Trudeau minister shoots down ‘false’ claims from Republican senators about Canada’s immigration program for Palestinians

2024/07/27 Leave a comment

Usual political posturing. But any terrorist incident of an immigrant or visitor to Canada in the USA would provoke stronger calls to tighten the border as the 2001 Ressam case showed:

U.S. Republican senators are making “categorically false” claims about Canada’s immigration program for Palestinians fleeing Gaza, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Thursday as he pushed back on claims from the senators that the measure puts American security at risk. 

They urged Mayorkas to take greater precautions at the Canada-U. S. border because of the program, which they allege would allow people with “potential” ties to Hamas — which the U.S. and Canada consider a terrorist group — easier access to the U.S. The senators did not provide any evidence of Gazans coming to Canada under the program and then entering the U.S.

The senators claim those coming into Canada on the temporary resident visa (TRV) program are given a “refugee travel document” which replaces their passport, and can be used to travel outside of Canada and into the U.S., while they wait to apply for Canadian citizenship.

That is “categorically false,” Miller said in a statement to the Star.

Those kind of documents are only provided to people assessed as refugees through a separate program, and people coming through the program for Palestinians receive temporary visas or temporary permits only valid for transit within Canada, he said.

“It is equally false to suggest that applicants are eligible to apply for Canadian citizenship,” Miller said. 

And — if those who come to Canada want to go to the U.S., it’s up to the U.S. whether they are let in, Miller pointed out. 

“Like all temporary residents, extended family members from Gaza would be subject to entry requirements and documentation when entering the United States as per their legislation and policies,” he said.

The detailed statement debunking the senators’ claims also noted that the security screening involved draws on all of Canada’s security partners — including the U.S.

“Security screenings are tailored to the reality of the location from which the applicant seeking entry to Canada is applying, including enhanced screening as warranted,” Miller said.

“Canada will continue to work with local authorities — at every level — to facilitate and advocate for the safe exit of extended family members while ensuring the safety of Canadians.”

To date, 189 people have arrived in Canada under the temporary special measures public policy put in place after the current war between Hamas and Israel began in October.

American worries about border security normally focus on that country’s southern boundary with Mexico and the immigration patterns there, but concerns over the Canada-U. S. line have bubbled up with increasing frequency in recent years. 

So far this year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has “encountered” more than 233 people on their terrorist watchlist at the U.S.-Canada border, saying that’s higher than in previous years. In 2023, according to U.S. data, there were 484 encounters, and in all of 2022, 313.

The numbers are significantly lower at the U.S.-Mexican border.

In the very early moments of this year’s Republican race for the presidential nominee, one candidate suggested there could be the need for a wall between Canada and the U.S., citing those same statistics. 

During Donald Trump’s first term as president, there was acute tension between the White House and Canada over refugee policy. Though Trump once said he wished his country’s immigration system functioned more like Canada’s in terms of process, his broader anti-immigration rhetoric and policy changes — like travel bans from some countries — were seen as factors behind a surge of asylum seekers at the Canada-U.S. border, largely through unofficial border crossings. 

When asked whether there were concerns this could happen again, Miller’s office said they can’t speculate on future policies, nor comment during the campaign. 

Source: Trudeau minister shoots down ‘false’ claims from Republican senators about Canada’s immigration program for Palestinians

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Canada might struggle to rein in surge of temporary residents, Bank of Canada projects

2024/07/26 Leave a comment

Sobering. See Ivison’s commentary after this article:

The Bank of Canada is projecting that the federal government could fall short of its goal to shrink temporary residents’ share of Canada’s population over the next three years.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced in March that Ottawa would attempt to reduce their share of the population from 6.2 per cent to five per cent by 2027.

But on Wednesday, the Bank of Canada predicted that the government would miss that target. The bank’s monetary policy report — released as part of its announcement to reduce interest rates — said that non-permanent residents’ (NPRs) share of the population has actually grown since the goal was set in March.

“NPRs represented 6.8% of the population at the beginning of April — much higher than at the time of the March announcement — and the share is expected to continue rising over the near term,” the report said.

“This suggests that it will take longer for planned policies to reduce NPR inflows to achieve the 5% target.”

The central bank report does note that there is “considerable uncertainty” about its projections.

“Details on how most temporary resident permit programs will be adjusted are not expected until later this year,” it says, adding that their scenario “will be revised as further measures are announced and more details on program changes become available.”

