‘Canada the Good’ myth exposed: Migrant workers resist debt-bondage

2018/05/04 Leave a comment

This film premiered (I think) at the 2015 Mexico Metropolis conference. Worth watching for a different take:

Here in Canada, some like to think of the country as “tolerant of diversity,” a champion of human rights and a land of opportunity for those willing to work hard and play by the rules, which are presumed equal and fair. This is the myth of Canada the Good, one that still prevails despite repeated truths to the contrary.

The reality of Canada’s unfair labour system enters the world stage with the international broadcast of Migrant Dreams on Al Jazeera’s Witness which will, throughout the month of May, stream the documentary for free.

Canada maintains its pristine international reputation partly by silencing the people who live the lie. Migrant Dreams asks questions about what Canadian values really look like — by highlighting the voices of those who have long been ignored, marginalized or erased.

At the centre of the documentary are migrant workers in farms across Canada. The film opens a conversation about the relationship between labour, gender, sexuality, race, class and settlement — otherwise known as immigration to Canada.

I use the word settlement to draw our attention to the colonial history and ongoing colonial reality of the Canadian state. This is Indigenous land, much of it remains unceded and stolen. Immigration has become the coded word for settlement — a tactic to erase settler tracks in colonial structures.

via ‘Canada the Good’ myth exposed: Migrant workers resist debt-bondage

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Canada in ‘exploratory’ talks with U.S. over border agreement on asylum seekers

2018/05/03 Leave a comment

Appropriate and needed given that any workable solution requires working with the US:

Canada is in high-level exploratory talks with the United States over a border agreement to manage asylum seekers, but will not say whether Ottawa wants the power to automatically turn away thousands of refugee claimants who walk across the border.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirmed it is reviewing a Canadian proposal to amend the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA), which requires Canada and the United States to refuse entry to asylum seekers who arrive at official ports of entry along the shared border, as both countries are considered safe for refugees. However, senior Canadian cabinet ministers insisted they have not entered into formal negotiations with the United States.

“It’s a discussion that we’re having with the Americans about the various techniques that could be pursued on both sides of the border to ensure security and integrity,” Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said on Tuesday. “If and when that conversation matures into a specific negotiation, we’ll have further things to say about it. But this is very exploratory at the moment – scoping issues and potential solutions.”

Concerns over the agreement, which was signed in 2004, surfaced last year when thousands of asylum seekers fled the United States for Canada on foot, fearing deportation under President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Since the agreement applies only to those who arrive at official ports of entry, asylum seekers can avoid being immediately turned away by crossing between border posts, forcing Canada to process most of their claims.

Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen did not confirm a Reuters report on Tuesday that the government wants the agreement to apply to the entire Canada-U.S. border. Mr. Hussen said Ottawa is in regular contact with the United States about the agreement, but declined to get into details.

“As you can appreciate, we constantly talk about all aspects of the border, including the Safe Third Country Agreement,” Mr. Hussen said. “Those are discussions that are ongoing, so I can’t take a snapshot in time and give you what was discussed on a particular day.”

The RCMP intercepted more than 20,000 asylum claimants in 2017, 91 per cent of whom crossed in Quebec. Many entered at Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle after taking taxis along upstate New York’s Roxham Road.

The Mounties intercepted more than 5,000 asylum claimants in the first three months of 2018 – again, mostly in Quebec.

The Conservatives have urged the government to close the loophole in the Safe Third Country Agreement that allows asylum seekers to enter Canada at unofficial border crossings. Last week, the Tories tabled a motion in the House of Commons calling on the Liberals to table a plan by May 11.

“Last week, Justin Trudeau voted against taking immediate action and tabling a plan to manage our borders and immigration system,” Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel said in a statement on Tuesday. “Conservatives will continue to hold the Prime Minister accountable, and call for the entire Canada-U.S. border to be designated as an official port of entry.”

Mr. Goodale said the Conservative proposal is “impractical,” as it would “change the entire concept about what the border means” and “increase insecurity at the border.”

As the Liberals iron out their approach to STCA talks with the United States, they are touting their efforts to prevent more asylum seekers from crossing into Canada. For instance, Mr. Hussen said many of those crossing into Quebec earlier this year were Nigerians carrying valid U.S. visitor visas. Canadian officials raised the issue with their U.S. counterparts, and the number of U.S. visas issued to Nigerians dropped.

via Canada in ‘exploratory’ talks with U.S. over border agreement on asylum seekers – The Globe and Mail

The contrary view, to this being a crisis, can be seen in Senator Omidvar’s op-ed in The Star:

Let’s be honest. The common thread of today’s populism is anti-immigration. This populism legitimizes xenophobia and encourage the separation of people into “us” and “them”. It creates a politics that sees the other not simply as different, but as different and therefor dangerous. Adversaries become enemies.

Populism prevents an energetic engagement with diversity. It erects barriers — whether literally or figuratively — that stand at odds with the reality of an increasingly interconnected — and interdependent — world.

Populism can undermine the basic underpinnings of a democracy. If we have learned anything from south of the border it is how norms that were once considered absolute can quickly become obsolete. How things that were once unimaginable can soon become unexceptional.

