Mooney: I’m the Canadian who was detained by Ice for two weeks. It felt like I had been kidnapped

2025/03/20 Leave a comment

Horrific example of bureaucracy at work, implementing the cruel and flawed policies of the Trump administration:

There was no explanation, no warning. One minute, I was in an immigration office talking to an officer about my work visa, which had been approved months before and allowed me, a Canadian, to work in the US. The next, I was told to put my hands against the wall, and patted down like a criminal before being sent to an Ice detention center without the chance to talk to a lawyer….

And that’s when I made a decision: I would never allow myself to feel sorry for my situation again. No matter how hard this was, I had to be grateful. Because every woman I met was in an even more difficult position than mine.

There were around 140 of us in our unit. Many women had lived and worked in the US legally for years but had overstayed their visas – often after reapplying and being denied. They had all been detained without warning.

If someone is a criminal, I agree they should be taken off the streets. But not one of these women had a criminal record. These women acknowledged that they shouldn’t have overstayed and took responsibility for their actions. But their frustration wasn’t about being held accountable; it was about the endless, bureaucratic limbo they had been trapped in.

The real issue was how long it took to get out of the system, with no clear answers, no timeline and no way to move forward. Once deported, many have no choice but to abandon everything they own because the cost of shipping their belongings back is too high.

I met a woman who had been on a road trip with her husband. She said they had 10-year work visas. While driving near the San Diego border, they mistakenly got into a lane leading to Mexico. They stopped and told the agent they didn’t have their passports on them, expecting to be redirected. Instead, they were detained. They are both pastors.

I met a family of three who had been living in the US for 11 years with work authorizations. They paid taxes and were waiting for their green cards. Every year, the mother had to undergo a background check, but this time, she was told to bring her whole family. When they arrived, they were taken into custody and told their status would now be processed from within the detention center.

Another woman from Canada had been living in the US with her husband who was detained after a traffic stop. She admitted she had overstayed her visa and accepted that she would be deported. But she had been stuck in the system for almost six weeks because she hadn’t had her passport. Who runs casual errands with their passport?

One woman had a 10-year visa. When it expired, she moved back to her home country, Venezuela. She admitted she had overstayed by one month before leaving. Later, she returned for a vacation and entered the US without issue. But when she took a domestic flight from Miami to Los Angeles, she was picked up by Ice and detained. She couldn’t be deported because Venezuela wasn’t accepting deportees. She didn’t know when she was getting out.

There was a girl from India who had overstayed her student visa for three days before heading back home. She then came back to the US on a new, valid visa to finish her master’s degree and was handed over to Ice due to the three days she had overstayed on her previous visa.

There were women who had been picked up off the street, from outside their workplaces, from their homes. All of these women told me that they had been detained for time spans ranging from a few weeks to 10 months. One woman’s daughter was outside the detention center protesting for her release….

The reality became clear: Ice detention isn’t just a bureaucratic nightmare. It’s a business. These facilities are privately owned and run for profit.

Companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group receive government funding based on the number of people they detain, which is why they lobby for stricter immigration policies. It’s a lucrative business: CoreCivic made over $560m from Ice contracts in a single year. In 2024, GEO Group made more than $763m from Ice contracts.

The more detainees, the more money they make. It stands to reason that these companies have no incentive to release people quickly. What I had experienced was finally starting to make sense.

This is not just my story. It is the story of thousands and thousands of people still trapped in a system that profits from their suffering. I am writing in the hope that someone out there – someone with the power to change any of this – can help do something.

The strength I witnessed in those women, the love they gave despite their suffering, is what gives me faith. Faith that no matter how flawed the system, how cruel the circumstances, humanity will always shine through.

Even in the darkest places, within the most broken systems, humanity persists. Sometimes, it reveals itself in the smallest, most unexpected acts of kindness: a shared meal, a whispered prayer, a hand reaching out in the dark. We are defined by the love we extend, the courage we summon and the truths we are willing to tell.

Source: I’m the Canadian who was detained by Ice for two weeks. It felt like I had been kidnapped

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Canada’s temporary resident population declines for the first time in 3 years

2025/03/20 1 Comment

Corrective action working, although Skuterud notes not enough:

The number of temporary residents in Canada has declined for the first time in three years, in the wake of a series of policy changes introduced by Ottawa last year to reduce immigration levels.

