Trump is cracking down on the H-1B visa program that Silicon Valley loves – Recode

2017/04/05 Leave a comment

More opportunity for Canada:

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump pledged to crack down on companies that hire foreigners over Americans.

Now that he’s in the Oval Office, his administration is taking aim at some of the high-skilled visas that Silicon Valley seeks so it can hire foreign engineers.

Beginning Monday, the Department of Homeland Security promised greater scrutiny of the H-1B program, which began accepting applications for a lottery that will award visas in 2018. The government’s immigration enforcers plan to heighten their “site visits,” they said, to “determine whether H-1B dependent employers are evading their obligation to make a good faith effort to recruit U.S. workers.”

The Justice Department, meanwhile, issued its own stern warning Monday. “The Justice Department will not tolerate employers misusing the H-1B visa process to discriminate against U.S. workers,” said Tom Wheeler, the acting assistant attorney general at the DOJ’s civil rights division.

Both swipes at the program come days after U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued a policy that rethinks the way the government awards H-1B visas to computer programmers. Now, companies must prove that the programmers they’re hoping to hire are doing special, complex jobs requiring unique technical expertise.

Taken together, the steps seem to point most directly and immediately at outsourcing companies like Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services. But it’s still sure to send a major chill down Silicon Valley’s spine, after an election season in which Trump and his allies took aim at the industry’s hiring practices.

In March 2016, Trump specifically promised to “end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program.” Others, like then-Senator Jeff Sessions — since tapped as the country’s attorney general — criticized the likes of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for seeking to expand the program.

Many in the tech industry later expected Trump to issue an executive order clamping down on the H-1B program, a draft of which began circulating earlier this year. He never issued the directive, but DHS did suspend expedited processing for those visas, it announced in March.

“The Trump administration will be enforcing laws protecting American workers from discriminating hiring factors,” said press secretary Sean Spicer at his briefing Monday.

Source: Trump is cracking down on the H-1B visa program that Silicon Valley loves – Recode

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FinTRAC cuts controversial ‘ethnic’ warning from real estate document

2017/04/04 Leave a comment

While I can understand the rationale for its removal (country of origin would be a better way to highlight the concern), we have to find a way that we can talk about particular practices or concerns related to country of origin and related risks in an evidence-based manner.

Being silent also has consequences.

And it is hard to have much sympathy for realtors given their inherent conflict of interest and lack of regulation compared to financial institutions:

Canada’s money-laundering watchdog drafted a document warning the real estate sector to be on guard for “specific ethnic communities” dealing with terrorism and war, before removing the reference at the behest of an industry association, documents show.

Correspondence between FinTRAC and the Canadian Real Estate Association, obtained by The Canadian Press through an Access to Information request, shows that the industry group was concerned that the reference would encourage agents to stop doing business with people based on their ethnicity.

The draft guidance document was aimed at helping companies meet their obligations to detect money laundering and terrorist financing.

It lists several examples of factors that may increase a company’s risk of becoming entangled in financial crimes, including dealing with “a specific ethnic community that is currently dealing with specific events (e.g. prevalence of terrorism or money laundering, war etc.) in the home country.”

Such a reference would constitute a violation of the Human Rights Act, the real estate association said in its letter.

“Canadians are rightly proud of the Human Rights Act, and especially in this day and age when we see what’s happening south of the border,” said CREA spokesman Randall McCauley.

“Our lawyers would have rightly pointed out or reminded FinTRAC that no Canadian can discriminate against another, or deny access to a service based on where they’re from.”

The federal agency says it was not referring to any particular ethnic community in the document.

“The intent of the guidance was to highlight, broadly, that regulated businesses may deal with clients that have a material connection to high-risk jurisdictions or other jurisdictions that are currently dealing with specific events, including terrorism or money laundering, war, a high level of corruption, or organized crime,” FinTRAC spokeswoman Renee Bercier said in an e-mail.

“FinTRAC chose to remove the terminology as it recognized the potential for misinterpretation and misrepresentation.”

Companies in certain sectors – including banks, casinos and real estate firms – are legally required to identify their clients, keep records and report suspicious or large cash transactions to FinTRAC. They are also required to assess their exposure to money laundering and terrorism financing risk.