So how do we respond? First, words matter. We need to watch how we talk about legitimate issues around asylum seekers and our borders. We can’t whip up fear and division.

Second, we can’t use this as political football. No party should use immigration as a wedge issue. We deserve better than that.

Finally, we need to recognize the fact that when it comes to immigration, we’ve done a lot right. We’ve devised smart policies with high levels of skilled immigrants and we help people that are fleeing some of the most wretched situations around the globe. We do a very good job of integrating them. And while we’re far from perfect, we bring a lot to the table.

However, an area that needs attention is the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB). Although the recent budget increased funding for the IRB more is needed. Money is needed to process asylum claims efficiently as well as deal with a growing backlog. Continuing to build this “good governance” structure will go a long way to maintaining public trust in the system.

Canada still has work to do, but we have a strong foundation on which to build.

via Asylum seekers are not causing a crisis for Canada | The Star

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UK Immigration Scandal Offers Tories a Shot at Redemption – Bloomberg

2018/05/02 Leave a comment

Good overview with some polling data regarding UK attitudes towards immigration:

The resignation of U.K. Home Secretary Amber Rudd on Sunday is bad news for the Conservative government on several fronts. A close ally of British Prime Minister Theresa May who had her boss’s back on a number of occasions, Rudd was seen as a rising star in the Conservative Party, a potential prime minister herself and the most articulate opponent of Brexitin the cabinet.

The real problem her resignation raises, though, isn’t the damage to May’s already weakened government or the shifting cabinet balance toward more euroskeptic members. It is yet more confirmation that the Conservative Party’s immigration policy is a mess. It embraces a “target culture” that not only hurts Britain’s economic interests but damages its global reputation.

For most of the last decade Conservative immigration policy has been populist and ineffective. Officially and unofficially, the name of the game was keepy-outy. Rudd’s attempts to uphold the policies of her predecessors descended into the grotesque.

The first sign of serious trouble concerned a generation of immigrants who were invited between 1948 and 1971 to help rebuild Britain after World War II during a time of labor shortage. Members of the so-called Windrush generation (named for one ship on which many arrived) came from Caribbean countries and were told they could stay indefinitely. But the Home Office didn’t keep records of those granted a right to stay — by some estimates, about 500,000 people. And in 2010 the Windrush landing cards, proving arrival for many, were destroyed as part of a cull of old paperwork.

This shoddy management became a more serious problem when landmark changes to immigration law — overseen by May herself when she was home secretary — made the lives of the Windrush generation untenable.

Immigrants, even those who had been there decades, faced new requirements for detailed documentation in order to access employment or benefits and health care. May’s “hostile environment” for illegal immigrants was meant to encourage self-deportations. (Remember that idea, Americans?)

It didn’t seem to result in many self-deportations, but it did lead to widespread injustices. Migrants faced demands that they prove their immigration status; landlords and employers risked large fines for renting to or employing illegal immigrants. A Law Society report found “clear evidence of serious flaws in the way visa and asylum applications are being dealt with.”

Some Windrush immigrants faced inhumane treatment by the country that had been their home for decades. They were denied re-entry into the U.K., health care and other rights. A media and public opinion outcry in recent weeks forced by both May and Rudd to apologize and promise justice and compensation.

They looked likely to ride out the Windrush storm until it emerged that the Home Office had set targets for illegal deportations. Rudd denied the existence of targets to a parliamentary committee, before leaked Home Office documents confirmed them. Five public apologies in a week were too many. Either she wasn’t in command (something many suspected) or she simply misled Parliament.

In immigration control, when officials are ordered to meet deportation targets, ugly things happen. Asylum case workers have described a system that is arbitrary and rushed, in which workers are trained to find ways to say no.

British Conservatives may be more socially minded than their American counterparts — nobody questions universal health care here, for example — but they ostensibly stand for innovation, entrepreneurship, individual freedom and opportunity. And yet for years, dating back to David Cameron’s government in 2010, this party has made it harder — sometimes with just the sheer expense and bureaucratic hassle — for foreign workers, students and family members to settle in the U.K. with increasingly stringent immigration policy and populist rhetoric. In the race for global talent, Britain has slowed its pace to a languid walk.

It was left to Labour’s Diane Abbott to make the case for a more reasonable migration policy: “In trade negotiations our priorities favor growth, jobs and prosperity. We make no apologies for putting these aims before bogus immigration targets.”

Meanwhile, the government’s target to reduce net immigration to the “tens of thousands” is so unrealistic that very few Britons are under any illusion that it will be met. Net immigration has declined — but the biggest declineshave come from European Union citizens, without whom the health service and other parts of the economy couldn’t function. Migration from non-EU countries has continued to rise.

Sadly the government seems to be responding to a crude reading of public sentiment. Ask Britons if they want to see less immigration, and most will say yes — though notably views have softened somewhat since the Brexit referendum and the trend is toward greater acceptance.

But ask them about particular classes of immigrants — students, nurses, the Windrush generation — and their replies are far more magnanimous. They want border control and fewer immigrants, but also a system that is fair and humane and welcomes people who will contribute.