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said in a statement that the department will be including measures to address the influx of temporary residents in Canada in the upcoming immigration levels plan.

“The levels plan is expanding to include both temporary resident arrivals and permanent resident arrivals. It will be tabled in the fall following consultations with provincial and territorial counterparts and others as part of Canada’s annual levels planning,” the statement said.

Targets expected to be ironed out over summer

Miller met with his provincial and territorial counterparts earlier this spring, and the targets are expected to be ironed out over the summer.

The bank’s report comes as the government has been taking measures to temper the massive rise in people who migrate to Canada on a temporary basis to work or study.

Miller had also announced plans to scale back the number of international students by putting a two-year cap on new admissions in January.

Recent data from IRCC shows that there has been an increase in the number of student permits approved this year compared to 2023, which itself was a record year.

The government approved 216,620 student permits in the first five months of 2024, compared to 200,505 permits over the same period in 2023.

But the numbers for the cap on student visas wasn’t finalized until April, and the IRCC numbers may not yet reflect those changes.

Source: Canada might struggle to rein in surge of temporary residents, Bank of Canada projects

John Ivison: Trust the Liberals to fix immigration? The Bank of Canada doesn’t

…It is apparent that the Bank of Canada feels like it has to step in to clean up the federal government’s mess.

In its Monetary Policy Report, the bank said that NPRs will continue to rise in the near term and it will take longer than predicted to reduce inflows to achieve the five-per-cent target.

“Considerable uncertainty continues to surround the future path of net NPR flows,” it said.

If NPRs continue to leave Canada or become permanent residents at the rate observed since 2021, achieving the target would require reducing average annual gross NPR inflows by around 70 to 80 per cent across the temporary foreign worker program, the International Mobility Program and the asylum-seeker program, in addition to imposing a cap on the number of international students.

Mike Moffatt, an economist and senior director at the Smart Prosperity Institute, said the bank is clearly questioning the credibility of the federal commitment to the five-per-cent target.

“I think it’s fair. They’re basically saying the government isn’t going to do what they claim they’ll do. I don’t remember the last time I saw that from them,” he said.

It is a sign of how undisciplined immigration policy has become that the central bank feels it has to step out of its lane to admonish the government.

Source: John Ivison: Trust the Liberals to fix immigration? The Bank of Canada doesn’t

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Staff warned immigration minister about setting ‘significant precedent’ with Ukraine visa program

2024/07/26 Leave a comment

Public service doing its job, providing “fearless advice” while loyally implementing questionable policy:

Federal immigration officials warned the government it risked undermining the temporary immigration system with the design of the emergency visa program for war-displaced Ukrainians, newly released court documents show.

Immigration Department staff raised the concern in a memo to Sean Fraser, immigration minister at the time, shortly after the program was announced.

The memos outline the design of the Ukraine visa program, which allowed an unlimited number of Ukrainians and their family members to come to Canada to wait out the war.

The policy also waived the requirement for fleeing Ukrainians to promise to leave when their visa expires, against the advice of department staff.

“Waiving the need for a client to establish temporary intent would set a significant precedent that is not recommended, given that it would undermine a foundational component of the (temporary resident) legal framework,” staff said in the memo to Fraser, which was signed March 14, 2022.

Staff cautioned that waiving the requirement — the foundation of the temporary resident program — would set an “expectation that it could be done for other populations, not only those affected by conflict.”

The documents were disclosed as part of a proposed lawsuit against the federal government by three Afghan Canadians, who allege Canada discriminated against Afghan refugees by treating them differently than it did Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion.

The lawsuit hasn’t yet been certified by the court.

“The government knew that what they were doing was unfair,” said Nicholas Pope, one of the lawyers representing the Afghan Canadians.

“That’s just what we’re arguing in this case. That it’s unfair, it’s discriminatory, and there’s not a good reason why protections shouldn’t be applied to people who aren’t from Europe.”

Warnings over ‘second class’ permanent residents

The lawsuit was filed by Canadians who served as language and culture advisers to the Canadian government and NATO during the war in Afghanistan, but haven’t been allowed to bring family members in Afghanistan to safety.

Canada has approved some 962,600 emergency visas for Ukrainians since the 2022 Russian invasion, which allow people fleeing the conflict to work and study while the war rages.

The program was generally well received in Canada, where people opened their homes to Ukrainians and donated clothes, furniture and other essentials to help them settle during their stay.

Roughly 298,000 actually made the trip to Canada, though it’s unclear how many have stayed and how many have since applied for permanent residency.