Canada’s real estate sector has become an area of particular concern after a report released last fall by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force said it is susceptible to the illegal dumping of cash.

FinTRAC provided CREA with the draft of its guidance document in 2014.

In a letter to FinTRAC dated Dec. 23, 2014, CREA calls the reference to ethnicity in the document “inappropriate,” particularly if read alongside another section of the guide that encourages companies to introduce measures that can be used to terminate business relationships, a process referred to as “de-marketing.”

“If this guidance were followed it could result in realtor members being liable for violating human rights law,” the letter reads, before going on to cite Sec. 5 of Canada’s Human Rights Act.

That section says it is a discriminatory practice to deny access to any good, service, facility or accommodation to someone for any of the prohibited grounds of discrimination. In a response letter dated Feb. 6, 2015, FinTRAC says it opted to remove the references to ethnicity and de-marketing.

The reference to ethnicity – and the decision to remove it – illustrates just how controversial the issue has become in the debate over foreign capital flowing into Canada’s real estate market.

Thomas Davidoff, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business, says affordability concerns in markets such as Vancouver and Toronto have in some cases resulted in ethnic divisions.

“People get their underwear in a bunch when they’re feeling threatened about having a roof over their head,” Mr. Davidoff says.

For instance, reports of money flowing into Vancouver’s housing market from China have resulted in some Vancouverites blaming the Chinese for pricing them out of the market for single-family, detached homes, Mr. Davidoff says. “Politicians and government needs to protect citizens while being tolerant and encouraging people to behave decently towards other people,” he said. “That can be a challenge.”

Source: FinTRAC cuts controversial ‘ethnic’ warning from real estate document – The Globe and Mail

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Canada deports hundreds to China each year with no treatment guarantee

2017/04/04 Leave a comment

The large number of deportations to China reflects in part the large number of immigrants from China: 1,386 deportations compared to over 78,000 immigrants, or 1.8 percent (2013-15).

However, this is more than other large source countries like the Philippines and India. Given lack of due process in Chinese courts, this concern is not misplaced with respect to corruption cases:

The Canadian government is deporting hundreds of people to China each year without receiving any assurances that they will not be tortured or otherwise mistreated, statistics provided to The Globe and Mail reveal.

Canada and China do not have a formal extradition treaty, and the Trudeau government has signalled that it may not complete such a deal out of concern about abuses in the Chinese justice system.

The lack of such a deal has not, however, stopped Canada from sending people back to China. The Canada Border Services Agency has used deportation, expelling 1,386 people to China over the past three years, according to agency statistics.

It’s a process that lawyers, academics and former diplomats say offers too few protections against the mistreatment deportees might endure.

It also places Canada at risk of using evidence rooted in coerced confessions as Canadian authorities make decisions on ejecting people, particularly those sought by Beijing as part of its sweeping global Skynet operation to chase people it calls corrupt fugitives.

When people are returned to a country such as China, “there’s a need for very significant and enforceable assurances about the treatment they will receive and monitoring on the part of Canada – which Canada has not done,” said Sharryn Aiken, an expert on immigration and refugee law at Queen’s University.

“And in the absence of monitoring, people die in jail.”

The United Nations Committee against Torture has said that in China “the practice of torture and ill-treatment is still deeply entrenched in the criminal-justice system.”

Canada’s own foreign service recently signed its name to a letter saying there are “credible claims of torture” against people under interrogation in China.

Before deporting someone, Canadian immigration officials can conduct what is called a “preremoval risk assessment,” designed to evaluate whether a person is in danger of mistreatment upon return. “Due diligence is important before undertaking any removal measures,” said Nicholas Dorion, a spokesman for the Canada Border Services Agency. That assessment is “in place to ensure that a person will not be removed to a country where they could face death or torture.”

But risk assessments are done entirely in Canada and do not include demands that China guarantee it will abide by certain standards of conduct, or allow Canada to monitor deportees.

“Many of us don’t feel it’s really an effective safeguard,” said Vancouver immigration lawyer Douglas Cannon. “Especially in the case of people who are being sent back to face prosecution in China.”