New data from Statistics Canada shows that there were roughly 30,000 fewer non-permanent residents in the country as of Jan. 1, 2025, compared to Oct. 1, 2024.

The total number of non-permanent residents stood at just over three million people, or 7.3 per cent of the population, down from 7.4 per cent the previous quarter.

The decrease in the number of temporary residents is causing overall population growth to slow. In the fourth quarter of 2024, the population grew by 0.2 per cent to roughly 41.5 million people, the slowest rate of growth since late 2020, when many border restrictions were in place because of the pandemic.

Canada’s population is still increasing, just not at the rate it did in 2022 and 2023….

Achieving Ottawa’s 5-per-cent non-permanent resident target is less realistic now than a year ago, according to Mikal Skuterud, an economist at the University of Waterloo. Prof. Skuterud estimates that in order to meet the target, the number of temporary residents will have to decline by almost 32 per cent in two years.

If that happens, the Canadian population will subsequently decline by 0.4 per cent over two years, Prof. Skuterud’s calculations show….

Source: Canada’s temporary resident population declines for the first time in 3 years

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Présence illégale au Canada: Record d’expulsions de ressortissants étrangers l’an dernier

2025/03/19 Leave a comment

Of interest:

Selon les statistiques publiées le 25 février dernier par l’Agence des services frontaliers du Canada (ASFC) compilant pour la première fois l’ensemble de l’année 2024, le Canada a effectué en un an 16 860 renvois de ressortissants étrangers. Et la tendance à la hausse se poursuivra dans les prochaines années, annonce par courriel un porte-parole de l’ASFC, puisque l’organisme fédéral souhaite atteindre les 20 000 renvois par année d’ici 2027.Plus de 80 % des ordres de renvoi ont visé des demandeurs d’asile. On reproche à ces 13 527 personnes de ne pas avoir, de façon plutôt vague, respecté la Loi sur l’immigration et la protection des réfugiés.

Aucune précision n’est cependant apportée quant à la nature exacte de ces infractions. On sait toutefois qu’il ne s’agit pas de criminalité ou de fausses déclarations, des critères d’inadmissibilité qui font l’objet d’un décompte distinct et pour lesquels on rapporte respectivement 860 et 145 cas en 2024.

Avant Trump

Pour la première fois depuis 2019, c’est le Québec plutôt que l’Ontario qui a renvoyé le plus de personnes en 2024, soit 6832. Il s’agit encore ici d’un record alors qu’en 2023, lors du précédent sommet, on avait rapporté 6021 renvois.

Source: Présence illégale au Canada Record d’expulsions de ressortissants étrangers l’an dernier

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HESA: Nobody is Coming to Save Us, But

2025/03/18 Leave a comment

Sensible and ambitious, with potential medium and long-term benefits:

…Now, there just happens to be one kind of change that is suddenly going very cheap, and that is the ability to add top-class academic talent. The carnage down south, with the National Institutes of Health NIH being at least partially dismantled and entire universities being threatened with loss of hundreds of millions of dollars unless they submit to an unspecified number of random administrative fiats from the trump administration, is about to start hemorrhaging talent. It’s not just foreign scholars who are going to leave; top American talent is suddenly footloose, too, because it has become apparent that the damage being done to American science is unlikely to be fully reversible. And even if it could be reversed, you’d never be more than 4 years away from another group of anti-Enlightenment jackals coming and taking another wrecking ball to the whole system. The age of American Science is over, and it’s not coming back any time soon. The opportunity exists, therefore, for ambitious universities to scoop up a fair bit of top new talent.

But wait a minute, you say. Talent requires salaries, and salaries are under pressure, and Big Philanthropy doesn’t cover that. Well, actually, it can, but only if you package it and structure it correctly.