By many accounts Rudd, along with some other leading Conservatives, had been uncomfortable with the immigration targets; and yet she placed loyalty to her boss and the party first. Other Conservatives have challenged May over aspects of the Conservative immigration policy from the targets to the indefinite detention of immigrants that has led to appalling conditions.

The good news is that it’s never too late: The Conservatives now have an opportunity to clean up the mess. The new home secretary, Sajid Javid, is the son of a Pakistani immigrant and a Muslim; his father arrived in Britain with 1 pound in his pocket in the 1960s, according to Javid.

In his first remarks Monday, he promised to look into injustices at the Home Office and promised a full review of the policies that led to Rudd’s embarrassment. That review shouldn’t end with the Windrush scandal. An honest review will mean changing the policies that May and her party have been so closely associated with for years. That will not be easy, but the country will be better off if neither of them flinch. It just might save the Conservative Party from the embarrassment of more such scandals.

via Immigration Scandal Offers Tories a Shot at Redemption – Bloomberg

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British interior minister Rudd resigns after immigration scandal | Reuters

2018/05/01 Leave a comment

Taking one for the team. This happened when PM May was Home Secretary:

Britain’s interior minister resigned on Sunday after Prime Minister Theresa May’s government faced an outpouring of indignation over its treatment of some long-term Caribbean residents who were wrongly labeled illegal immigrants.

The loss of one of May’s closest allies is a blow as she navigates the final year of negotiations ahead of Britain’s exit from the European Union in March 2019. It also deprives the cabinet of one of its most outspoken pro-European members.

In a resignation letter to May, Amber Rudd said she had inadvertently misled a parliamentary committee last Wednesday by denying the government had targets for the deportation of illegal migrants. May accepted her resignation.

For two weeks, British ministers have been struggling to explain why some descendants of the so-called “Windrush generation”, invited to Britain to plug labor shortfalls between 1948 and 1971, had been denied basic rights.

The Windrush scandal overshadowed the Commonwealth summit in London and has raised questions about May’s six-year stint as interior minister before she became prime minister in the wake of the 2016 Brexit referendum.

“The Windrush scandal has rightly shone a light on an important issue for our country,” Rudd said in a resignation letter to May.

Rudd, who was appointed Home Secretary in 2016, said voters wanted those who had the right to reside in Britain to be treated fairly and humanely but also that illegal immigrants be removed.

May to blame?

The opposition Labour Party, which had repeatedly called on Rudd to resign, said May was responsible and should explain her own role in the government’s immigration policies.

“The architect of this crisis, Theresa May, must now step forward to give an immediate, full and honest account of how this inexcusable situation happened on her watch,” said Diane Abbott, Labour’s spokeswoman on interior affairs.

Abbott called on May to give a statement to the House of Commons explaining whether she knew that Rudd was misleading parliament about the deportation targets.

Facing questions over the Windrush scandal, Rudd, 54, told lawmakers on Wednesday that Britain did not have targets for the removal of immigrants, but was forced to clarify her words after leaked documents showed some targets did exist.

The Guardian newspaper on Sunday reported a letter from Rudd to May last year in which she stated an “ambitious but deliverable” aim for an increase in the enforced deportation of immigrants.

After repeated challenges to her testimony on the deportation of immigrants, Rudd telephoned May on Sunday and offered her resignation.

“I feel it is necessary to do so because I inadvertently misled the Home Affairs Select Committee over targets for removal of illegal immigrants,” Rudd told May.

With her Conservative Party split over Brexit, May will have to be careful to preserve the uneasy balance in the cabinet after the loss of such a senior pro-EU minister.

Possible contenders who could replace Rudd include Environment Secretary Michael Gove, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Communities Secretary Sajid Javid, Northern Irish Secretary Karen Bradley and former Northern Irish Secretary James Brokenshire.

Windrush crisis

The government has apologized for the fiasco, promised citizenship and compensation to those affected, including to people who have lost their jobs, been threatened with deportation and denied benefits because of the errors.

But the controversy over policies which May is closely associated with has raised awkward questions about how the pursuit of lower immigration after Brexit sits alongside the desire to be an outward-looking global economy.

The immigrants are named after the Empire Windrush, one of the first ships to bring Caribbean migrants to Britain in 1948, when Commonwealth citizens were invited to fill labor shortages and help rebuild the economy after World War Two.

Almost half a million people left their homes in the West Indies to live in Britain between 1948 and 1970, according to Britain’s National Archives.

A week before local elections, May apologized to the black community on Thursday in a letter to The Voice, Britain’s national Afro-Caribbean newspaper.

“We have let you down and I am deeply sorry,” she said. “But apologies alone are not good enough. We must urgently right this historic wrong.”

The crisis has focused attention on May, who as interior minister set out to create a “really hostile environment” for illegal immigrants, imposing tough new requirements in 2012 for people to prove their legal status.

Rudd’s resignation comes four months after another close ally and her then most senior minister, Damian Green, was forced out of his job for lying about whether he knew pornography had been found on computers in his parliamentary office.