The potential for problems is serious enough that David Mulroney, the former Canadian ambassador to China, says Ottawa should refuse to co-operate with Beijing on most corruption cases, limiting joint law-enforcement work to public-safety cases involving people accused of murder or drug offences.

When China demands the return of people it calls corrupt, it is asking Canada “to send people back into a very murky and worrisome Chinese system,” he said. “You have to be very sure that you are not on the Canadian side enabling the Chinese to unfairly prosecute someone.”

Using Interpol

Ottawa does have the ability to demand assurances from countries such as China, as it did in the high-profile deportation of notorious smuggler Lai Changxing in 2011. Beijing pledged not to torture or execute the man it then considered its number one most-wanted. China also promised Canada extraordinary rights to monitor his treatment. Mr. Lai’s case, however, was a notable exception.

Canada maintains lists of countries to which deportations are either permanently or temporarily blocked, although it has exceptions for criminals and people deemed to be a security risk. Canada deported 6,964 people in 2016. Of those, 382 were sent to China, just more than 5 per cent of the total, CBSA statistics show. In recent years, Chinese citizens have been the fourth-most regularly deported from Canada, behind citizens of Hungary, the United States and Mexico.

Source: Canada deports hundreds to China each year with no treatment guarantee – The Globe and Mail

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Trudeau should probably stop telling desperate refugees that everyone is welcome in Canada: Graeme Gordon

2017/04/04 Leave a comment

While I think he overstates the case and is unduly alarmist, there is more than a kernel of truth in ensuring that any messaging that contrasts US to Canadian policies needs to be carefully calibrated to reduce expectations:

Are you one of the millions of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. afraid of being deported? Come to Canada! An asylum-seeker worried your refugee claim will be denied in America? Welcome to Canada! Paid a paltry wage in Mexico? Head on up to Canada!

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau began broadcasting this heart-warming message in late January as a not-so-subtle subtweet about President Donald Trump’s travel ban.

“To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada” he tweeted on Jan. 28, followed by a picture of him greeting a refugee family.

The two tweets garnered over a million likes and half-a-million retweets, creating millions of misleading impressions about Canada as a sanctuary for all the world’s displaced. Anyone with the smallest bit of knowledge about the immigration process understands that Canada’s doors are anything but wide open, but Trudeau isn’t just blatantly spreading falsehoods by sending that message — he’s actually enticing people to uproot their lives, throwing another wrench into an already chaotic immigration system, all based on disingenuous messaging.

Armed with the fallacious belief that Canada will absolutely offer them residency, many asylum-seekers will gamble all their money and risk their lives trying to make the dangerous journey to Canada. Indeed, we’ve seen how quickly would-be immigrants will flood the borders if they believe their chances of staying have improved.

The Liberals’ elimination of the visa requirement for Mexican travellers at the end of last year, for example, has led to a 1,000 per cent increase in Mexican refugee claims this year. We know based on data from before the visa restriction, however, that only a fraction of those applicants will be allowed to stay, meaning that many Mexicans will spend thousands coming to Canada with only a slim chance of actually gaining residency.

Nevertheless, Trudeau’s rhetoric will surely resonate among asylum-seekers currently in the U.S. who are considering entering Canada illegally in order to bypass the Safe Third Country Agreement.  Already, in the first two months of 2017, Canadian police intercepted 1,134 asylum-seekers crossing the border illegally, which is half of all of last year’s total.

If we’re seeing these sorts of numbers in the dead of winter — and Trump has only begun his crackdown on illegal immigrants currently residing in America — surely we will see even greater numbers as the weather gets warmer, especially as Trudeau continues to peddle the notion that refugees can find a home in Canada.

But of course, many refugees will not find a home in Canada, even if they are granted temporary asylum. According to data supplied by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, out of the 15,196 in-country refugee applicants processed in 2016, a total of 4,970 were rejected for various reasons, such as applicants not being considered in enough danger in their home country — and that was only after hundreds of other applications had already been terminated because the applicants had criminal records, abandoned claims, etc.

Source: Trudeau should probably stop telling desperate refugees that everyone is welcome in Canada – CBC News | Opinion

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Douglas Todd: How to ensure non-residents pay tax on Canadian real-estate profits

2017/04/03 Leave a comment

Hard to understand the blindness or unwillingness of the British Columbia Liberals on this issue. Too many donations from those who benefit from the this lack of regulation and appropriate policies?