It would indeed be hard for a university to get a philanthropist to pick up the tab in order to grab a new talent across a range of disciplines. There’s nothing “new” about hiring additional profs to plug holes or provide upgrades to an institution’s existing staff. But some philanthropists probably could be persuaded to cover the costs if a university presented a structured package of targeted hires. That is, a set of hires that built on a set of existing strengths and moved the institution closer to world-class status in a specific discipline (e.g., Hegelian Philosophy, Dentistry) or cluster of related disciplines (Human and Animal Health/Vaccines, Water protection, etc.). 

Basically what you would want to do is create a package that encompassed: i) a half-dozen or so fully-funded named chairs, some of which could go to existing staff, others to new star hires, which would mean no net charges to the operating budget ii) money for whatever new space, laboratory or otherwise, was required to house these new scholars and their work, iii) funding for a reasonable number of graduate students, iv) at least some funds for ongoing innovative activities and v) some kind of collective identity. Wrap the whole thing in a bow, name it the [Philanthropist name here] Centre for [Discipline/Grand Challenge name here], hire ambitiously from across the United States to create a cluster of excellence on a level that can really make a mark on a global scale. Normally, this kind of thing would not be possible. But with chaos south of the border, I think right now, it is. And it could be game-changing for a few universities if they could pull it off….

Source: Nobody is Coming to Save Us, But

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How Trump’s Targeting of Immigrants With Legal Status Departs From the Norm

2025/03/17 Leave a comment

Of note (as does virtually everything the Trump administration does):

…Mahmoud Khalil, a 30-year-old green card holder who was detained last week and transferred from New York to a facility in Louisiana, is one of the most high-profile immigration detainees in custody. President Trump said in social media this week that Khalil’s detention is related to his involvement in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, where he earned a master’s degree last year.

Khalil’s legal team has described his arrest — as a permanent legal resident — as unprecedented, while some legal bloggers and journalists have placed it in a larger context of what they describe as politically-motivated enforcement targeting pro-Palestinian activists. Immigration researcher and Syracuse University professor Austin Kocher explained this week that both understandings are, in fact, correct.

On the one hand, “green card holders and even U.S. citizens are arrested and detained by immigration authorities more often than most people are aware,” and a number of those arrests have involved Palestinian activists. On the other hand, Kocher writes, use of “the specific law that might allow the U.S. to deport Mahmoud is extraordinarily rare in recent history.”

The law that Kocher is referring to is an element of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which was last used in 1995, according to The New York Times. The Trump administration has argued the provision allows the Secretary of State to deport permanent legal residents if they represent a threat to national security. Secretary of State Marco Rubio shared a Department of Homeland Security statement claiming that Khalil satisfied that criteria by having “led activities aligned to Hamas,” during the protests. The White House cited unreleased “intelligence” to defend the claim, the New York Post reported.

Some legal scholars have argued this law was struck down as unconstitutional in 1996 by a federal district court after the Clinton administration targeted a Mexican national for deportation. That decision was later reversed by an appeals court on procedural grounds, without weighing in on the merits of the case.

In a twist of irony, the judge behind that district court decision was Maryanne Trump Barry — the president’s late older sister.

“The issue,” Barry wrote, “is whether an alien who is in this country legally can, merely because he is here, have his liberty restrained and be forcibly removed to a specific country in the unfettered discretion of the Secretary of State and without any meaningful opportunity to be heard. The answer is a ringing ‘no.’”

Source: How Trump’s Targeting of Immigrants With Legal Status Departs From the Norm

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How a Columbia Student Fled to Canada After ICE Came Looking for Her

2025/03/17 1 Comment

Another example of over-reach and where legal system will be tested (Canadian woman who was detained in U.S. immigration jails returns to Vancouver provides another example of over-reach and stupid or incompetent administration):

…Unlike Mr. Khalil, Ms. Srinivasan said she was not an activist or a member of any group that organized demonstrations on campus.

Ms. Srinivasan said she was an architect who came to the United States from India as part of the Fulbright program in 2016 and that she enrolled at Columbia in 2020. She said she was in the fifth year of an urban planning doctoral program at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and was supposed to graduate in May.

She said that her activity on social media had been mostly limited to liking or sharing posts that highlighted “human rights violations” in the war in Gaza. And she said that she had signed several open letters related to the war, including one by architecture scholars that called for “Palestinian liberation.”

