS designations can be extended.

Yemen was first designated for TPS on Sept. 3, 2015, six months after a civil war started there.

The internal conflict has raged on since then, with Houthi rebels and forces loyal to President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi each controlling large swaths of the country on the Arabian Peninsula.

Neighboring Saudi Arabia has intervened in the war, as have the local branches of al Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

“After carefully reviewing conditions in Yemen with interagency partners, Secretary Nielsen determined that the ongoing armed conflict and extraordinary and temporary conditions that support Yemen’s current designation for TPS continue to exist,” the department said in a statement Thursday.

The extension applies only to current Yemeni TPS beneficiaries.

Peniel Ibe, a policy fellow for the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization that works to protect immigrants, advocated for a new TPS designation for Yemen.

“It’s critical that the Trump administration not only extend but also redesignate TPS for Yemen, which continues to struggle with extreme violence and poverty,” Ibe said in a statement. “A redesignation of TPS would allow more recently arrived Yemeni nationals to apply for protection through TPS — people who are fleeing from a U.S.-backed war in Yemen.”

The Trump administration has ended TPS for a handful of countries, mostly in Latin America.

Those cancellations have left around 300,000 foreign citizens who had TPS, some for almost two decades, unsure of whether they will be allowed to remain in the United States past their new TPS end date.

Source: Trump administration extends special immigration status for Yemen citizens in US

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Canada’s future prosperity depends on opening — not closing — our borders

2018/07/06 Leave a comment

More support for the “big Canada” approach by Hugh Segal, Maureen Silcoff and Karen Chen who write in favour of the Century Initiative and against the Safe Third Country Agreement.

And like the Century Initiative, little acknowledgement of some of the realities involved, along with the standard affirmation that Canada is largely empty. True of course, except for the places that the vast majority of Canadians, both long-standing and newcomers live and will likely continue to do so:

Canadian immigration policy and Canadian sovereignty have a shared purpose, and that purpose has a front door. Growing the size of our population, across the second largest land mass in the world, has always been a priority.

Canadian immigration policy and Canadian sovereignty have a shared purpose, and that purpose has a front door.

Growing the size of our population, across the second largest land mass in the world, has always been a priority. Economic prosperity, national security, development and opportunity require a growing population. Trading and, when necessary, competing with our southern neighbour, and the rest of the world, with a population smaller than California’s is difficult.

The front door for that policy has and will always include our formal border crossings, and will include refugee claims.

Processing refugee claims through the front door concurs with our international duties under the 1951 Refugee Convention, when, following the Second World War, we committed to do our part and accept refugee claimants, and not treat them as illegal while their cases are being processed.

The number of refugee claimants who cross our southern border irregularly rose dramatically after President Donald Trump took office — some 9,481 so far this year.

Many have taken the unsanctioned path of Roxham Road, the street between Champlain, N.Y., and Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Que., thus avoiding official ports of entry. They do this because the U.S.-Canada Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) requires refugee claimants to seek protection in the first “safe” country they enter, with narrow exceptions. The agreement applies only at official ports of entry, so by entering somewhere other than the front door, they can access Canada’s refugee system.

Critics say irregular arrivals have the effect of bringing the administration of our borders into disrepute. People have questioned how we can allow such crossings under the rule of law, for it questions the notion of “order” found in the “peace, order and good government” clause of our constitution.

Once we relegate people to irregular means of arrival, which the STCA has done, we risk seeing them as an undesirable element that bypasses the front door. We speak of them in numbers, using words like surge and flood. We respond by bemoaning our lack of capacity, assuming ill intentions, accusing them of cutting the queue and breaking the rules.

There is a solution.

The STCA was Canada’s idea. Bordered by the Arctic, two oceans and the United States, Canada sought to further limit the number of refugees able to claim protection here.

That makes sense, if you believe that limiting the number of refugees is a benefit to Canada. While the selection of immigrants and the determination of refugee status are subject to different criteria, overall, the country needs more people.

Most of Canada, well beneath the more climactically difficult extreme parts north, is empty. We have room for new cities, expanding communities in every province. Bangladesh received the same number of asylum-seekers in one day as the total number who entered Canada last year.

