Interesting commentary as always by Todd. After correctly rejecting a “sticks” approach (unenforceable given Charter mobility rights), he discusses possible “carrots.”
Not convinced that the “carrots” will necessarily make a major change to settlement patterns:
Awarding extra points to immigrants who settle in rural areas, whether through Express Entry or Provincial Nominee Programs, doesn’t guarantee they will remain;
The StatsCan study mentioned that immigrants settling in smaller centres do better may reflect that they had a job offer attracting them to that community, and a smaller immigrant pool. For example, visible minorities in Newfoundland and Labrador have higher median incomes than elsewhere, likely reflecting the small immigrant labour pool concentrated in the professions.
There may be some lessons to be learned from previous efforts, whether with respect to Atlantic immigration (where retention has been an issue) or efforts to encourage Francophone immigrants to settle in official language minority communities in English Canada:
It’s been done before. From the 1870s to 1930s Ottawa offered free land to immigrants and refugees, much of it on the Prairies or in B.C.
The raw land was given to newcomers after they proved over several years they were developing it for homesteading, farming or logging.
A carrot approach is being tried in parts of Scandinavia. Sweden, for instance, has experimented with offering more generous social housing and welfare rates to immigrants and refugees who move to its smaller towns.
It wouldn’t be complicated to offer some carrots in Canada, especially to the one million people living here as permanent residents.
What about fine-tuning Canada’s immigrant point system — which favours those with high educational and skill levels — to grant extra points to newcomers who settle in Canada’s hinterlands?
That’s a suggestion from Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland, who frequently advises the federal government.
A points system that favours permanent residents who have shown (in part through their income-tax statements) they are committed to making a life in Quesnel, Timmins or St. John’s could do a lot for those cities. The small cities’ schools would fill and their housing and retail markets would strengthen.
Rather than Metro Vancouver and Toronto experiencing unaffordable property and rent costs — in large part because of high in-migration and offshore real-estate speculation — smaller cities and rural areas could enjoy modest boosts from the foreign-born.
Pressure would also ease on Metro Vancouver’s and Toronto’s over-stretched transit systems, as suggested by a StatsCan study that shows immigrants and foreign students rely on taxpayer subsidized transit at double the rate of Canadian-born residents.
A hinterland-related immigration points system is not far-fetched, even in Canada.
Kurland says it’s already virtually in place, in various ways, in B.C.’s provincial nominee program, which oversees a portion of the province’s skilled and educated immigrants.
Citizenship court judges dealing with people who are applying to be accepted as immigrants on compassionate grounds, Kurland adds, have also been known to treat favourably migrants who live in small towns.
The carrot approach would not only breathe new life into the hinterlands, it would give a leg up to immigrants themselves.
A little-known Statistics Canada study by Andre Bernard found that most immigrants who settle in Canada’s small towns do better financially than the majority who choose Canada’s 13 largest cities.
His report, “Immigrants in the Hinterland,” found newcomers who move to small towns and rural areas not only more quickly learn an official language, they soon earn more than other immigrants and those born in Canada.
That not only benefits the immigrants and their children, it does the same for our increasingly struggling small towns.
The above chart provides the national numbers for international students, broken down by academic level (about 63,000 secondary students in 2016), showing just how important a “business” it has become:
Public high schools across the country are welcoming a growing number of international students in an effort to build valuable relationships and – in some cases – boost revenue.
Though international students make up only a small fraction of high schoolers, administrators in Ontario and British Columbia say they’ve seen a spike in recent years, with some school boards reporting their ranks have doubled.
The Toronto District School Board, which has one of the largest such programs in the country, says it sees an increase in its international population of five to 10 per cent each year, with close to 2,000 foreign students attending last year.
The Thames Valley District School Board in southwestern Ontario has experienced growth of “more than 100 per cent” since launching its international program three years ago, going from 133 students to 293, it said.
In B.C., the Surrey school district says some 1,000 international students are enrolled in its facilities – roughly twice as many as in 2009.
School boards say they are making concerted efforts to draw more international students to their halls, participating in recruiting events around the globe, partnering with education agents and working to identify emerging markets.
