Young: The hidden truth about migrant deaths at the Canada-U.S. border

2025/02/08 Leave a comment

While every death is a human tragedy, the known numbers are small compared to the number of irregular arrivals and other asylum seekers. Useful to have some data:

…Death at the border

Our research identified 15 deaths at the Canada-U.S. border between 2020 and 2023, and another 23 deaths going back to 1989. Given the lack of official records, the actual number is likely higher.

We filed access-to-information requests on both sides of the border. The RCMP acknowledged just one death in Canada, and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) produced no results. Instead, we systematically collected media reports on border deaths and analyzed that data.

Roughly three-quarters of migrants whose deaths were covered in news reports were travelling towards the U.S. Their remains were mainly recovered on the Canadian side of the border. 

Migrants face a range of dangers when crossing the Canada-U.S. border irregularly, but drowning represents the most significant threat, followed by hypothermia — 23 and six of the 38 recorded deaths, respectively.

Three people died in encounters with border patrol agents, with two fatally shot on the American side and one dying in a car crash while being chased by Canadian agents.

Invisible deaths

Our requests for official data on border deaths in both the U.S. and Canada came up empty-handed. After more than a year and the conclusion of an independent complaint investigation into the RCMP’s lack of response to our Canadian request, we were provided with information on one single death. The request filed in the U.S. returned no information. 

Researchers in both countries regularly report frustration with slow processes and a lack of results from such requests.

This experience led us to believe that border enforcement agencies do not track deaths along the Canada-U.S. border in either country. This is a problem. The public is left in the dark, while potential migrants are not provided with information about the dangers of irregular crossings.

It is particularly odd that American authorities don’t provide information on deaths at this border, given that deaths along the U.S.-Mexico border are tracked and publicly reported.

If there’s been a policy decision not to track deaths at the Canada-U.S. border, it reveals a lack of concern and a willingness to obscure the full picture from the public. Both the Canadian and American governments need to change their approach to documenting border deaths, detailing all known cases publicly.

More death on the horizon

Trump’s return to the American presidency might lead to an increase in irregular migration between Canada and the U.S. The Canadian government’s move to beef up border security enforcement, in turn, makes it more likely that migrants will perish after choosing dangerous crossing points. 

Even when migrants die amid human smuggling operations, a lot of the responsibility lies with government decisions. 

As Public Safety Canada warned in 2023, more difficult border crossings lead to increased criminality in human smuggling. Government decisions drive people away from safer crossing points and into the influence of criminal organizations.

The governments of Canada and the United States have a moral obligation to inform the public about deaths — and do everything in their power to prevent further tragedies.

Kira Williams (University of Toronto Scarborough) and Caroline Cordeiro (Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy) contributed to the research for this article.

Source: The hidden truth about migrant deaths at the Canada-U.S. border

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Ottawa accused of stalling on visa approvals for thousands of Gazans stranded at critical time

2025/02/08 1 Comment

Suspect the necessary security clearances are part of the reason for delays:

Almost 5,000 Palestinians who applied last year to take part in a special Ottawa program to help them flee war-torn Gaza and join relatives in Canada have been deemed eligible by the government, but so far only 620 – or fewer than 15 per cent – have arrived.

Immigration lawyers representing Palestinians and their Canadian relatives are accusing the government of deliberately stalling applications, and are urging officials to take advantage of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and reopening of the Rafah crossing to press Israel to allow applicants still in Gaza to exit.

They say scores of Palestinians have paid thousands of dollars in bribes to cross into Egypt to complete biometric checks in Cairo required by the Canadian government and have been waiting for months there for final approval. Others are waiting in Gaza for confirmation that their visas have been approved.

Yameena Ansari, an immigration lawyer, said Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada “is fully capable of expediting processing of applications. They do it regularly for many lines of business. So, if the Gaza applications are not being expedited, that is not an accident.”

Immigration lawyer Warda Shazadi Meighen of Landings LLP in Toronto said Canada must act swiftly to uphold its commitments under the Gazan program. “For those still seeking relocation – particularly individuals with family in Canada – this moment presents a crucial opportunity to fulfill our humanitarian obligations,” she said.