Moreover, whatever our views on America’s present immigration policy, the STCA no longer serves the purposes of Canada’s overall immigration policy. Canada needs population growth at a much faster rate. From Diefenbaker in the 1950s, through the Pearson, Trudeau, Mulroney, Chrétien, Martin, Harper and Trudeau governments, Ottawa has raised the annual immigration levels, not enough, but consistently under both Liberal and Conservative governments.

A distinguished group of Canadians launched an organization in 2016 called the “Century Initiative” aimed at growing our population to one hundred million by the next century. Experts in investment, finance, economics and planning argued this number was essential to building prosperity and opportunity. Barring an increase in the birth rate, immigration policy is key to accomplishing this goal. Our economic capacity to compete with our American allies, and not be intimidated by capricious, illegal and unjustified tariffs, would be enhanced by a population 300 per cent larger.

Canada has a tradition of responding to groups of people who require protection. Since the 1950s, Canada has responded with an open heart and an open front door to waves of Hungarian, Vietnamese, Syrian and other refugees. Each inflow has made us economically and socially stronger.

Our need for growth and our humanitarian commitment have led to a coherent policy championed by parties of all political stripes. As Barbara McDougall, a former Immigration and foreign minister in the Mulroney cabinet, once said when confronted by an unexpected landing of Tamil asylum seekers on the East Coast, “we don’t turn back boats filled with people.”

Opening the front door has another benefit. It removes the stigma and spectacle of families pushing strollers and pulling suitcases down Roxham Road; it removes the risk of people losing fingers, toes and even their lives to cross clandestinely in harsh weather; and it removes the pressure on Quebec.

We should return to our long-held immigration, growth and humanitarian principles, for they remain intertwined. Suspend the STCA and open the front door.

Source: Canada’s future prosperity depends on opening — not closing — our borders

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USA: As the debate rages over immigration detainers, data on their efficacy is sparse

2018/07/06 Leave a comment

Always a sign of possible problems or issues when governments do not release data:

The debate over sanctuary cities has raged in Massachusetts for more than three years, and has only intensified since President Trump took office, as the governor, state courts, and legislators grapple with when — and even whether — local law enforcement should detain immigrants the federal government wants to deport.

But amid the disagreement, the Trump administration has clamped down on releasing information about the administrative requests from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, called detainers, which are at the heart of the debate. It is unclear how many have been issued over the past 16 months, how many are honored or rejected, and how many lead to deportations.

A February 2017 memo by John Kelly, who was head of the Department of Homeland Security at the time, ordered ICE to provide the public with a weekly report listing the name of the jurisdiction, the suspect’s citizenship and immigration status, the arresting charge, and “an explanation concerning why the detainer or similar request for custody was not honored.”

Three weekly Declined Detainer Outcome Reports were issued before the report was “temporarily suspended” so ICE could “analyze and refine its reporting methodologies,” according to a statement on the agency’s website.

But since then, ICE has failed to resume releasing the reports. Agency officials did not respond to e-mails asking why.

The information that is available shows the requests are not refused as often as critics say, and overall, detainers contribute to a small number of deportations by ICE, according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonpartisan research center at Syracuse University that has issued a series of reports exploring the role detainers play in deportations.

According to the center’s reports, about 1 million people were deported during President Obama’s second term, but detainers were used in only about 7 percent of those deportations.

“It was just shocking that it was such a small portion,” said Susan Long, the research center’s codirector and a professor of managerial statistics at Syracuse University. “If you’re measuring the effectiveness of detainers by how often does ICE deport people who had a detainer, they’re not.”

And law enforcement agencies don’t refuse to honor detainer requests in high volume, the center’s reports show.

According to a report released on April 30, ICE issued more than 142,000 detainers nationwide, including 1,213 in Massachusetts, during the 2017 fiscal year ending in September 2017. But only about 5 percent of the detainers nationwide, and about 8 percent in Massachusetts, were recorded by ICE as “refused” by law enforcement agencies.

However, the report cautioned that “the accuracy of ICE records on refusals is questionable,” as the field used to track which agency refused to honor a detainer is not required to be filled out.

The state’s highest court ruled last summer that Massachusetts law enforcement officers don’t have the authority under state law to comply with ICE detainers. Since then, a flurry of state legislators and the governor have tried to pass legislation that would allow, but not force, local law enforcement to comply.

ICE has long said detainers are a valuable tool for deporting dangerous criminals, and the Trump administration has aggressively pushed for cooperation from cities and towns that have declared themselves “sanctuary cities” and generally do not honor detainers.