“Every province, including the territories, they have international student programs,” said Smita Sengupta of the Toronto District School Board. “This is a trend in school boards in Ontario as well as throughout Canada.”
Vancouver, Surrey, B.C., and Coquitlam, B.C., are among the most popular school districts for international students, with Toronto and nearby York Region also ranking high, according to the Canadian Association of Public Schools – International, an organization representing 133 public school districts across Canada with international student programs.
Boosting diversity is part of the appeal for school boards such as the Thames Valley, said Sarah Noad, the board’s international business development officer.
“Our local students benefit so much by learning about new cultures, being introduced to students from other countries,” Noad said. “They gain new communication skills and learn different global perspectives and ideas and these are all needed to succeed in a more globally interconnected world.”
Yet another example where Trump is forcing corporations to take a stand:
The chief executives of Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google joined roughly 300 business leaders urging President Donald Trump late Thursday to continue protecting children brought illegally to the United States from being deported.
Since 2012, the U.S. government has allowed those children — young adults now known as Dreamers — to continue living in the country as long as they obtain and renew work permits under a program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
But Trump on Friday is expected to eliminate that legal shield entirely. Months after promising to approach the issue with “great heart,” the president reportedly is expected to order the government to cease granting work permits for undocumented young adults to stay. Meanwhile, the roughly 800,000 currently registered in DACA would not be allowed to obtain additional work authorizations once their current approvals expire.
The move would fulfill one of Trump’s most controversial promises from the 2016 presidential campaign — yet it already is prompting a wide array of businesses to issue a collective rebuke of the White House.
“Dreamers are vital to the future of our companies and our economy. With them, we grow and create jobs,” wrote the corporate executives in a joint letter. “They are part of why we will continue to have a global competitive advantage.”
The missive was organized by FWD.us, the immigration reform group backed by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Other signers include the leaders of Airbnb, LinkedIn, Lyft and Netflix, as well as Laurene Powell Jobs, the founder of the Emerson Collective, and some executives outside of the tech industry, like Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors.
In a post on his own Facebook, meanwhile, Zuckerberg himself stressed: “We need a government that protects Dreamers.”
“Today I join business leaders across the country in calling on our president to keep the DACA program in place and protect Dreamers from fear of deportation,” he continued. “We’re also calling on Congress to finally pass the Dream Act or another permanent, legislative solution that Dreamers deserve.”
Broadly, Trump’s expected announcement may only worsen his already strained relationship with corporate America. In August, a number of high-profile executives opted to stop advising him on economic issues because of his comments on a different matter: The neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville, Va.
In Silicon Valley, though, the move toward ending DACA adds to a special, longer-running strain between tech titans and the Trump administration. Immigration is an issue of immense personal and professional importance to the tech industry, which employs a number of foreign workers and long has sought to hire more. Other tech engineers have families abroad, and some of the region’s founders and executives themselves are immigrants who have tried, unsuccessfully, to sway Trump in recent months.
Earlier Thursday, Microsoft estimated that 27 of its workers — from engineers to sales associates — would be affected by the change to DACA. The company’s chief executive, Satya Nadella, even tried to issue an early plea to the White House: “We care deeply about the DREAMers who work at Microsoft and fully support them,” he said. “We will always stand for diversity and economic opportunity for everyone.”
Uber, meanwhile, similarly came to the defense of the Dreamers, noting in a statement that their “contributions make America more competitive and they deserve the opportunity to work, study, and pursue the American dream.” The defense of DACA comes days after Uber appointed a new chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, who himself is an immigrant from Iran — and a fierce critic of Trump’s approach to those issues.
Trump’s expected announcement comes partly in response to 10 state attorneys general, which threatened to take the administration to court over DACA if it did not eliminate the program by Sept. 5. Going forward, though, Congress can still codify the program into law, but lawmakers long have struggled in that aim.
“The 800,000 people, and dreamers like them, they deserve a permanent legislative solution,” stressed Todd Schulte, the leader of FWD.us, in an interview late Thursday. He said lawmakers had a choice — pass a law or risk become “a nation that says we’re going to see hundreds of thousands of people pushed out of the workforce.”