Anna Soubry, a Conservative lawmaker, predicted Rudd may one day return to a senior job in government.

“She is a woman of great courage and immense ability,” Soubry said. “If there is any justice she will soon return to the highest of office.”

via British interior minister Rudd resigns after immigration scandal | Reuters

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Newcomers find jobs, prosperity in Atlantic Canada — if they stay

2018/05/01 Leave a comment

Some good data and analysis in this article, which conform with the unemployment data I have looked at but not median income(slides below):

Immigrants who stay in Atlantic Canada have higher employment levels, higher wages and face less discrimination than immigrants to other parts of Canada, yet the region struggles to attract newcomers and has the lowest retention rates in Canada.

Atlantic Canada is engaged in a radical experiment in population management that has profound implications not just for this region, but for the country as a whole. The demographic bomb that threatens Canada is set to go off here first:

— Atlantic Canada has Canada’s lowest birth rate, highest median age and often sends more residents to other parts of Canada than it takes in.

— Francis McGuire, president of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, points out that there are more than 20,000 jobs unfilled in the region.

— Across Atlantic Canada, one in every five residents is already over the age of 65. That compares to a rate of one in six across Canada.

— Newfoundland and Labrador schools have lost a third of their students since 1996; more people have died than were born in the province for each of the last three years and the average age is almost three years older than the Canadian average of 41. The Harris Centre of Regional Policy and Development at Memorial University predicts the provincial population will drop 10 per cent by 2036 and that some towns could see drops of 30 per cent or more.

— New Brunswick had an actual population decline in 2016 and has lost one fifth of its school-age children in the last two decades.

— In Nova Scotia, the resilient economy of Halifax is the only factor propping up the province’s population. Every region outside the provincial capital declined in the last census.

Immigration the solution

Many agree that a massive increase in immigration is an inescapable part of the solution. All four provincial governments have made boosting immigration a key priority and Ottawa has stepped in with Canada’s first regional immigration program: The Atlantic Immigration Pilot.

But deciding to transform your society with new blood is easier than actually doing it.

Only 18 per cent of the immigrants who landed in Prince Edward Island in 2011 were still there five years later. The rates are better in New Brunswick (52 per cent), Newfoundland and Labrador (56 per cent) and Nova Scotia (72 per cent), but they still fall far behind Ontario and Alberta, which kept 91 per cent of the immigrants who arrived in 2011, and British Columbia, which had a retention rate of 88 per cent over the same period.

Ottawa began shifting immigration responsibility to the provinces about 20 years ago.

The learning curve was steep. Initial programs in several provinces fell apart.

Now provincial recruiters target specific countries, make sure that potential newcomers know that Atlantic Canada is cold, rural and not particularly diverse, and they design immigration programs that encourage newcomers to settle.

How Canada’s Atlantic provinces are trying to attract – and keep – newcomers. Public Policy Forum, Author provided

The decision to come to Atlantic Canada and the decision to stay are two very different things.

Surveys show that immigrants leave the region in search of better jobs, but research suggests that’s not what they will find. In fact, immigrants in Atlantic Canada fare better economically than the average immigrant across Canada, and in some cases better than native-born Canadians.

Higher wages in Atlantic Canada

A profile of immigrant tax filers in Atlantic Canada published by Dalhousie University professors Yoko Yoshida and Howard Ramos found that immigrants to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland were more likely to be employed and earned higher wages than the average immigrant in Canada who landed at the same time. Immigrants to P.E.I. were below the Canadian average, as were spouses of primary applicants and refugees.

Professor Ather Akbari at Saint Mary’s University found that immigrants in Atlantic Canada actually earn more than Canadian-born workers with similar skills who live in Atlantic Canada, though that wage advantage has narrowed over the last decade.

Research also disputes the familiar assumption that urban areas are more welcoming than small towns.

Dalhousie University’s Ramos recently looked at actual experiences of discrimination based on ethnicity, race and language. Overall, the incidence of discrimination was far lower in rural areas than in big cities. Atlantic Canada came out particularly well, with very low rates of discrimination compared to Ontario, the Prairies and British Columbia.

To be sure, newcomers do encounter hate and discrimination in Atlantic Canada, as in any other place.

via Newcomers find jobs, prosperity in Atlantic Canada — if they stay

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Asylum seekers and commentary

2018/04/30 Leave a comment

Given the ongoing and continuing issue, this National Post basics article is helpful in understanding the trends although point 5 (government response) overstates the effectiveness of the government response even if there are no easy solutions:

The number of illegal border crossings is up significantly this year compared with the same period last year, so federal and law enforcement officials have been preparing for possibility of another spike as the weather warms up.

Departmental, RCMP and border officials provided a technical briefing this week on the plans they have developed as a result of lessons learned from pressures and concerns arising from last year’s spike in irregular migrants coming across the Canada-U.S. border.

Here’s what was learned:

1. The numbers are trending upward. Last year, RCMP intercepted a total of 20,493 people who crossed the border illegally. That means they did not present at an official port-of-entry and instead came across the border through unofficial paths to make a refugee claim in Canada. So far this year, 6,373 irregular migrants have arrived in Canada this way. That’s an increase of 128 per cent over the number who arrived in Canada between January and April 2017, which was 2,784.