“And every day, sanctuary cities release illegal immigrants and drug dealers, traffickers, and gang members back into our communities,” President Trump said in March at Manchester Community College in New Hampshire, where he took aim at Lawrence’s and Boston’s sanctuary policies.

Widespread usage of detainers by ICE began in the waning years of President George W. Bush’s administration and increased rapidly when Barack Obama took office, peaking at the end of his first term, according to the center, which regularly collected data on detainers under both administrations.

But tracking the effectiveness of the Trump administration’s use of detainers has been problematic, as ICE has been “surprisingly reticent to reveal how detainers now are actually being used,” according to the center, which filed a federal lawsuit last summer asking the court to compel ICE to release this information.

“We ought to be getting that information,” said state Representative James Lyons, a Republican from Andover.

….

Source: As the debate rages over immigration detainers, data on their efficacy is sparse

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A Harvard study shows that just thinking of “immigrants” makes people less generous

2018/07/05 Leave a comment

Interesting study and correlation (Canada not included, unfortunately):

Immigration has become a defining topic of elections and politics globally, from the US to the UK. Germany was the latest to capitulate to xenophobic tendencies, with chancellor Angela Merkel dialing back her policy of welcoming refugees and immigrants to appease immigration hawks within her own government.

A group of Harvard University researchers looked at the common threads between the backlash against immigrants in those and other developed countries. Their findings, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research last month, point to misinformation and prejudice.

The study, written by Alberto Alesina, Armando Miano, and Stefanie Stantcheva, asked two sets of questions to a statistically representative sample of 22,500 people from France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the UK, and the US. One set was related to immigrants, defined as people living in their adopted country legally. The other was about wealth redistribution and welfare benefits. The order in which respondents answered the two sets of questions was randomized.

The study’s results: Making people think about immigration is an effective way to turn them off social programs to reduce poverty.

The people who answered the immigration questions first were “more averse to redistribution, believe inequality is less of a serious problem, and donate less to charity,” write the researchers. This was true even in European countries where support for welfare benefits is typically high.

Why does thinking about immigration make people less generous?

It likely has to do with their inaccurate perceptions about immigrants. Respondents to the Harvard poll in all countries saw immigrants as being poorer, more reliant on welfare, and less educated than they really were.

With the exception of the French, all respondents overestimated the share of Muslim immigrants and underestimated the share of Christians. They also estimated that immigrants were more numerous than they really are. In US, the country where disparity between perceptions and actual numbers was the most striking, respondents put immigrants’ share of the country’s population at 36%. It’s only 10%.

The inaccurate perceptions, the study notes, are systematic across income and education levels in all countries. This kind of prejudice makes for a politically powerful tool for those trying to cut back social benefits.

“Anti-redistribution parties, even those not averse to immigration per se, can play the immigration card to generate backlash against redistribution,” the researchers wrote.

Source: A Harvard study shows that just thinking of “immigrants” makes people less generous

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De plus en plus d’immigrants en emploi au Québec

2018/07/05 Leave a comment

The above chart compares unemployment levels in the larger Canadian provinces with non-visible minorities (the vast bulk of recent immigrants). The report below focuses on numbers, and the relative share of employment in Montreal compared to the regions, and thus is less meaningful:

Même si leur taux d’emploi général demeure inférieur à celui des travailleurs nés au Canada, les immigrants sont de plus en plus présents sur le marché du travail, et cela suit d’ailleurs la courbe démographique.

Au cours des dix dernières années (2006-2017), les immigrants ont occupé un peu plus de la moitié des quelque 480 000 emplois nets créés, selon un nouveau bulletin de l’Institut de la statistique du Québec à l’aide des données de l’Enquête sur la population active (EPA) de Statistique Canada.

Voici trois faits saillants commentés.

Le taux de surqualification est en hausse chez les immigrants

Ce taux est passé de 37 % en 2006 à 44 % en 2017. Les immigrants récemment arrivés ont le taux de surqualification le plus élevé, qui peut s’expliquer par les délais dans la reconnaissance des diplômes, le temps qu’il leur faut pour trouver un emploi dans leur domaine, etc. Mais ce qui surprend est de voir qu’il s’est aggravé pour les immigrants qui sont ici depuis plus de 5 ans, passant de 33 % en 2006 à 42 % dix ans plus tard.