Initially, Trump himself appeared to waver on the issue, a fierce opponent of DACA during the campaign who later said, as president, he would approach the Dreamers with “great heart.”
Ahead of the decision, tech executives had been some of the more vocal, aggressive lobbyists on behalf of preserving DACA. In June, for example, Apple CEO Tim Cook specifically urged Trump to show compassion for the Dreamers. The private comments came at a reception to conclude the first day of Trump’s “tech week,” a five-day focus on ways to modernize the government with the industry’s help.
A bit rich given that Quebec currently receives a block grant of $345 million for its role in immigrant selection and settlement, over double the budget of their Ministère de l’immigration, diversité et inclusion of $150 million:
Le Québec n’a pas à payer pour les «invités de Justin Trudeau», les milliers de demandeurs d’asile en provenance des États-Unis, a déclaré le chef péquiste Jean-François Lisée lundi.
Il a réclamé qu’Ottawa assume tous les coûts de cet afflux de migrants d’origine haïtienne aux frontières. Actuellement, le Québec paie pour les héberger, les nourrir, en plus de distribuer des chèques d’aide sociale.
En conférence de presse en matinée à Saint-Augustin, en banlieue de Québec, M. Lisée a rappelé que le premier ministre fédéral avait souhaité «welcome to Canada» (bienvenue au Canada) aux personnes persécutées de par le monde.
Donc, selon le chef péquiste, la situation actuelle est «le résultat des déclarations irresponsables» de Justin Trudeau.
«Il faut qu’ils (ces demandeurs d’asile) soient bien traités, ça c’est certain. Mais la question, c’est: combien ça va coûter et qui va payer? a demandé M. Lisée. Depuis quelques jours on essaie de savoir quelle sera la compensation fédérale pour ces invités de Justin Trudeau.»
Le chef de l’opposition officielle a également rappelé que le Québec accueille bon an mal an 3000 à 4000 demandeurs d’asile, mais qu’au-delà de ce seuil normal, Ottawa devrait payer la facture, les coûts d’hébergement temporaire, d’aide sociale, d’éducation, etc.
«Si j’étais premier ministre (du Québec), je commencerais à faire mes comptes (…), c’est au fédéral de payer ce que ça va coûter en plus et je n’entends pas M. Couillard dire ça.»
M. Lisée estime qu’il brise «un tabou» en soulevant cette question que beaucoup de gens se posent, selon lui: «L’argent qu’on va mettre là, on va le prendre où? Ça ne pousse pas dans les arbres, on vient de vivre trois ans d’austérité libérale très sévère.»
Réaction de Philippe Couillard
Le premier ministre Philippe Couillard a réagi depuis Charlottetown à l’Île-du-Prince-Édouard, où il assistait à la Conférence annuelle des gouverneurs de la Nouvelle-Angleterre et des premiers ministres de l’Est du Canada.
Il a jugé que les termes «invités de Justin Trudeau» étaient «assez malheureux», en ajoutant que «tout le monde travaille ensemble, avec ses responsabilités et ses outils».
Appelée à préciser la répartition actuelle des responsabilités financières, la porte-parole de la ministre de l’Immigration Kathleen Weil, Émilie Tremblay-Potvin, a évoqué dans une entrevue les ententes qui existent déjà entre Québec et Ottawa sur les services sociaux et la santé, sans pouvoir donner de chiffres précis.
Elle a toutefois indiqué qu’une «comptabilisation est faite pour l’instant», qui pourrait servir à faire des «représentations» ultérieurement à Ottawa.
Nice long read on the links between Indigenous peoples and immigration:
To the extent that the Canadian system works, it is on one side thanks to a policy, a department, an expert civil service; and on the other side to tens of thousands of engaged citizens, many of them involved in volunteer organizations. Without one half or the other, the whole system would collapse. Our system has given itself one important psychological advantage – a clear understanding that the primary purpose of immigration is to become a citizen, as fast as possible. The sooner immigrants are citizens, the sooner they can help carry the burden of making society function.