Matthew Behrens, who co-ordinates the Rural Refugee Rights Network, said “it is inexcusable” for IRCC to sit on applications for over a year, warning that “the border could be closed again at a moment’s notice.”

Ottawa’s program faced criticism over security concerns when it was announced. Last year, Marco Rubio, then a senator and now secretary of state in President Donald Trump’s administration, wrote to the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary, warning that the program raised the risk of allowing people with ties to terror groups, such as Hamas, to get easier access to the United States….

Source: Ottawa accused of stalling on visa approvals for thousands of Gazans stranded at critical time

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International student graduates earn much less than Canadian peers, study shows

2025/02/07 1 Comment

Of concern, particularly at masters and PhD levels:

International students earn substantially less than their Canadian counterparts upon graduation, and a larger proportion of them end up in sales and service jobs, new research from Statistics Canada shows.

The data – part of a report by the agency examining the labour-market outcomes of university and college graduates in Canada – capture the inequity in wages and types of jobs that international students eventually obtain compared with Canadian graduates.

Over all, international student graduates earned 19.6 per cent less than Canadian graduates three years after graduating, the report found. Moreover, their annual incomes were lower than Canadian graduates at all levels of study, regardless of if they earned a diploma or a doctorate degree.

The report used data from a 2023 national survey of graduates conducted by Statscan, and focused on the graduating class of 2020.

Foreign students with a bachelor’s degree, for example, earned a median annual income of $52,000, compared with Canadian graduates at $65,200. At the master’s level, international students earned 16.6 per cent less than Canadians – $70,000 compared with $83,900, annually.

A critical difference in the employment outcomes for foreign students compared to Canadian graduates can be seen in the proportion of international students who work in sales and service occupations. Across all education levels, approximately 28 per cent of international student graduates worked in sales and service jobs, compared with roughly 12 per cent of Canadian graduates.

Some examples of sales and service occupations, according to the National Occupation Classification system, include retail and restaurant workers, door-to-door salespeople and call-centre operators. These jobs tend to pay lower wages than, for example, management occupations or jobs in business and finance.

Brittany Etmanski, the report’s author, suggested that one reason for the significant earnings differential between foreign graduates and Canadian graduates was because more of the former group tended to be college and bachelor’s degree holders employed in the low-wage sales and service sectors.

“However, this does not explain the difference in income at the masters and doctoral levels,” she wrote….

Source: International student graduates earn much less than Canadian peers, study shows

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Why are Canadian immigration lawyers up in arms over proposed rules to target ‘ghost agents’?

2025/02/07 Leave a comment

Of note, applying to everyone rather than where the risk of fraud greater:

A government proposal to give authorities more power to investigate immigration consulting frauds is being criticized by lawyers as an overreach that fails to target the real culprits.

The proposed changes would grant immigration officials broad inspection power to investigate, adjudicate and penalize those who are unauthorized to give immigration advice for a fee, as well as licensed lawyers and consultants “counselling fraud and misrepresentation on their clients’ applications.”

However, provincial law societies and the Canadian Bar Association said lawyers are already subject to tight professional regulations. And they say the new rules would put them in a bind between their obligations under solicitor-client privilege and the ability to fight for their innocence.

“The regime would infringe on the law societies’ exclusive authority to govern their licensees,” the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, representing the 14 provincial and territorial law societies, said in a submission Monday in response to the government’s proposed changes. 

“The broad powers under the regime to inspect documents may be in conflict with the law of solicitor-client privilege in Canada.”

Currently, anyone who provides immigration advice for a fee must be a member of a law society or the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants, and immigration applicants are supposed to declare who their authorized representatives are.

While the professional regulators have the power to police and discipline their members for wrongdoing, many “ghost agents” — those who are unlicensed and offer immigration advice under the radar — have continued to operate without paper trails; many are overseas and beyond the reach of the regulators’ jurisdictions.

A parliamentary report in 2017 on improving oversight of immigration consultants raised concerns about weak governance of the consultants’ regulator and insufficient resources for investigations and enforcement. Among the recommendations were a policy review addressing the practice of “ghost consultants,” and considering increased fines and sentences.

The Immigration Department said unscrupulous agents “counselling fraud and misrepresentation” on clients’ applications are a threat to the integrity of Canada’s immigration and citizenship systems.