« Normalement, étant donné qu’il y a des interventions politiques pour aider les immigrants à s’intégrer, qu’on est plus conscient, on aurait dû solutionner le problème entre 2006 et 2017. Mais ces chiffres nous disent que ce n’est pas réglé, au contraire, ça s’est aggravé », soutient Marie-Thérèse Chicha, professeure à l’École des relations industrielles de l’Université de Montréal.

Chez les travailleurs nés au Canada, le taux de surqualification (27 %) est demeuré pratiquement inchangé en dix ans.

C’est surtout à Montréal que les immigrants travaillent

Bien qu’il y ait une pénurie de main-d’oeuvre dans les régions du Québec et que la régionalisation de l’immigration soit dans les plans des partis politiques, il semblerait que les immigrants travaillent surtout à Montréal. Sur les 250 000 emplois nets qu’ils ont occupés, 4 nouveaux emplois sur 5 seraient dans la métropole.


Durant les dix dernières années, c’est une proportion qui a augmenté, passant de 20 % à 26 %. C’est normal, selon Mme Chicha.

« Ils arrivent d’abord à Montréal et c’est là qu’il y a le plus de possibilités », fait-elle remarquer. « Si on les oblige à aller en région, il faudra trouver un emploi au conjoint ou à la conjointe et ça prend des services d’accueil. Mais déjà, on voit que les régions n’arrivent pas à attirer des natifs, alors pourquoi les immigrants y iraient ? »

Par ailleurs, les immigrants demeurent sous-représentés à Québec et à Sherbrooke.

La santé et les services sociaux sont les secteurs les plus prisés

C’est dans ces domaines qu’on enregistre la plus forte croissance de l’emploi chez les immigrants (50 000 emplois sur 250 000).

C’est toutefois dans l’industrie du transport et de l’entreposage que la croissance a été la plus forte au cours des dix dernières années (en hausse de 13 points de pourcentage), suivie de la finance (8 points de pourcentage).

Les immigrants sont cependant sous-représentés dans les secteurs de la fabrication et de la culture et des loisirs.

Source: De plus en plus d’immigrants en emploi au Québec

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The hottest new space to disrupt is immigration

2018/07/05 Leave a comment

Ayah Bdeir of littleBits (invention kits) on the role of tech in immigration debates:

Tech CEOs and founders are disrupting everything from travel to food, to space, to sleep. Now it’s time to disrupt a process that so many of us have relied on to get where we are today: immigration. According to a study by the National Foundation for American Policy, immigrants have founded more than half of U.S. startup companies that are valued at more than one billion dollars.

With all that is happening around us, now is the time for entrepreneurs to use their playbook for disrupting markets and apply it to immigration as a space — not for a financial upside, but for a more social, human upside.

Turning a problem into an opportunity

One of the most important lessons you learn as an entrepreneur is outlining the problem you are trying to solve and turning it into an opportunity.

Economists generally agree that immigration has net positive effects on both the sending and receiving countries. Contrary to popular belief, immigration doesn’t increase crime rates or take jobs awayfrom native workers. In fact, according to The Silicon Valley Competitiveness and Innovation Project Report, almost every major tech hub has more foreign-born workers than domestic ones.

Before solving a problem, we have to agree on the facts. Research shows that people in many western countries greatly overestimate the number of immigrants — in this case, Muslim immigrants — coming into their country. Misinformation makes it difficult to pursue effective solutions.

Source: The Guardian

There’s an opportunity to educate ourselves and instead highlight the economic and innovation opportunity that immigration offers. Immigrants provide access to more talent, more diverse thinking and more creativity.

Dr. Adrian Furnham, a professor of psychology at University College London who studies immigrants and entrepreneurship said, “What I’ve found is that immigrants not only have the qualities that help any entrepreneurs succeed—including aggressiveness and creative thinking—but they get a big boost because many of the skills they picked up coping with a new world are transferable to the entrepreneurial world.”

Rebranding the word “immigrant”

Another important step in an entrepreneur’s playbook relates to changing perceptions. Airbnb, for example, had to challenge people’s assumption that opening their home to strangers was a dangerous and risky endeavor. Now, facilitating these types of interactions is an act of hospitality and the beginning of a friendship.