It should be easy to ensure that offshore property speculators pay capital gains taxes on their Canadian sales, but the B.C. government has given no sign it’s prepared to make the fix.

Immigration lawyers and Opposition politicians are pressing the province to start an information-sharing system that would make it much harder for house sellers to evade capital gains taxes by claiming they are “residents of Canada for tax purposes,” when they are not. Some critics estimate the tax loss at hundreds of millions of dollars.

This tax avoidance was at the centre of a recent B.C. Supreme Court ruling. Justice Kenneth Affleck ordered notary Tony Liu to pay $600,000 to a house purchaser he had represented.

That was to cover the capital gains tax the Canadian Revenue Agency demanded from the buyer, which should have been paid by the non-resident seller of a $5.6-million Vancouver mansion.

A property seller who does not pay income taxes here is required to pay a capital gains tax on 25 per cent of their profit on a house sale. Theoretically, the law is designed to advantage domestic buyers and sellers over speculators, particularly from offshore.

In practice, the capital gains rule is rarely enforced, in large part, lawyers say, because B.C. doesn’t collect or share up-to-date information on whether property sellers pay income taxes in Canada.

That task is inexplicably left to a real-estate industry “honour system”involving buyers, sellers and their agents, says Vancouver immigration lawyer Sam Hyman, who is among several experts offering a simple solution.

“How complicated is it to require a seller to produce proof they paid their income taxes as a Canadian tax resident?” asked Richard Kurland, a lawyer who produces the immigration newsletter Lexbase.

“This really spotlights B.C.’s unchanging position, which is that it refuses to include on government (property-transfer) forms the question: ‘Are you a tax resident of Canada?’” Kurland said.

“B.C. fails to create data that can be checked by Canada Revenue Agency, by not asking the right question. Instead, the B.C. government has begun asking, ‘What is your citizenship?’ But that’s irrelevant.”

In a city in which 45 per cent of the population is foreign-born, Kurland said, it would be straightforward for CRA to run a data match on people who claim they are tax residents of Canada to see if they are really paying income taxes.

“But if B.C. doesn’t go after the data, CRA can’t do its job.”

When B.C. Finance Ministry spokesman Jamie Edwardson was asked Friday if he thought there were problems associated with B.C. buyers being unable to prove sellers pay income taxes, he declined to answer and said the question should be directed to the Canada Revenue Agency.

Source: How to ensure non-residents pay tax on Canadian real-estate profits | Vancouver Sun

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Plus d’immigration francophone, plaide la commissaire aux langues officielles | Politique canadienne

2017/04/03 Leave a comment

Having attended some of the consultation meetings with Francophone community leaders, have an appreciation for the issues and some of the government efforts to address this fear.

Some links of interest: French and the francophonie in Canada, Statistical Portrait of the French- speaking Immigrant Population Outide Quebec (StatsCan):

La langue française va perdre de son influence au Canada sans actions concrètes du gouvernement pour augmenter le volume et la répartition de l’immigration francophone, a estimé vendredi le commissariat aux langues officielles, organisme dépendant du Parlement.

« Il est essentiel que les gouvernements fédéral, provinciaux et territoriaux redoublent d’efforts pour accroître l’immigration dans les communautés francophones » au Canada, a plaidé Ghislaine Saikaley, commissaire aux langues officielles.

Avant tout, « l’immigration doit contribuer au maintien, voire à l’augmentation, du poids démographique des communautés francophones au Canada », selon le commissariat.

Il est nécessaire d’assurer une meilleure répartition de l’immigration francophone, là où l’avenir des communautés de langues françaises est menacé par exemple en Ontario,- la province la plus peuplée avec 39 % des 36 millions de Canadiens -, ou dans les provinces de l’ouest.

« Sans la mise en place de plans d’action concrets et d’un échéancier, nous ne serons jamais en mesure d’atteindre la cible nationale d’immigrants francophones, surtout en Ontario », a jugé François Boileau, un responsable des langues de cette province.