Source: Why are Canadian immigration lawyers up in arms over proposed rules to target ‘ghost agents’?

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Canada faces calls to suspend asylum agreement with U.S., saying Trump orders undermine migrants’ rights

2025/02/06 Leave a comment

Real dilemma for the government given that USA is becoming less safe and the risk of significant increases in asylum claimants from the USA without the STCA to help control and manage inflows:

The federal government is facing calls to suspend a long-standing agreement with the U.S. to return asylum seekers at the border, with immigration experts saying the United States should no longer be considered a safe place for people fleeing persecution.

They say U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive orders that make it easier to deport or detain migrants – including plans to hold 30,000 migrants accused of criminality in Guantanamo Bay – undermine their rights to such an extent that Canada should halt returning asylum seekers to the U.S.

Under the Safe Third Country Agreement, which came into effect in 2004, asylum seekers must make a claim at the first country in which they arrive. The agreement means that most asylum seekers arriving at the Canadian border are automatically returned to the U.S., with some exceptions such as people facing the death penalty.

Immigration lawyers and refugee advocates say Mr. Trump’s policies that make it easier to deport asylum seekers without a court hearing and increase detention may breach international law and should prompt Canada to rethink or suspend the agreement.

“The executive actions in the U.S. will materially impede access to asylum, and result in the routine imprisonment of refugees, contrary to UN standards,” says Erin Simpson, a partner at immigration law firm Landings LLP in Toronto.

“When Canada returns refugees to the U.S. under the Safe Third Country Agreement, they risk deportation to persecution and torture, and prison. Canada has the authority to suspend the agreement, and should exercise that authority until it is satisfied the agreement is not harming refugees.”

…But some experts warned that scrapping the agreement could lead to an influx of asylum seekers to Canada, who could not be turned back.

James Yousif, a Toronto-based lawyer who was director of policy to former Conservative immigration minister Jason Kenney, said the move would be “reckless” and “risk destabilizing Canada’s social and economic foundations.”

“Canada would face a surge in asylum claims from undocumented migrants in the United States, overwhelming public systems. Provinces and cities would be required to provide health care, social assistance, education and housing supports,” he said, adding they would be “severely strained.”

Source: Canada faces calls to suspend asylum agreement with U.S., saying Trump orders undermine migrants’ rights

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This licensed Canadian immigration consultant was impersonated by a fraudster. How migrants are being scammed by ‘ghost agents’

2025/02/06 Leave a comment

Sigh…:

About a year ago, immigration consultant Kerry Molitor started to get email alerts from the Immigration Department: letters for her clients had been sent to her online account. The problem was she had never heard of these clients.

Concerned about the consequences of the missed letters intended for the actual study and visitor permit applicants, she reported the incidents to immigration officials. 

Then last August, Molitor stumbled upon an Instagram account that used her name and her old office address and promoted a website that looked almost like hers. She clicked on the link that led her to an immigration company that showed her as the CEO, but with the photo of a white male. It also posted a fake licence certificate purported to be hers.

“These people are committing frauds in my name,” said Molitor. “I’m very fearful for the people that are contacting these scammers because I’ve had several victims or potential victims contact me to verify. They are getting a lot of attention, a lot of customers. According to Instagram, they’ve been active since December 2023.”

For a long time, the immigration consulting industry has been tackling the “ghost agents” who pretend to be accredited consultants. Canadian law only allows a consultant licensed by the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants and a lawyer by a law society to give immigration advice for a fee.

But with business increasingly conducted online, combating these frauds — many of them originating abroad — is getting even harder.

Someone looking for help in immigration may come across a fake website or post on social media, find a matching name on the directory of the regulator and fall into the trap.

While the professional reputation of the impersonated consultants is certainly at stake, victims of the scammers ultimately pay the price as their applications will likely never be filed, or they will be refused for not having all the required documents….

Source: This licensed Canadian immigration consultant was impersonated by a fraudster. How migrants are being scammed by ‘ghost agents’

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Desai: Canada can’t afford a long immigration pause. We must reorient the system now

2025/02/05 Leave a comment

Part of the issue is that many Canadian businesses are addicted to lower cost lower skilled workers, whether temporary or permanent:

For generations, Canada’s approach to welcoming migrants had a strong consensus across partisan, sectoral and geographic lines. It was the result of immigration fuelling our economy and is still a distinct feature of a uniquely Canadian identity; a tangible expression of our compassion.