More and more recently, the word “immigrant” has become a bad word. We have the responsibility to rebrand it to mean “maker” not “taker.” Look at Hamdi Ulukaya, the Turkish immigrant who created the Chobani yogurt empire. He employs 3,000+ people and has given them 10 percent of the shares in the company.

When people research the word “immigrant” online, they need to find Ulukaya’s story. They need to find images of successful, eloquent and positive entrepreneurs and leaders. That’s why it’s so important to speak as immigrants. To tell the story of how we came here and the challenges we’ve had to overcome. It’s tempting to try to blend in, but we have to infuse the word “immigration” with more positive visuals.

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) established the Center for New North Carolinians (CNNC), with the aim of supporting refugees and immigrants living in the local community. CNNC piloted a STEM club program for female refugees and immigrants using littleBits’ electronic building blocks. Photos from the CNNC STEM Club, courtesy of littleBits

Taking [commercial] risks

In January 2017 when the Trump administration’s travel ban was first implemented, littleBits posted a billboard in Times Square that said in English and Arabic: “We Invent the World We Want to Live In.” We wanted people to associate Arabic script with a positive, inclusive message. It was the first time I decided to speak to my background as an Arab and Muslim immigrant. The public response, the impact on our team culture and the feeling of having stood up for what’s right made me bolder about using my platform to speak out.

That’s why, when the debate around immigration rose up again in response to family separation at the border, I knew I had to say something.

At littleBits, being from “another” place is a reality; we are a company built on diversity. We have close to 20 languages in the office, a multitude of religions and about 20 percent of us have visas or green cards or were born in other countries. I myself know firsthand the struggle that immigrants face — I’ve had to flee my country of Lebanon three times for my own safety.

So, last week I joined leaders from Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb and Microsoft and made my voice heard. I announced a donation program and wrote a blog post that opened with: “We at littleBits strive to separate politics from our work. But when something touches human rights, it is no longer about politics. It becomes about justice.”

And you know what? Like most things in America today, the reaction we received was polarizing. Some people said that speaking out was an “admirable move” and that it was clear we were focused on “making a big difference.” On the other hand, 27 percent of respondents explicitly told us they would be less likely to purchase littleBits products as a result of us speaking out. One loyal customer told us they would now “actively discourage” their children from buying or using our products. Another said they would “throw [their] Bits in the trash.”

And yet, I stand by our statement.

The business risks involved with speaking out are real. But to me, putting a flag in the ground is always worth it. One email, one blog post, one donation at a time, I protect the diversity of my team, my company, and the country in which I reside. History will judge us if we quietly allow our government to strip us of the diversity and innovation that make America so amazing.

As entrepreneurs, we have a platform. Despite the potential costs, we must use this platform to put ourselves out there, to speak out on the issues that matter to our country, our businesses and ourselves. There may be financial downside and yes, it will be more difficult to quantify the human upside, but I for one am willing to take a gamble that net, it will be a positive.

Source: The hottest new space to disrupt is immigration

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Council that regulates immigration consultants accused of fraud, forgery and human rights violations

2018/07/04 Leave a comment

Not the first time the Council has faced scrutiny about its behaviour (Agency that oversees immigration consultants appears to be in turmoil):

The council that oversees the work of thousands of immigration consultants in Canada is facing serious allegations from one of its own members.

Muhammad Watto, 54, alleges in court documents that the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council (ICCRC) has engaged in fraud, forgery and human rights violations.

Watto, who has been a long-time critic of the council, has filed a notice of application under the Not-for-profit Corporation Act asking the Ontario Superior Court to order a formal investigation into the ICCRC, a non-profit organization that has been mandated by the federal government to regulate immigration, citizenship and international student advising services.

“I have observed myself some major discrepancies and some major alleged fraudulent activities concerning, not only the way they were handling public complaints, but also the way they were handling the funds,” said Watto, who has been a consultant for 12 years.

Among the allegations in the court filing are:

  • The directors and officers of the council are working against the charter, mandate and articles of the corporation and for their own self-interest.
  • Altering and forgery of financial statements.
  • Multiple counts of accounting fraud.
  • Failure to secure, or destruction of, financial records.
  • Open violations of human rights,

The notice of application also says the RCMP is reviewing information about the council’s activities.

Regulatory council set up in 2011

The allegations have yet to be proven in court and the council denies it has done anything wrong.