Yet, no matter how successful the Canadian system, it cannot work in the long run if it – we – function in denial of reality. For half a millennium, immigration to Canada has been intimately tied to the Indigenous peoples. They welcomed newcomers for hundreds of years. Their welcome and openness, their support and sharing, shaped what our immigration policy would come to look like at its best. They were betrayed, particularly from the 1860s on. That is why there is growing debate over how to handle the role of historic Canadian leaders in this wrongdoing. One thing is clear, after a long struggle: Indigenous peoples are on their way back to a position of great influence.
We all agree that our system of immigration and citizenship is not perfect. I would argue that its fragility lies in our denial of the central role of Indigenous peoples. That is the original Canadian conversation – between those who were here and those who came. Deep within our reality, it is still the essential Canadian conversation. To deny this is to deny our history, but also our structures of injustice.
We now all know that the bricks and mortar of that injustice is underfunded and below-standard schooling, a dearth of Indigenous-language programs, social programs, medical services, clean drinking water, housing. And much more. We know changes are coming. But too slowly.
We know that evil was done through state schools, the public administration system, policing and the courts. And all of this was enabled by our parliament and provincial legislatures. Apologies have been made. But apologies are neither actions, nor money, nor programs. We talk endlessly about reconciliation. But reconciliation is nothing without restitution.
All these elements represent the as-yet unbuilt bridges necessary for respectful human relationships.
Some Indigenous people do not see themselves as Canadians. Some do. Some see themselves as both Indigenous and Canadian. That is their business. And that is a reminder of how clearly we must reject the Westphalian model, its monolithic mythologies and its 19th-century pastiche imitations of what makes a proper nation-state. So when we talk about diversity or multiculturalism or interculturalism we are talking about an important philosophical difference with standard Western ideas of how societies function. These are not just words or conveniences. They are ideas which can reshape human relationships.
That is why the concept of rivers as the bridges of this place is so important. It is a very different idea of human relationships, which is not based on fear of the other or on the exclusive ideas of difference, or on equally exclusive ideas of oneness. All of this is carefully laid out in Indigenous philosophies, which embrace complexity as central to how human beings embrace their differences and their relationships with each other.
This involves concepts of how humans relate to place, concepts that take us off our controlling pedestal and make us part of the place, with responsibilities rather than ownership as the key factor. Richard Atleo. Read Leroy Little Bear. Read Jean Teillet. Read Taiaiake Alfred. Read Lee Maracle. Read Niigaan Sinclair. Read dozens of other Indigenous thinkers. You will see what I mean. More important, you will see what they mean.
I have written before that the only roots I can find for the degree of comfort in our attitudes toward immigration and diversity are Indigenous. We owe a debt of gratitude for this. And for our comfort with complexity we owe a deep debt of gratitude, in particular to the example set by the Métis Nation and its people. They demonstrated that, with complexity, you can build a civilization.
It is curious. Most of us will agree that great evil has been done; that our apologies were right and necessary. Most of us will agree that the resulting injustices must be faced and dealt with, whatever the cost. More and more we understand that our governments must stop fighting in the courts against justice for Indigenous peoples. And that treaty negotiations must be dealt with expeditiously, and not as if our negotiators were divorce lawyers.
But it doesn’t seem to occur to us that when you owe a great debt of gratitude, one of the first things you do is show respect by saying thank you. That is how bridges begin to be built.
One of the better and realistic commentaries on the current influx:
If you are on the right, the sudden flood of asylum-seekers crossing the Canada-U.S. border is easily explicable as the inevitable consequence of Justin Trudeau’s online recklessness.
“To those fleeing persecution, terror & war,” the Hippie King advised his followers in January, “Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada.”
Tory immigration critic Michelle Rempel was explicit this week that blame for the border “crisis” “lies solely at the feet” of the prime minister, whose “irresponsible” tweet had given “false hope” to asylum seekers in the U.S.