This consensus has been broken as a result of the system being manipulated for political ends and short-term economic arbitrage. If Canada is to achieve its full potential, we will not only need to reform our immigration system to flourish under our current circumstances, but we also must rebuild the broad immigration consensus.

Canada’s approach to immigration is often presented as disparate pillars. The most prominent is the economic stream, which allows migrants to apply based on our broad labour-market needs. They are supplemented with international students and temporary foreign workers.

The family reunification class aims to allow a settled resident to sponsor their loved ones. Our refugee class was originally set up to support the world’s most vulnerable.

What made Canada’s system successful is the mutually reinforcing nature of each pillar. Fundamental to the success of a migrant is their ability to contribute economically and socially.

The Environics Institute has been gauging Canadians’ support for immigration since 1977. From 2000 to 2020, more than half of those polled disagreed that “overall there is too much immigration to Canada.” This isn’t to say there weren’t issues with our system, but those problems paled in comparison to the systemic rot that resulted in 58 per cent of Canadians believing we accept too many immigrants in 2024.

Labour-market demand information often lags or doesn’t align with the specific needs of, or accreditations required by, employers. The temporary foreign workers program has been used to reduce employers’ cost bases at the expense of domestic employees or investing in productivity-generating technologies.

International students have been used as a cash cow for postsecondary institutions, including many institutions with dubious credentials. The generosity of our refugee system has also been taken advantage of by those with the means to reach Canada’s borders. This ties up scarce resources to resettle those most in need around the world.

These issues are contributing to some of our greatest challenges: our housing and food-bank shortages, and slumping productivity, are the most prominent.

Amidst this rotting foundation, our federal government was virtue signalling and trying to out-manoeuvre their political opponents; they offered a blanket welcome mat to any would-be immigrant the U.S. turned away under the last Trump administration. They made a top-down commitment to welcome 1.5 million immigrants over a period of three years without a clear plan for how we would absorb this volume of newcomers.

While the government has issued a mea culpa, it alone will not suffice. Reducing targets and cracking down on those who manipulate our system with harsh penalties is a start, but alone these measures will not contribute to addressing our broader economic woes.

On top of Canada’s immigration challenges, we’re also facing a bleak demographic reality: by 2035, Canada’s worker-to-retiree ratio will be 2:1. For reference, it was 7:1 in 1971. This is coupled with our stark productivity lag, which immigration helped mask for decades.

The hope that Canadians will become more productive overnight, or that the world’s top talent will simply come to the conclusion that they should call Canada home, is wishful thinking.

Canada is going to require a radical reform of our immigration policy, one which reorients all stakeholders to an aggressive, co-recruitment model of the top talent we require. We will have to invest in real-time, labour-demand data to inform our recruitment strategy, so that we actually address our economic needs while balancing considerations like housing availability.

The government has some experience with an employer-driven approach to immigration. It created the Global Skills Strategy that allowed employers to fast-track work-permit processing to two weeks.

Our consensus on immigration will have to be rebuilt over time by demonstrating its contribution to addressing our economic woes. The government’s strategy of top-down targets must be shed and replaced with a structural focus on recruitment based on demand. Our immigration officials will have to act less like passive application processors and more like head hunters for the entrepreneurs, health care professionals, engineers and other talented individuals required to fuel Canada’s economy and vibrant society for generations to come.

Neil Desai is an executive in the tech sector and serves as a senior fellow with the Centre for International Governance Innovation. He previously served in senior roles with the government of Canada.

Source: Canada can’t afford a long immigration pause. We must reorient the system now

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ICYMI – Don Kerr: The Liberals utterly failed to control Canada’s population growth. Here’s what the next government can do better 

2025/02/05 Leave a comment

Solid analysis but skimpy on what a population policy should look like:

…Although this estimate is preliminary and has yet to be finalized by Statistics Canada, this is likely close to what our population size would be if in fact the federal government meets its 2024 targets on both immigration and NPRs. In working with this estimate for Jan. 1st, 2025, this implies an annual population growth of about 780,000 persons in 2024, or a growth rate of 1.9 percent (see Figure 1). While down from the astronomical heights of 2023 (3.2 percent), this is still close to twice the historical norm for Canada.