Details about the allegations have yet to be released.

The regulatory council, which was set up in 2011, sets the rules for how immigration consultants conduct themselves, providing education, licensing and discipline. It’s needed to help and protect those who want to come to Canada, overseeing more than 4,000 consultants. It is run by a 14-member board of directors.

If the council isn’t running smoothing, those who will suffer most are the immigrants and refugees who use consultants in their efforts to live in Canada.

The council also recently fired its president, Stephen Ashworth, who had been hired only a year ago.  Ashworth was the fifth president of the ICCRC, which was created in 2011 by the previous Conservative government to replace a prior body which was entangled in a number of problems.

Cindy Beverly, ICCRC director of communications, said Ashworth was relieved of his duties because “the board has a different alignment.”

Ashworth would not comment on his dismissal.

Recommendation that council be disbanded

This is not the first time the council has faced controversy. Last June, a parliamentary committee recommended that the government get rid of the council and step in to regulate consultants directly after hearing of problems facing the regulator from within.

Watto would support that recommendation.

“We want government to look into this and take over,” he said.

The ICCRC sent a written response to the CBC’s request for an interview about Watto’s allegations.

“The ICCRC is committed to good governance and financial probity. The ICCRC rejects Mr. Watto’s unsubstantiated allegations of misconduct,”  it reads in part.

It also noted that Watto is facing potential disciplinary action and revocation of his licence.

“I have not done anything wrong,” said Watto, who characterized the filing of a complaint against him as an attempt to intimidate him. He said the same thing has happened to other members who asked questions about the council’s transparency and accountability. Watto said the accusations against him are without merit.

Federal department says council operates at ‘arm’s length’

The department for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship said it is aware of the court action and the recent dismissal of Ashworth.

In a written statement it said “the ICCRC is the regulator of immigration consultants and is a self-governing organization that has an arm’s-length relationship with the department.”

As for the year-old recommendation that government scrap the council, the department said it “continues to closely analyze the report.”

Source: Council that regulates immigration consultants accused of fraud, forgery and human rights violations

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Federal budget watchdog to take deep dive into costs of asylum seekers

2018/07/03 Leave a comment

Notwithstanding the politics behind the request, useful to have the PBO do an independent analysis:

Canada’s budget watchdog will crunch the numbers to shed light on the total costs of a surge in asylum seekers.

In response to a request from Conservative MP Larry Maguire, the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) will take on a global accounting exercise to determine what costs have been incurred to date and how much the stepped-up pace of irregular migration might cost in the future.

“We just need to know, as Canadians, what the costs are and how the government intends to handle it in the future, given that many of our communities are becoming very loaded with the numbers of refugees, coming in to Toronto, Montreal and other areas,” Maguire said.

“We need to know from these various departments just what the total costs are going to be.”

More than 23,000 people have crossed into Canada outside official border points in the last year, most of them in Quebec and Manitoba. Major cities such as Toronto and Montreal are buckling under the pressure to house and support the new arrivals.

In a letter to the PBO, Maguire said the asylum seeker spike has created “serious financial strains and workloads” on several federal government departments, yet there has been little public reporting on costs.

Canadians ‘deserve to know’

“While this crisis has been ongoing for some time, the government has given no indication of what it has cost to facilitate the increasing numbers of irregular arrivals, nor has it shown any projections for what it may cost in the future,” he wrote. “I believe that Parliamentarians, and indeed all Canadians, deserve to know exactly what the influx of irregular arrivals at the border is costing their government.”

Maguire’s request calls for:

  • Total costs to date, including added costs to the Canada Border Services Agency, the RCMP, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the Canadian Armed Forces and the Immigration Review Board, as well as any transfers to provinces or municipalities.
  • A projection of total costs to deal with similar numbers of irregular arrivals for the next several years, outlining the costs from the time a person irregularly enters Canada to when a final decision is made by the Immigration Refugee Board or Federal Court.

The PBO is charged with providing independent, non-partisan analysis on federal finances, government estimates and trends in the economy.

PBO spokesperson Sloane Mask could not say how long the accounting will take, but said the office has begun requesting information from various government departments.

“Once we have received the responses, we will be in a better position to gauge the timelines required to complete the analysis,” she wrote in an email.

Source: Federal budget watchdog to take deep dive into costs of asylum seekers

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

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