2. Quebec is the hotspot. Of the 6,373 border crossers that have arrived so far in 2018, the majority — 5,609 — have done so in Quebec. However, about 40 per cent of say they are planning to settle elsewhere in Canada, mainly in Ontario. That’s why Quebec and the federal government are working on a plan to try to encourage asylum seekers away from highly saturated areas like Montreal and Toronto, in the hopes they might instead settle in outlying regions of the two provinces where labour shortages exist and migrants could find more employment opportunities.

3. Housing remains a question mark. Quebec has told the feds it will only open four temporary shelters for refugee claimants this year, with a total of 1,850 spaces. The province says it will not open Olympic Stadium or the nine other temporary shelters it operated last year for migrants because these were spaces not intended for accommodations, such as school gymnasiums. That’s why Ottawa is now working with Quebec and Ontario on processes that could be used to triage asylum seekers from the unofficial entry point in Lacolle to other shelters in those provinces.

4. Countries of origin are shifting. Last year, the majority of irregular migrants who arrived in Canada were Haitian, which is largely attributed to the Trump administration’s decision to lift the temporary protected status for immigrants from Haiti living the U.S. This year, the majority of illegal migrants in Canada are Nigerians with U.S. travel visas. Other countries of origin this year include: Columbia, the United States and Pakistan.

5. Lessons have been learned. After last summer’s unexpected influx caused some major headaches, a national strategic plan has been put in place to respond to any future spikes. It was described by a senior official as “collaborative, flexible, scalable and phased.” It allows for increased resources to be brought into an area quickly, as needed. It is designed to move asylum seekers through the system in a timely manner while also ensuring all of Canada’s rules for refugee claimants are properly followed. That being said, Ottawa continues to try to get the message out that entering Canada between ports of entry is “not a free ticket” into Canada.

Source: What you need to know about the ongoing influx of asylum seekers in Canada 

Good commentary by Ibbitson, highlighting that this is one of the three key political challenges facing the government (the other two being NAFTA and pipelines):

A third challenge is emerging, on the border. Last year, more than 20,000 people crossed from the United States into Canada by avoiding regular crossing points. Thanks to a legal loophole, by committing this illegal act, they stood a better chance of being accepted as refugees than if they showed up at a proper crossing. Mr. Trudeau may have worsened the situation when he tweeted in January, 2017: “To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada.” It seemed like an open invitation to those fleeing the deportation efforts of the Trump administration.

If the past three months are any indication, the number of illegal crossers could more than double this year, beyond 40,000, putting the entire immigration and refugee system at risk. We could have more people flooding across the border illegally than arrive legally each year from the Philippines, Canada’s largest source country of immigrants. If the Liberals can’t find a way to stem this flow, voters will punish them.

Source: Trudeau must win three fights, or he could lose to Stephen Harper 2.0  

Australia PM makes the point effectively:

“So we know what works and what doesn’t. Migration programs, a multicultural society, need to have a commitment, an understanding and the trust of the people, that the government, their government, is determining who comes to the country,” he said.

“So being in control of your borders is absolutely critical. I think that is a fundamental foundation of our success as a multicultural society, as a migration nation as people often describe us.

“You have to exert your sovereign right to control your own borders.” 

Source: Border control is key to successful multiculturalism: Malcolm Turnbull 

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The political debate over migrants hasn’t turned ugly yet – but it could

2018/04/28 Leave a comment

Good piece by Aaron Wherry:

The Liberals want the Conservatives to watch their words. The Conservatives want a plan. They’re both right.

The debate over what to do about the asylum seekers crossing our southern border — revived this week after the Quebec government worried aloud about its ability to deal with a possible surge of arrivals this summer — is serious, tawdry and dangerous.

On Wednesday, for instance, Conservatives celebrated when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau acknowledged in the Commons that crossing the border between official points of entry could be called “illegal.”

(The government typically refers to “irregular” border crossings. The Conservatives insist on calling them “illegal.”)

NDP MP Jenny Kwan later stood on a point of order to argue that, according to a strict reading of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the people crossing the border at places like Roxham Road in Quebec aren’t committing a crime.

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel accused the NDP of quibbling over “semantics,” but the adjective “illegal” is obviously meaningful to the Official Opposition. And when applied to human beings with families and children who might have excellent reasons for fleeing their home country, “illegal” is at least a fraught term.

Playing politics

The Conservatives, who describe the ongoing border crossings as a “crisis,” would like the government to table a plan for resolving the situation. They went as far as tabling a motion in the House this week calling on the Liberals to do so.

But — in the classic style of opposition motions — the request for a plan was buried in text that would have had the government acknowledge its “failure to address the crisis” and “admit the Prime Minister’s irresponsibility of tweeting #WelcometoCanada to those seeking to enter Canada through illegal means.”

 

And so Liberal MPs declined to support the motion in a vote on Tuesday, and so Conservative MP Ted Falk stood in the House on Wednesday and lamented the prime minister’s refusal “to even commit to a plan.”