Au Nouveau-Brunswick, unique province canadienne officiellement bilingue, « les communautés anglophone et francophone ont un statut constitutionnel d’égalité » et « la communauté francophone représente un tiers de la population », selon le commissariat.

Chargés de veiller à la bonne application de la loi sur les langues officielles faisant du Canada un pays bilingue au niveau fédéral, les commissaires saluent toutefois la mise en place en juin 2016 d’un programme facilitant l’embauche de locuteurs français en milieux minoritaires.

En 2036, selon des projections de Statistique Canada, près d’un Canadien sur deux sera issu de l’immigration. Les francophones canadiens représenteraient 21 % de la population, contre 23 % à l’heure actuelle.

Les immigrants francophones s’installent majoritairement au Québec. Dans le reste du Canada, seulement 3,8 % de la population avait comme langue maternelle le français en 2011, et ce pourcentage pourrait perdre jusqu’à un point d’ici 2036.

Le ministère de l’Immigration a prévu en octobre d’accueillir environ 300 000 nouveaux immigrants ces prochaines années, dont la grande majorité pour satisfaire aux besoins économiques.

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Why Immigrants Do Better At Science And Math : NPR

2017/04/01 Leave a comment

Intuitively makes sense but nice to have more evidence that it is so:

Seventeen-year-old Indrani Das just won the top high school science prize in the country. Das, who lives in Oradell, N.J., took home $250,000 from the former Intel Science Talent Search, now the Regeneron Science Talent Search, for her study of brain injuries and neuron damage. In her spare time, she’s already working with patients as a certified EMT.

As the Times of India pointed out, Das was one of five Indian Americans among the competition’s top ten finishers. In last year’s contest, according to one study, more than 80 percent of finalists were the children of immigrants.

What is it that spurs so many recent arrivals to the United States to excel in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM disciplines? Some invoke cultural stereotypes, like that of the “Tiger Mother,” for an explanation.

Not Marcos Rangel. For a new study published in the journal Demography, Rangel, an economist at Duke University, and his co-author, Marigee Bacolod of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, looked at U.S. Census data for young adults who arrived in the United States before age 18. The data covers in detail the relative skills required for different occupations, such as physical strength, communication skills, social skills, math and reasoning. For those who went to college, they were also able to see what major they chose.

“If it were just as easy for me to write with my left hand as with my right, I would be using both. But no, I specialize,” Rangel says. In the same way, academically motivated students who have to play catch-up in English class may prefer to zoom ahead in the universal language of mathematics.

(By the way, Das, not a late arrival, is a former spelling bee champion as well as a science whiz.)

Rangel, who came here from Brazil as a young father, has seen this dynamic play out in his own family. “The younger one, who went to Pre-K in English, is different from my kid who came at five already reading Portuguese,” he says. The older one is more inclined toward math.

To be clear, Rangel doesn’t discount the notion that cultural values may also influence immigrants’ career choices. But he is out to tell a more nuanced story — “a movie, not just a photograph,” he says — of how people develop different skills and talents.

Source: Why Immigrants Do Better At Science And Math : NPR Ed : NPR

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Immigration: Donald Trump Pushes Silicon Valley to Toronto | Time.com

2017/04/01 1 Comment

Smugness alert for Canadians. Nevertheless there is some merit in Salim Teja, EVP of Ventures at MaRS’s arguments and narrative:

 Without immigrants, Silicon Valley would look very different. There would be no Amazon, no eBay. No Reddit, no Intel. Google, Tesla, and Yahoo? Gone. And you can say goodbye to your iPhone.

These are just a few of the biggest names, but half of all billion-dollar U.S. startups were founded by immigrants. Silicon Valley would simply not exist, and the United States’ position as a global tech leader might never have come to fruition.

Under President Donald Trump, we are not far from this hypothetical. Trump’s immigration ban and H-1B visa restrictions will significantly harm the U.S. technology industry, diverting the steady, decades-old stream of foreign tech talent to international competitors.

And there’s no country better positioned to welcome this diverse group of innovators than Trump’s northern neighbor: Oh, Canada. At the center of the country’s identity is Toronto — the fourth-largest city in North America. Boasting a diverse community, booming tech scene, and forward-thinking government, this city is the leading contender to welcome tech talent and become the next epicenter of innovation.