If you are on the left, the situation is just as easy to explain. It is all on account of Donald Trump, whose anti-immigrant rhetoric has left refugee claimants in the United States in terror that they will be sent back to their countries of origin. The Charlottesville rally of white supremacists, NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan wrote in a letter to Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, “further challenges simplistic notions that the United States remains a safe destination for asylum seekers.”
There’s some truth in both notions. Each leader has in his own way signalled a differing level of receptivity to refugee claims. And yet in substantive terms, neither country’s policies have changed much in the interim.
Trump may have imposed, or attempted to impose, a temporary ban on travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries, but as the prime minister himself has said, the U.S. domestic asylum system remains “safe, has due process, has appeal rights.”
Of course, if Trudeau believes that, it makes it odd that he should have so ostentatiously contrasted Canada’s “welcome” with Trump’s approach. Especially since it isn’t particularly true. Canada has not thrown open its borders. The rules are unchanged. Asylum seekers are promptly detained by the RCMP on entry; their claims are subject to the usual assessment process, with deportation awaiting those found to be without basis.
Indeed, if either explanation holds, it makes it odd that the “crisis” took so long to develop. You’ll recall when the first asylum-seekers started sneaking across the border in the dead of winter, at great risk to life and health, many people (including me) were concerned that this presaged an enormous, unmanageable surge once the temperatures began to rise. Yet it wasn’t until late summer that the asylum-seekers became a story again. As of June 30, only about 3,000 asylum-seeker had entered Canada from the U.S., not far off usual numbers.
Almost all of the roughly 7,000 asylum-seekers to have arrived since then are from one country: Haiti. The reason for this is quite clear. Allowed to remain in the U.S. on “temporary protected status” in the wake of the Haitian earthquake in 2010, they face probable deportation once the program expires next January.
That’s not unusual: Canada’s own program expired last August. Those who have not applied for permanent residency status have been deported by the hundreds; of those who have claimed asylum, the government reports, one-half to two-thirds have been rejected.
It may fairly be charged, however, that the Trudeau government has not done enough to advertise this to the Haitian community in the U.S., an error the government is belatedly and wobbily seeking to repair. Too late — the Haitians have adopted the same strategy followed by earlier asylum-seekers: crossing the border on foot, rather than by air or sea, and over open country, rather than the usual crossing points.
The explanation for this is by now familiar: were they to cross by the normal routes, they would be promptly returned to the U.S. under the Safe Third Country (STC) agreement between our two countries, which stipulates that refugee claimants must apply in the first country they enter. But that agreement only applies at the official entry points. By crossing irregularly — or illegally, if you prefer — they instead become subject to the usual strictures of Canadian refugee law, under which they cannot be deported without having their claim heard.
This confounding dilemma has prompted its own search for easy answers, none offering the promised escape. On the right, initial demands for the government to “enforce the law” (it is), or to physically stop them from crossing (an impossibility), or “send them back” (the U.S. won’t take them), have subsided into calls for the STC to be expanded, if not to the whole of the border, then to more entry points. But the U.S. would have to agree to that, and so far shows no sign of being amenable.
The left shows no more signs of realism. The primary proposal is for the STC to be suspended, so as to remove the incentive for border crossers to evade the official entry points. But suspending the STC would amount to an open invitation to try your luck on the Canadian refugee process. At worst, you’d spend a few months in the resulting backlog, with the right to work and obtain social benefits in the meantime. And the longer the backlog, the greater the incentive to jump in the hopper.
I don’t want to minimize the situation: there are other groups in the U.S. whose visas will also soon expire, meaning potentially thousands more asylum-seekers crossing the border in the months to come.
At the same time, we should not overstate matters. The country is not being overrun. Those entering are being screened. We can afford to put up a few thousand asylum-seekers until their claims are heard. And even if that sticks in your craw, there isn’t much we can do about it — not unless we are prepared to suspend our own constitutional protections, at risk of sending legitimate refugees to their deaths.
This is difficult to admit: those of us in politics and the media are in the easy answers business. But some problems cannot be solved. They can only be managed.
Good column by Selley. Love the first para on the party differences.