The Conservatives also charge that the irregular arrivals are “queue jumpers,” a description the government rejects.

The Liberals argue the Conservative and NDP proposals — respectively, to declare the entire border to be an official port of entry, or to unilaterally suspend Canada’s border agreement with the United States — are both irredeemably flawed. And the situation is certainly complicated, legally and practically.

But writing down and publishing a detailed plan could still be useful.

In the meantime, each side is warning the other about where all this might be headed.

‘The flames of fear and division’

“I recommend that my colleague choose his words carefully, because false information and incendiary rhetoric only fan the flames of fear and division,” Transport Minister Marc Garneau said Tuesday, scolding Conservative MP Pierre Paul-Hus.

“I’m worried that the dialogue in Canada is going to switch from ‘how we do immigration’ to ‘if we do immigration,’ ” Rempel told CBC radio’s As It Happens that same day.

On Wednesday, Trudeau said it was “completely irresponsible of the Conservatives to arouse fears and concerns about our immigration system and refugees.”

But Rempel contends that it’s the Liberals who could be inciting division.

“As someone who supports compassionate, planned, orderly migration, and sees it as a key to sustaining the Canadian economy over time when done properly, legally, and safely, I worry that by abdicating the responsibility to do this, it is actually the Liberal Party that is creating divisiveness in the country,” she told the House this week.

More than 6,000 people have crossed the Quebec border seeking asylum so far in 2018 and officials expect the surge to continue with the onset of warmer weather 7:34

Trudeau’s tweet and Trump’s edicts

Canada takes pride these days in not being the sort of place where such divisiveness dominates. But you don’t need to look far here to see how large-scale, unplanned immigration can trigger something ugly and destructive.

In the United States, migration has helped to inspire a nativist litany of grievances that is warping American politics. In Europe, it has helped to birth a new era of nationalism. All sides should be aware of the forces at play here.

However much the prime minister’s tweet on January 28, 2017 acted as a beacon to those seeking refuge, policy decisions in the United States are no doubt giving people good reasons to flee.

But that American approach isn’t likely to change soon. On Thursday, the Trump administration announced that 9,000 Nepalese immigrants will have to leave by June 2019. And even if Trudeau had never hashtagged a message of welcome to the world, the federal government would still bear the responsibility for managing the border.

Liberals can point to the emissaries they have dispatched to dissuade would-be travellers, but such efforts will be discounted if the rate of crossings doesn’t decline. The Trudeau government can point to the funding and resources it has committed to dealing with the new arrivals, but ultimately the Trudeau Liberals may find they have little room now to quibble with the premier of Quebec, or to suggest that it’s the province that should be doing more to accommodate asylum seekers.

If social services in Quebec are noticeably stretched, if immigration procedures bog down, if community tensions rise, Ottawa will be blamed.

Of course, all of this — the number of people crossing the border, the processing and integration of those people while they’re here, the language being used to talk about them — are ripe for political exploitation.

Responsible critics have a duty to avoid overstating the danger here. Responsible governments have a responsibility to limit the grounds for concern.

Source: The political debate over migrants hasn’t turned ugly yet – but it could

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Short videos for the Borders in Globalization Canada-EU project

2018/04/26 Leave a comment

As part of the EU-Canada Borders in Globalization project, I did these 3 short videos responding to the following questions:

What can Canada learn from the way how Europe deals with the irregular migration

Immigration, Multiculturalism: What works and doesn’t work in Canada

Challenges for the traditional concept of borders

Filed under Citizenship, Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Better Immigration Policies Would Help U.S. Tech Companies

2018/04/03 Leave a comment

Another American commentator effectively states a Canadian advantage:

Donald Trump recently declared that $60 billion in new tariffs against China would help U.S. technology companies preserve their intellectual property. Trade experts doubt compelling Americans to pay more for products imported from China will solve any problems. However, if the Trump administration wants to help U.S. tech companies, the solution isn’t to impose tariffs on Chinese imports but to enact better immigration policies.

For a U.S. technology company – and, really, almost any company today – the most important input is human capital. When companies make decisions on where to invest resources, the ability to hire a sufficient number of qualified workers in that location is paramount.

Restrictive immigration policies encourage U.S. companies to place more resources – and people – in foreign countries. Moreover, many U.S. companies contract out information technology and other services to focus on their core line of business. Burdensome policies, such as the Trump administration’s new third-party placement requirements, encourage more of those services to be delivered from outside the United States.

“Today, 81 percent of the full-time graduate students at U.S. universities in electrical engineering and 79 percent in computer science are international students,” according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis. In other words, when U.S. companies recruit on college campuses they hire U.S. students, of course, but also find the vast majority of the graduate students in many key technical fields are foreign nationals who cannot work in America unless U.S. immigration rules are reasonable.

H-1B status is typically the only way a high-skilled foreign national or international student graduating from a U.S. university can work long-term in the United States. The wait for employment-based green cards often stretches to years, making them impractical to use for hiring most people. That means despite its limitations, H-1B visas are the key way U.S. companies employ high-skilled foreigners. Companies can transfer certain employees to the U.S. but they must have worked abroad for at least a year and gaining approvals even for those types of visas has become more difficult.