A Culture of Inclusion

It’s easy to talk in generalities when it comes to diversity and inclusion — but I’m actually a product of Canada’s welcoming stance on immigration. My family emigrated to Canada from Tanzania, East Africa. We fled political turmoil and settled in Canada to build a better life. It would also become the place where I eventually began to flourish as an entrepreneur.

 Forty years later, Canada is still a beacon of hope for immigrants, an open society that is welcoming refugees in unprecedented numbers. Toronto was recently named the most diverse city in the world, and has become a cultural haven in which foreign entrepreneurs can pursue innovative ideas. In fact, it’s easier than ever for immigrants to work up north — capitalizing on Trump’s decision to delay H-1 B visas, Canada recently announced an expedited work permit process, allowing foreign talent to be approved for work in a short ten days.

Toronto recognizes that diversity both breedsinnovation and is good for business. As the EVP of Venture Services at a Toronto innovation hub, I’ve seen the power of diversity on the startup teams we are advising. Of the roughly 1,000 startups within our ecosystem, 54% have at least one foreign-born founder – a higher percentage than Silicon Valley.

So, as America tightens its borders and retreats inward, diversity in cities like Toronto will flourish.

Infrastructure for Innovation

Toronto’s diverse community has fostered a rapidly growing startup scene. Recently named one of the world’s most innovative cities, Toronto is home to between 2,500 and 4,100 active tech startups, the world’s largest innovation hub, and world-class academic and research institutions.

And with 150,000 full-time students enrolled in universities in the Greater Toronto Area — many focused on science and engineering fields — the region benefits from a robust pool of entrepreneurial and tech talent. Of course, this hasn’t always been the case: while Canada has historically been victim to a “brain drain” of academic talent emigrating to the U.S., Trump’s policies will undoubtedly lead to more talent staying in Toronto; and we may start seeing the reverse as Silicon Valley talent leaves to head north. University of Toronto has already seen a 70%increase in applications from American students following Trump’s win.

As always, tech follows the money — Toronto’s rapidly developing venture capital community is setting record investment numbers. VC in Canada hit a 15-year high in 2016, with a total of $3.7 billion invested— a whopping 36% increase over 2015. I haven’t seen Canadian VC excel at this rate since the dot-com boom, and every day speak with investors from around the world looking to cash in on Canadian ventures. With names like Shopify and Hootsuite rivaling Silicon Valley successes, I can understand why they’re hedging their bets.

The New Wave of Global Entrepreneurship

Where investors see the most potential, however, is in ventures that scale — ventures that tackle tough problems and provide global solutions.

And as someone who works with fellow immigrants every day, I believe that foreign entrepreneurs are more likely to develop these types of solutions, with the broadened worldview necessary to take on global issues. In fact, amongst our ventures with foreign-born founders — over 70% have some social purpose in mind, developing solutions in areas like healthcare and clean energy. A Syrian refugee creating an open approach to drug discovery.

A Mexican immigrant developing digital solutionsfor mobility impairments. These are the breakthroughs I see from global entrepreneurs in Toronto every single day.

While I believe that Silicon Valley once fostered this type of innovation, somewhere along the way it got stuck in a “move fast and break things” mentality, promoting innovation for innovation’s sake. They stopped caring about true progress and started caring about VC dollars — today, you’re more likely to see the Valley pump out a new photo editing app or subscription box before a clean energy solution or drug therapy. And with Trump’s new restrictive policies, fewer entrepreneurs will be able to come to the U.S. to build the globally impactful ventures that society truly needs.

But as America shuts them out, Canada welcomes them in. Global entrepreneurs can find a home in Toronto — a city that sees beyond borders, and whose tech community leads the world with solutions in cleantech, biotech, and more. For all of Trump’s talk about bringing back jobs to America, he may actually be helping to send them to Canada. And just as it once did for my family,

Toronto welcomes this talent with open arms.

Source: Immigration: Donald Trump Pushes Silicon Valley to Toronto | Time.com

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Americans increasingly refused entry to Canada, documents show

2017/03/31 Leave a comment

Interesting trend and possible explanation (not provided by CBSA):

While many Canadians are concerned about having problems at the United States border, it is Americans who are having difficulties visiting Canada with the number turned away rising by 31 per cent last year, La Presse has learned.