His recommendation for more resources to speed up the determination process makes sense as the best feedback loop to discourage border crossings are quick determinations and removals as warranted:
When Conservative Canadian governments deport failed asylum-seekers and try to prevent them from arriving in the first place, they tend to boast about it. When Liberal Canadian governments deport failed asylum-seekers and try to prevent them from arriving in the first place, they tend to pretend it’s simply not happening. On migration policy, this is one of the key differences between our two natural governing parties. It basically boils down to branding.
In a press conference on Wednesday, Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel tried to frame the northbound exodus as a direct result of Trudeau’s shameless virtue signalling. Asked what her government had done or would do differently, she responded, essentially, that her government wouldn’t have all-but-explicitly encouraged people to give Canada a college try.
It’s a stretch; this is mostly about circumstances beyond any government’s control. But the extent to which this government refuses to speak in plain English is truly remarkable.
On Sunday, in a visit to the border region in Quebec, Transport Minister Marc Garneau said Canadian consulates in the U.S. would try to warn people thinking of heading north to claim asylum that their chances of success were far from assured. That’s a very good idea. Many of the current border-crossers are Haitians whose asylum claims failed in the United States. A temporary post-earthquake moratorium on removals having expired, they now face deportation. Reports suggest they are being sold garbage advice — in some cases literally — that Canada is a sure thing. To preserve Canada’s already stretched border resources, to maintain whatever public trust remains in the system’s integrity, and to save vulnerable people from extortion and financial ruin, the government should be warning people away in no uncertain terms.
Here’s what Garneau put on Twitter: “We are continuing to engage with diaspora communities in the U.S.A. — everyone deserves to know the facts about what it means to come to Canada.”
And on Wednesday, here’s what Trudeau put on Twitter: “We’re … reaching out to folks in the U.S. to make sure people who want to come to Canada understand the proper procedures to do so.”
For the love of God, man, there is no “proper procedure” with a snowball’s chance in Port-au-Prince via which a failed Haitian asylum-seeker in the United States can come “properly” to Canada. What you mean is “don’t come. We’ll probably deport you anyway.” So say it.
There’s no guarantee a blunt message would get the job done, mind you. No matter how often the Conservatives called asylum-seekers from European Union countries “bogus refugees,” the Immigration and Refugee Board kept recognizing their claims at a reasonable clip — 2,500 from Hungary alone over the last decade, for a roughly 18 per cent success rate.
Unlike Hungary, the now-famous unofficial border crossing in Quebec is just a Greyhound and a cab away from anywhere in the contiguous 48 states. If Canada’s consulates are indeed distributing “the facts,” then Haitians will know Canada has accepted nearly 50 per cent of claims from their fellow citizens over the last 10 years. Many claims that failed in the U.S. might well fail in Canada too — but it’s a safe bet quite a few would succeed. (The U.S. accepts a significantly lower percentage of claimants.)
If my options were (a) deportation to Haiti, where I have nothing, or (b) a $200 trip to the border, a longish stay in Canada during which I can legally work and make some money, a long-shot chance at permanent residency and then, at worst, deportation to Haiti anyway, I know exactly which one I would pick.
What can the government do about this? Without straying dramatically from traditional policy options, not a hell of a lot. But it could stray from traditional Liberal policy and not let a massive backlog build up. On Wednesday, citing a UNHCR official, Global News reported asylum-seekers arriving today won’t even get preliminary eligibility hearings until January. The longer a hopeless claim takes to be resolved, the greater the incentive to give it a whirl. The government could hire more people to deal with these claimants expeditiously, which the Liberals have said they will, thus reducing that incentive. But most radically, as off-brand as it would be, the Liberals might consider saying what they bloody well mean.
Important study showing the importance of pre-landing work experience to earnings:
International students are increasingly regarded as an important group of young and well-educated individuals from which to select permanent residents. In December 2015 there were 353,000 international students with a valid study permit in Canada, up from 84,000 in December 1995. Of the international students admitted to Canada in the early 2000s, 25% became permanent residents over the 10 years that followed. Of these, nearly one-half applied as principal applicants in the economic class.