The first week of April is when employers file for H-1Bs – even though the start date for the professionals will not be until October, the beginning of the next fiscal year. This will be the 16thconsecutive year the supply of H-1Bs runs out, both the 65,000-annual limit and the additional 20,000 reserved for international students from U.S. graduate schools.

The reason H-1B visas run out each year is simple: The small annual limit of 65,000 (for an economy with over 160 million workers) was set back in 1990. Since then the World Wide Web, social media, smartphones, 3-D printing, and advances in biotech and other fields have fueled the demand for high-skilled technical labor. Most H-1B visa holders have earned a master’s degree or higher.

Trump administration officials have said America should shift to a “merit-based” immigration system but that is code for eliminating most family-sponsored immigration categories and reducing legal immigration, not admitting more high-skilled foreign nationals. In fact, since many family-sponsored individuals possess high levels of education, preventing them from immigrating to the United States would result in the admission of fewer highly educated immigrants.

When asked, immigration attorneys cannot name any policies the Trump administration has established or proposed to make it easier for high-skilled foreign nationals to work in or immigrate to the United States – and can talk for hours about all the new measures that have made life more difficult for immigrants and employers.

If the Trump administration wanted to make U.S. high tech companies more competitive in global markets, then here are the immigration policies it should enact:

First, on the legislative front, the administration should support H.R. 392, which eliminates the per-country limit that contributes to high-skilled immigrants from India waiting potentially decades to receive permanent residence. Congress should also raise the annual limit on employment-based green cards and add exemptions for individual with degrees in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and the dependents of employer-sponsored immigrants. The annual limit on H-1B visas should be raised substantially to reflect the demand for high-skilled labor in today’s modern economy.

Second, the administration should stop trying to repeal the worthwhile regulation that allows many spouses of H-1B visa holders to work in the United States. This 2015 regulation helps retain skilled workers and provides greater dignity to spouses, many of whom are well-educated women born in India. Immigration officials should also halt plans to eliminate or make unduly burdensome the ability of international students to work after graduation for 12 months on Optional Practical Training (OPT) or an additional 24 months for individuals in a STEM field. Another problematic administration policy is its plan to rescind a regulation that allows international entrepreneurs to remain in the U.S. after starting new job-creating businesses.

Third, the Trump administration should cease what attorneys and businesses view as an assault on the ability of companies to employ high-skilled foreign nationals in the United States. Over the past year, these measures have included immigration adjudicators demanding employers comply with many more Requests for Evidence and denying more H-1B applications; the administration telling adjudicators not to “defer to prior determinations,” including approvals or findings of facts, when renewing  an H-1B or other high-skilled visa (making denials more likely); the administration’s travel bans against individuals from Muslim-majority countries; and the effort by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to battle against a common business practice whereby companies focus on core competencies and contract out other functions, sometimes resulting in workers performing some work on customer sites. (For a more complete list of administration actions look here and here.)

Already we can see a negative impact from administration policies. “The number of international students from India enrolled in graduate level programs in computer science and engineering declined by 21%, or 18,590 fewer graduate students, from 2016 to 2017,” a recent analysis of government data found. One plausible explanation for this drop is that highly educated foreign nationals no longer see America as the best place to build a career. And remember, unlike when a factory closes, U.S. companies don’t issue press releases every time they place more work in offices overseas in response to the U.S. government’s restrictions on immigration.

Observers believe administration policies directed against high-skilled foreign-born professionals and the companies that employ them are driven by a half-dozen or more appointees who share a common worldview. They have worked much of their careers to reduce the number of immigrants coming into the United States, regardless of skill level. Moreover, they possess little understanding of how labor markets function, particularly in today’s global economy, or simply ignore these realities.

There is not a fixed number of jobs in the United States. When immigrants fill jobs, they create more jobs through their consumer spending, investments and entrepreneurship. Their availability as workers can encourage additional investments.

If companies are not allowed to hire (or transfer) high-skilled foreign nationals in America, then these companies will hire and keep them outside the United States, taking many jobs and innovations with them to other countries. Pretending companies do not possess other options in the face of government restrictions is misguided.

For the good of the country, to set things on the right track on high-skilled immigration, there is a simple solution for Trump administration officials: Just do the opposite of everything they’ve done since taking office.

via Better Immigration Policies Would Help U.S. Tech Companies

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Canadian exceptionalism in attitudes toward immigration

2018/04/03 Leave a comment

More on Focus Canada 2018 findings from Michael Adams and Keith Neuman:

Xenophobic retrenchment has been evident in many societies lately. Anti-immigrant parties have made or consolidated gains in countries such as Hungary, Germany, the Netherlands and, most recently, Italy. Resentment of immigration helped to motivate at least some British voters who supported Brexit. And of course, President Donald Trump’s rhetoric about immigrants to his country has been hostile — whether they come from Mexico, Muslim-majority countries or African countries.