“I’m just surprised that I’m a person of interest,” she said. “I’m kind of a rando, like, absolute rando,” she said, using slang for random.

It was March 5 when she received an email from the U.S. Consulate in Chennai, India, indicating that her visa had been revoked. The notice did not provide a reason, saying only that “information has come to light” that may make her ineligible for a visa….

Source: How a Columbia Student Fled to Canada After ICE Came Looking for Her

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They came to Canada to chase a dream. Now they’re being forced to leave and feel betrayed

2025/03/17 Leave a comment

They were, by both levels of governments, by education institutions (particularly private and public colleges), recruiters and others, which created and encouraged these expectations before reality intruded:

…For some migrants invited to Canada for a shot at permanent residence, it’s a feeling of betrayal. For others, a missed opportunity. Still others harbour hopes of returning.

Amid a year of seismic immigration changes that have turned Canada into a less welcoming and open country, many migrants have seen their journeys upended and dreams shattered.

The Liberal government has set aggressive targets to rein in the number of temporary residents in the wake of public outcry over the runaway population growth amid a national housing crisis and rising costs of living. It also cut the annual intake of permanent residents by 20 per cent to 395,000 in 2025, 380,000 in 2026 and 365,000 in 2027.

The measures are meant to tighten the rules and restore confidence in what some critics call an “out-of-control” immigration system. As a result, many study and work permit holders are at the end of their rope — unable to renew status or obtain permanent residence — and must go home. 

The Star spoke to some former international students and foreign workers who have recently left or are leaving about the repercussions of Canada’s unfulfilled promise, as well as their new life and future. 

Some are struggling. Others have found opportunities they couldn’t get here. All are still chasing that elusive better life….

Source: They came to Canada to chase a dream. Now they’re being forced to leave and feel betrayed

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Trump Promises To Deport Immigrants For Their Foreign Policy Views

2025/03/14 1 Comment

Litigation to watch:

The Trump administration’s attempt to deport a lawful permanent resident protest leader may raise significant First Amendment issues. Arresting an immigrant who was a leader in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University has ignited controversy over the U.S. government’s deportation policies and their potential use to stifle dissent. Donald Trump has promised additional arrests, writing on Truth Social, “We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country—never to return again.

The Arrest Of An Immigrant Protester

On March 8, 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent resident who graduated from Columbia University in December. Khalil was among the student leaders of Columbia University Apartheid Divest.

“His lawyer, Amy Greer, said the agents who took him into custody at his university-owned home near Columbia initially claimed to be acting on a State Department order to revoke his student visa,” reported the Associated Press. “But when Greer informed them that Khalil was a permanent resident with a green card, they said they would revoke that documentation instead.” According to the AP, Khalil was born in Syria and is being detained in Louisiana at an immigrant detention center.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on X: “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.”

“According to a White House official, the Department of Homeland Security started looking for individuals at Columbia University based on Trump’s January antisemitism executive order,” reported the Wall Street Journal. “The White House official said the department found Khalil had participated in ‘pro-Hamas rallies’ and in distributing fliers. The agency presented the information to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who personally signed off on revoking his legal status.”

On March 10, 2025, in the Southern District of New York, U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman ordered, “To preserve the Court’s jurisdiction pending a ruling on the petition, Petitioner [Mahmoud Khalil] shall not be removed from the United States unless and until the Court orders otherwise.”

Using Foreign Policy Grounds To Deport Immigrants Who Protest

According to CNN, the Trump administration plans to arrest and deport individuals using foreign policy grounds. Under the law, “An alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable.” (Section 237(a)(4)(C)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.)

Trump seemed to confirm that provision would be used when he wrote on Truth Social: “If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests, and you are not welcome here.” (Emphasis added.)

An exception in the law is that an alien shall not be excluded or deported “because of the alien’s past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations, if such beliefs, statements, or associations would be lawful within the United States, unless the Secretary of State personally determines that the alien’s admission would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.”