In my view, it is almost an understatement to suggest that the federal government “opened the taps,” but then failed to close them quickly enough. As I have argued elsewhere, in policy terms, a steady, gradual upturn in population growth is far better for planning future labour force, housing, and infrastructure needs.

With this in mind, the government moving forward might be well advised to develop a population policy, in order to avoid this sort of situation in the future. The Canadian population would be well served by a government that could quickly accommodate unexpected challenges while maintaining a predictable and relatively stable rate of population growth.

Source: Don Kerr: The Liberals utterly failed to control Canada’s population growth. Here’s what the next government can do better

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Canada’s border cities, bursting at the seams with asylum seekers, brace for more amid Trump turmoil

2025/02/03 Leave a comment

Of note:

Some hotels in Niagara Falls, Ont., are unusually full for the middle of the winter off-season, when many visitors stay home. Normally that would make the mayor of a tourist city happy – but not Jim Diodati.

His community, which says it has more asylum seekers per capita than any other municipality in the country, is ground-zero in Canada’s efforts to house thousands of refugee claimants in hotels while they wait for their claims to be processed. The mayor, who can see the United States from his perch at city hall, is worried it’s about to get a lot worse.

Mr. Diodati is concerned that if more asylum seekers start coming to Canada because of Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policies, his city will be unable to handle it – and he’s not alone. While the federal and provincial governments are trying to demonstrate to Mr. Trump that they’re serious about stopping the flow of migrants going south, mayors of the country’s border towns say there’s not enough talk about these implications of Mr. Trump’s policies.

In Niagara Falls, a city of around 95,000 people where tourism drives the economy, the influx of refugees is pushing local emergency rooms, schools, shelters, food banks and housing supply to the brink, Mr. Diodati said.

At its peak more than a year ago, there were nearly 5,000 asylum seekers housed in 11 hotels in the city’s downtown core, dotted with souvenir shops, arcades, amusement rides, indoor water parks and a casino….

Source: Canada’s border cities, bursting at the seams with asylum seekers, brace for more amid Trump turmoil

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Mahboubi: Canada is wasting the talents of its skilled immigrants

2025/02/01 Leave a comment

Concrete and specific recommendations, some harder to implement than others (e.g., Foreign Credential Recognition, which also should include domestic credential recognition):

…To fully harness immigrant talent, Canada must act. The Express Entry system should place greater emphasis on language ability and incorporate educational criteria that consider the reputations of institutions, fields of study and academic grades – elements often overlooked but crucial for predicting successful labour-market integration. Pre-immigration earnings of immigrants with prior Canadian work experience should also be considered, as they serve as a strong predictor of immigrants’ economic value and their ability to integrate into the work force without facing overqualification.

Streamlining the recognition of foreign credentials and offering clearer guidance on licensing are equally important. Provincial governments need to collaborate with regulatory bodies to simplify and accelerate the recognition process for foreign qualifications. British Columbia and Nova Scotia recently expedited their approvals for health care professionals, showing the potential of such collaboration. At the same time, regulatory bodies should revisit and modernize their licensing processes to reduce red tape and ensure that the requirements are not excessively burdensome.

Immigrants need better support navigating complex recertification processes. Provincial regulatory bodies can partner with professional associations to develop clear licensing roadmaps for regulated professions so that skilled immigrants can better understand their options. Governments also need to expand access to culturally relevant language training and rigorously evaluate settlement programs to scale up what works.

Employers also need to step up. Today, only 15 per cent of employers in Toronto work with immigrant-serving agencies, missing out on a wealth of untapped talent. Promoting job-matching programs, raising awareness of credential-assessment services and connecting with immigrant-serving organizations can bridge gaps. Governments can facilitate this by developing comprehensive databases of credential equivalencies.

Canada’s highly-educated immigrants represent a vast, underutilized resource. Addressing systemic barriers is not just about fairness – it’s about ensuring the country’s long-term prosperity. With bold action and collaboration, Canada can transform this missed opportunity into a major economic advantage.

Source: Canada is wasting the talents of its skilled immigrants

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