Many commentators have speculated that Canada may take a similar turn. Certainly, Canada is not immune to bigotry. In addition to forms of discrimination that reveal themselves in economic data and survey findings, this country experienced a singularly violent attack on Canadian Muslims last year: a hate-motivated mass shooting at a Quebec City mosque that killed six people.

Are Canadians souring on their country’s traditionally high levels of immigration? Are they becoming more likely to support political candidates who channel ethnic and nationalist resentments? Are immigrants themselves souring on life in Canada?

Remarkably, recent survey findings suggest the opposite. New research by the Environics Instituteindicates two important and hopeful findings. First, Canadian attitudes toward immigrants remain open and positive. This pattern, which has been in evidence since the early 1990s, has not reversed in recent years. Second, Canada stands out internationally in the happiness that immigrants themselves report, and in the general public’s positive attitudes toward their foreign-born compatriots. (One driver of these mutually positive feelings may be that around 4 in 10 Canadians are themselves immigrants or the children of immigrants — meaning that immigrants’ attitudes are public attitudes to a significant extent.)

In spite of high and growing levels of immigration into Canada (around 300,000 in 2017), 6 in 10 Canadians recently  surveyed by Environics disagree that immigration levels are too high, compared with 35 percent who agree. Eighty percent believe the economic impact of immigration is positive, a conviction that goes a long way in explaining the success of the Canadian model.

Attitudes toward the legitimacy of refugee claims has grown more positive than they have been in the past three decades. More Canadians disagree (45 percent) than agree (38 percent) with the statement: “Most people claiming to be refugees and not real refugees” — and that disagreement has more than tripled since 1987.

Canadians do express concern about the speed with which they think immigrants adopt “Canadian values.” Today half of us (51 percent) do not think immigrants adopt Canadian values quickly enough, but rather than surging in recent years, the proportion of Canadians who hold this attitude has actually declined from 72 percent in 1993. Such concern is now at the lowest level in the 25 years over which this survey question has been put to Canadians.

Canadians stand out internationally in the way they think about immigration and diversity in their society.

Gallup’s Migrant Acceptance Index is a composite score for a society’s openness toward immigrants, made up of responses to three questions about whether it is a good thing or a bad thing that immigrants live in their country, become their neighbours, and marry a close relative. The survey covered 140 countries, and Canada ranked fourth overall in its acceptance of migrants. Among those in the OECD, Canada ranks third and the United States ranks tenth, while major European countries like Germany, the UK, Italy and France are farther down the list, followed by those in Eastern Europe.

What about immigrants themselves? Do they feel at ease in Canada? The just-released 2018 World Happiness Report finds Canadian immigrants’ assessment of their “subjective well-being” is among the most positive in the world: ranking seventh out of those of 156 countries. Immigrants’ happiness in Canada is fairly consistent regardless of where they’ve come from and where they’ve settled in Canada. Their self-reported well-being is also more similar to that of other Canadians than it is to people in their countries of origin.

The World Happiness Report’s authors note that newcomers tend to arrive in their new societies full of optimism, but in societies that prove unwelcoming, happiness declines over time, meaning that settled migrants end up less happy than new arrivals. Among more accepting countries, newcomers’ optimism is affirmed by experience, and happiness remains high among settled migrants. The data show this is clearly the case in Canada.

It’s not unreasonable to think that an accepting society and happy, optimistic immigrants create a virtuous cycle over time — with most people doing their best to be fair and friendly and to give others the benefit of the doubt. It’s worth noting that, as immigrants become more numerous — and, increasingly, spread beyond the traditional catchment areas of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal — the proportions of Canadians who report direct experiences with immigrants and various groups different from their own is on the rise. Generally speaking, personal experience with difference breeds good feeling (and probably helps to inoculate people against fear-mongering in the media or online).

Still, large majorities of Canadians acknowledge the reality of racism and discrimination. For instance, 84 percent of Canadians believe Canadian Muslims face discrimination often (50 percent) or occasionally (34 percent). Large majorities also believe immigrants from the Middle East, Indigenous people and Black people face discrimination at least occasionally. These findings indicate that most of us recognize there’s still much work to be done to live up to some of our rhetoric about diversity and inclusion, but acknowledgement of society’s shortcomings is a better place to start from than denial.

For now, it’s worth bearing in mind that, even amid gloomy headlines from both here and abroad, millions of people are quietly getting along in Canadian communities every day. Moreover, things can and do change for the better; people have a record of changing their minds in our imperfect country. According to a 2016 Environics survey, little more than 20 years ago only 35 percent of Canadians felt that two people of the same sex who live together should be regarded as being the same as a married couple. In 2016, the proportion was 73 percent.  (Some of this change is intergenerational: tolerant young people replacing older traditionalists. But many Canadians (including many older people) have changed their minds on same-sex marriage.

As some other societies retrench, Canadians — those born here and those born elsewhere — appear to be continuing their evolution toward greater mutual acceptance and greater acknowledgement of where their society falls short on equity. These recent findings suggest that Canada has a strong foundation from which to work toward a country where even more of us can report happiness, well-being and optimism for the future.

via Canadian exceptionalism in attitudes toward immigration

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

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