In a deportation proceeding, that exception can be overcome by a letter from the Secretary of State. “A letter from the Secretary of State conveying the Secretary’s determination that an alien’s presence in this country would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States, and stating facially reasonable and bona fide reasons for that determination, is presumptive and sufficient evidence that the alien is deportable under section 241(a)(4)(C)(i) of the Act, and the Service is not required to present additional evidence of deportability,” according to Matter of Ruiz-Massieu, decided as amended June 10, 1999, in the U.S. Department of Justice Executive Office for Immigration Review Board of Immigration Appeals.

“I do not think one can challenge Secretary Rubio’s determination in an immigration court that the noncitizen’s presence or activities in the United States would have potentially adverse foreign policy consequences described in the letter,” said immigration attorney Cyrus Mehta. “On the other hand, the very constitutionality of the provision may be challenged in the Court of Appeals after the noncitizen has received a removal order under First Amendment principles and their ties to the United States.”

Mehta believes a lawful permanent resident would have the best chance to challenge the law, but a temporary visa holder could succeed, particularly an H-1B and L-1 visa holder. Those visas are dual intent, and the individuals can show ties to the United States.

Temporary visa holders who believe they could be targeted for their foreign policy views might be careful about leaving the United States since Trump administration officials would consider it easier to refuse a visa or deny entry (at a port of entry) than to place an individual in deportation proceedings.

Mehta notes that a lawful permanent resident seeking readmission from a trip abroad who is placed in removal can assert the burden is on DHS to establish through clear and convincing evidence that the individual is inadmissible. However, the burden is on a temporary visa holder to establish they are entitled to admission clearly and beyond doubt.

The Trump administration may use other grounds, such as support for a terrorist organization, to attempt deportation of individuals involved in protests. That may be challenging if the administration is unable to establish some link or coordination with the terrorist organization and the individual who is being deported.

Source: Trump Promises To Deport Immigrants For Their Foreign Policy Views

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Life in the shadows: Inside the world of Toronto’s undocumented migrants

2025/03/11 Leave a comment

Good series of profiles:

Every morning across the Greater Toronto Area, thousands of undocumented workers head out to their jobs in construction, cleaning and home care, despite the fact that they are not legally allowed to live or work in Canada.

Unlike in the U.S., where many undocumented people entered without authorization at the southern border, most of these individuals in Canada entered the country legally. They came as temporary workers, international students, tourists or refugee claimants, and saw their visas expire or refugee claims rejected before they were able to transition to another type of legal status.

It’s hard to give a definitive number of undocumented people in Canada, but the federal government says it could be as high as 500,000. Many have few legal resources and struggle to navigate Canada’s complex and sluggish immigration system. By staying in the country without authorization, they are forced into the shadows, where they face limited and substandard employment, health and housing options. The Globe and Mail spent time at sites where migrants congregate in Toronto – a church, a newcomer support centre and street corners where day labourers pick up under-the-table work – speaking with undocumented and formerly undocumented people. (The Globe is using only middle names for most people in this story owing to their risk of detention and deportation.)…

Source: Life in the shadows: Inside the world of Toronto’s undocumented migrants

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Canada to grant legal status for thousands of undocumented construction workers

2025/03/10 Leave a comment

Up to 6,000 undocumented construction workers will be given a pathway to gain legal status in Canada, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Friday in a news conference.

“These undocumented migrants are already living and working in Canada, and are contributing to the sector,” Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said in a statement.

“This pathway will keep them here legally so that they can continue to build the homes our economy and communities need with the proper protections.”  

This announcement comes over two years after the federal government said it would be expanding a small-scale pilot project that offered permanent residence for out-of-status construction workers who are already working undocumented in the sector here.

The government did not provide further details on when the pathway will be implemented or the criteria for eligibility.

Canada’s construction sector is grappling with a severe worker shortage, with tens of thousands of jobs unfilled across the country. According to BuildForce Canada, “the industry could face a recruiting gap of more than 85,000 workers by 2033.” 

A 2023 RBC report said the construction sector is short a whopping 64,000 jobs, posing a significant problem for an industry that must produce enough housing to meet demand from Canada’s ever-growing population — and the best workers for the job are newcomers.

In a bid to address these labour gaps, the federal government said it will be introducing “a temporary measure to allow foreign apprentices to complete their studies without a study permit,” effective March 7.

Source: Canada to grant legal status for thousands of undocumented construction workers

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