According to federal documents, 30,233 Americans were turned away when attempting to enter Canada in 2016. In 2015, 23,052 people were turned back, representing an increase of 31 per cent in one year.

The numbers are all the more striking when compared to 2014, when 7,509 American citizens were refused entry to Canada. The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), which is responsible for border security, would not provide reasons for the increase.

“The CBSA is not in a position to speculate,” said Nicholas Dorion, a spokesperson for the agency. “The number of people turned away at the border fluctuates from year to year.”

The announcement of a new intelligence sharing agreement between Ottawa and Washington in 2013 likely played a role, according to Tamara Mosher Kuczer, a lawyer specializing in immigration matters with the law office Capelle Kane in Ottawa.

Under the deal, Canadian border agents can more easily detect Americans with a criminal record who show up at the border. Infractions, some decades old, could not be detected before the deal.

“We receive many more demands from people who travelled for years to Canada without a problem and who are now refused entry for a drinking and driving infractions that dates back 40 years,” the lawyer said.

The CBSA refused to detail the reasons for the 30,233 refusals of American travellers last year. People turned back at the border generally receive “permission to leave,” the federal agency said.

“If an individual is suspected of being prohibited from Canadian territory by a Canadian border agent for a reason cited by the Immigration and Refugee Act, the agent must always consider authorizing the person to leave Canada voluntarily,” said Dorion. “When the agent at the border authorizes a person to take back their request to enter Canada they have to proceed by providing a formula entitled ‘authorized to leave Canada’ “

It is the ‘authorized to leave Canada’ documents that La Presse was able to consult under the Access to Information Act.

Since the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, Canadians are less frequently turned away at the U.S. border. According to The Canadian Press, the number of Canadians refused entry at American land crossings dropped by 8.5 per cent over the last five months. That means that 6,875 Canadians could not get across the border between October 2016 and February 2017, compared to 7,619 in the same period a year earlier.

Source: Americans increasingly refused entry to Canada, documents show | Toronto Star

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Federal Court orders public safety minister to make decision in immigration case

2017/03/31 Leave a comment

Justice delayed is justice denied:

Lawyers for Goodale had argued the minister is just too busy to be held to a timeline for making such decisions.

“He submits he should be left with the flexibility to prioritize his many duties as he considers appropriate, and that requiring him to make a decision within a certain period of time may cause him to divert his attention away from an emergency situation,” reads the judgment.

The chief justice didn’t buy that argument.

“I am sympathetic, to a point, with the minister’s submissions. However, they do not, individually or collectively, justify his position that he must have a complete carte blanche regarding the time available to him to make decisions,” wrote Crampton.

He went on to write that the four-year delay in processing Tameh’s application is “at the outer limit of what is reasonable” and the additional 45-month delay to be unreasonable.

Crampton then ordered the minister to make his decision within a specific timeline and to reimburse Tameh $4,000 for his legal costs.

4-year timeframe

“I think the court is sending a pretty clear message that, minister, if you’ve got to make a decision, make it within four years,” said Lorne Waldman, a prominent immigration lawyer based in Toronto.

Waldman said at least 10 of his clients have applications for ministerial relief before the minister and some of them have been there for up to 15 years.

“These are difficult decisions that the minister has to make because they have a political charge to them. What the minister is being asked to do is to say, ‘Well this person, yes, you were found to be inadmissible because you were found to be a member of a terrorist group,’ but there all these other circumstances that would justify granting an exception,” said Waldman.

“So the minister has to personally make this decision and be personally accountable for them. That’s why they’re so difficult. That’s why they’ve taken so long,” he said.

In light of Crampton’s ruling, Waldman said he filed two applications at Federal Court this week asking it to order Goodale to make a decision.

A spokesperson for Goodale said the government is reviewing the ruling.

In addition, Scott Bardsley told CBC News the department made changes to the process of applying for ministerial relief and is also considering “whether further improvements could be made to the process.”

Source: Federal Court orders public safety minister to make decision in immigration case – Politics – CBC News

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