A small number of studies from Australia, Canada and the United States suggest that the earnings advantage that former international students have over other economic immigrants may be either small or non-existent. This suggests that pre-landing study experience in a destination country such as Canada may not in and of itself improve immigrants’ labour market outcomes over university degrees acquired abroad. Policy-makers and researchers are thus shifting their attention to the complementary role played by other factors, such as pre-landing work experience. A study released today by Statistics Canada offers new evidence on this issue.
The study examines the earnings trajectories of three groups of university graduates: international students who obtained a university degree in Canada and then became landed immigrants (i.e. Canadian-educated immigrants); individuals who had a university degree from abroad at the time they immigrated to Canada (i.e. foreign-educated immigrants); and university graduates born in Canada. The earnings trajectories of these groups were examined over 6 years for the cohort of individuals aged 25 to 34 in 2006, and over 20 years for the cohort of individuals aged 25 to 34 in 1991.
Among the 2006 cohort of male Canadian-educated immigrants, average annual earnings one year after landing were 48% lower than those of Canadian-born graduates. This gap narrowed to 34% six years after landing. Among female Canadian-educated immigrants, the earnings gap vis-à-vis Canadian-born graduates was 39% one year after landing and 32% six years after landing.
Most of these earnings gaps were accounted for by differences in the work histories of immigrant and Canadian-born graduates. Prior to becoming landed immigrants, 12% of male Canadian-educated immigrants had no work experience in Canada and 40% had prior work experience with annual earnings under $20,000. Among male Canadian-born graduates, virtually all had prior work experience and almost 90% had prior work experience with annual earnings of $20,000 and over. These patterns were broadly similar among women.
When group differences in prior Canadian work experience were taken into account, the earnings gap between Canadian-educated immigrants and Canadian-born graduates in the 2006 cohort disappeared among both men and women. Likewise, prior work experience accounted for much of the earnings gap observed among the 1991 cohort.
Canadian-educated immigrants had higher post-immigration earnings than foreign-educated immigrants, but prior work experience once again played an important role. Five years after landing, male Canadian-educated immigrants with no pre-landing work experience had annual earnings 20% below those of male foreign-educated immigrants. Among women, the shortfall was 7%. This takes into account a broad range of socio-demographic and source country characteristics. Canadian-educated immigrants who accumulated pre-landing work experience fared far better relative to their foreign-educated counterparts.
Canadian-educated immigrants with three years of pre-landing work experience that paid less than $20,000 had annual earnings five years after landing that were similar to, or higher than, their foreign-educated counterparts. Those with three years of pre-landing work experience that paid $20,000 to $50,000 had annual earnings five years after landing that were 42% to 61% higher. For the approximately 10% of Canadian-educated immigrants who had three years of pre-landing work experience that paid more than $50,000, their earnings five years after landing were more than double those of foreign-educated immigrants. These differences in earnings were larger among the 2006 cohort than the 1991 cohort.
These results suggest that pre-landing Canadian work experience and earnings play an increasing role in differentiating the post-immigration labour market outcomes of university-educated immigrants.
Good analysis of potential future waves of border crossers – current measures and resources likely inadequate:
In the U.S. immigration debate, it’s called “twilight status,” and for many who hold it, the light is flickering and fading.
Unlike Canada or Mexico, which both routinely deport almost anyone without a valid visa, the U.S. government allows otherwise-illegal immigrants to remain without legal status — sheltered under various forms of government sufferance.
About 59,000 Haitians received Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a U.S. government waiver exempting them from deportation to their devastated homeland, after a catastrophic earthquake struck near Port-au-Prince in 2010.
That waiver was renewed several times by the Obama administration, which judged that Haiti was not ready to absorb returnees.
Then this summer, Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly (now White House chief of staff) signed off on a very short renewal — six months — letting it be known that there would probably be no more extensions.
“This six-month extension should allow Haitian TPS recipients living in the United States time to attain travel documents and make other necessary arrangements for their ultimate departure from the United States,” he said.
Fuelled by rumours Canada would be more sympathetic, many Haitians headed north — crossing to Hemmingford, Que., at a rate of about 250 people a day.
The Haitians are just one group among many that could soon be shown the door in the U.S., and might then show up on Canada’s doorstep.
On Sunday, Prime Justin Trudeau spoke about the “situation at the border at Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle,” saying “entering Canada irregularly is not an advantage,” and that rules will be enforced to safeguard against security risks.
The Government of Canada is planning outreach efforts with Haitian communities in both Canada and the U.S., said Nancy Chan, a spokesperson for Citizens and Immigration Canada (CIC).
“We are taking a number of proactive measures to counter misinformation regarding Canada’s asylum system, including using social media,” said Chan.
Living on a waiver
Life on a deportation waiver is not easy.
First of all, the waivers are not free. Haitians were asked to pay $495 US for their six-month extension if they wanted the right to work. That’s one reason many chose to invest the money in a ticket to Canada. (Some did renew their waivers, and Canada may see a second wave of Haitians arrive when their final deadline of January 22 approaches).
The waivers also do not provide a pathway to permanent legal residency. The Haitians who fled into Quebec have always known they were living on borrowed time.
‘The countries that are facing the end of their grant under TPS are the ones who feel most under the gun’– Julia Gelatt, senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute
Citizens of ten countries currently hold TPS in the U.S.: El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
Nicaraguans and Hondurans received protected status in 1999 as a result of Hurricane Mitch, but it applies only to people already in the U.S. when the hurricane struck.
All of those 10 waivers come up for renewal at some point in the next 13 months, and the Trump administration seems likely to allow at least some of them to die.
But Chan did not answer a question about how the Canadian government would deal with other groups: “We will not speculate on future scenarios.”
Cancelling waivers sending people north
An estimated 317,000 people live on TPS waivers. More than half of them are Salvadorans granted TPS following the earthquake of 2001; they are facing a renewal decision by March next year. The remainder are mostly Hondurans and Haitians, who both face a renewal decision in January.
But TPS is not the only kind of twilight status, says Julia Gelatt, senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington.
“There are a number of other categories you could also put in there. There are people who are applying for different kinds of visas, such as a U visa for crime victims or a T visa for victims of trafficking.”
“A lot of people who are in these categories are pretty confident their visa is coming, as opposed to people in TPS whose programs are being reconsidered, and cancellation is a more imminent concern.”
Also in March next year, a different waiver program called Deferred Enforced Departure will come to an end leaving about 14,000 Liberians (most of whom fled their country’s civil war years ago) with a tough decision to make.
“The countries that are facing the end of their grant under TPS are the ones who feel most under the gun,” says Gelatt. “There’s this looming deadline.”
If those migrants suddenly lose their legal status in the U.S., they could head for Canada.
The ‘Dreamers’
These groups, however, are dwarfed by a class of people referred to as “Dreamers,” named for the oft-introduced but never-approved DREAM Act.
The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM), was crafted to help those brought to the U.S. as children by allowing them to live in the country where they grew up providing they graduate from school and have no criminal record. About 65,000 kids in this category graduate from U.S. high schools annually.
The DREAM Act has been struggling to become law since 2001, and has often seemed close to bipartisan success. But in recent years more Republicans have turned against it.
In the meantime, the Dreamers must get by with a less secure status called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) — a temporary reprieve, renewable every two years (at a fee), with no path to citizenship.
There are about 840,000 young people living on DACA waivers in the US.
U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly said during the campaign that he would end the DACA program, and since his inauguration a handful of Dreamers have been arrested and held in detention, despite having paperwork that says they are enrolled.
Most threatening of all for the Dreamers, though, is the lawsuit threatened by Texas and nine other states. They have given the Trump administration a deadline of September 5 to shelve the program or face a court challenge for executive overreach. (In over three-quarters of cases, Dreamers were brought to the U.S. from Mexico.)
If Trump keeps his campaign promise, and ends the DACA program, all of the people currently covered by DACA would lose their status over the next two years.
It is not difficult to imagine that many Dreamers, who typically speak English as their first language, might prefer to try their luck in Canada than face deportation to a homeland they can hardly remember.
Multicultural Meanderings 