The documents also warn the design of the program could disadvantage Ukrainians by effectively creating “second class” permanent residents, without access to settlement supports or equivalent status under the law.

The government has argued the emergency program for Ukrainians can’t be compared to the program for Afghan refugees, because people from Afghanistan are unlikely to be able to return home.

In the memo, though, staff say the key distinction between temporary programs and permanent ones is the requirement that visa holders declare their intention to leave.

The department officials described the Ukraine emergency visa program as “exceptional in nature.”

“It underscores Canada’s unique relationship with Ukraine, the extensive diaspora and family links, as well as the unique nature of the conflict as a significant land invasion adjacent to EU countries with generous immigration measures,” the memo reads.

“However, it risks setting a significant precedent, one which may result in future pressures on the government to take similar action for other emergencies.”

Two full pages of legal considerations outlined by the department were blacked out in the documents provided to the court.

Fraser ultimately agreed with the department’s recommendation not to publish the policy publicly, given the “unprecedented and exceptional nature” of the approach.

Pope seized on that point Tuesday.

“Why would you not publish a policy if you’re proud of it, and you think that it’s fair, and you think that it’s just and you think that it’s Charter compliant?” he asked.

“I think they really understood the problematic nature of this.”

The offices of Fraser, now housing minister, and the current immigration minister, Marc Miller, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The government has emphasized that the Ukrainian program is intended to be temporary, and has encouraged those without family ties to Canada to apply for permanent residency through traditional means if they hope to stay.

Since Fraser announced the visa program, the government has faced accusations of unfairly limiting temporary refuge to people attempting to flee conflicts in Sudan and the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

In February, the Canadian Council for Refugees pointed out the disparity between the program for Ukrainians and the temporary refuge programs for Sudanese people.

“The crisis in Sudan is of catastrophic proportions,” the group wrote to Miller earlier this year.

“Given the scale of the crisis, the limit of 3,250 applications in the family-based humanitarian pathway is inadequate to the need. In contrast, Canada admitted an unlimited number of Ukrainians on temporary visas, and the pathway to permanent residence for Ukrainians is similarly without a cap.”

Source: Staff warned immigration minister about setting ‘significant precedent’ with Ukraine visa program

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U.S. Senators sound alarm over Canada’s acceptance of Gaza refugees

2024/07/26 Leave a comment

Not totally surprising, given potential security risks:

Canada’s acceptance of Palestinian refugees from Gaza is setting off alarm bells south of the border.

In a letter Wednesday to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, United States Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) expressed concern over the program, which he warned could lead to an increased risk of allowing individuals with ties to terror groups easy access to the United States.

“On May 27, 2024, the Government of Canada announced its intent to increase the number of Gazans who will be allowed into their country under temporary special measures,” Rubio wrote in his letter, which was signed by five other Republican senators.

“We are deeply concerned and request heightened scrutiny by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security should any of them attempt to enter the United States at ports of entry as well as between ports of entry.”

Cosigning the letter were fellow senators Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Mike Braun, Joni Ernst and Josh Hawley.

Last month, Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced a five-fold increase in the number of Gazan refugees let into Canada, upping the program’s cap to 5,000 people.

The government’s initial cap on Palestinian refugees was 1,000.

As well, Palestinian refugees will be able to apply for work and study permits without charge….

Source: U.S. Senators sound alarm over Canada’s acceptance of Gaza refugees

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Immigration Minister Marc Miller on international students, asylum seekers and life in the hotseat — plus an admission about one promise

2024/07/25 Leave a comment

Good and interesting intv:

It was a day after his constituency office was found vandalized, with windows smashed and pink paint sprayed over, but that didn’t stop Immigration Minister Marc Miller from cracking jokes with the audience at a special citizenship ceremony in Toronto to mark Cirque du Soleil’s 40th anniversary.

“Anyone want to change their mind? You still have time,” Miller said jokingly at Friday’s event. “But I’m pretty sure no one is going to change your mind if I look at the smiles on your faces. This is a beautiful time for you.”

Miller personally welcomed 368 new citizens from 60 countries as they took their oaths of allegiance to Canada under the big tent of one of the world’s most famous circuits. 

Meeting proud immigrants who work hard to become Canadian and seeing the light in their eyes at events like this is a reminder for Miller of the value of Canadian citizenship — and the challenge the country faces today.

On the eve of his anniversary at the helm of the Immigration Department on July 26, the minister sat down with the Star to share the good, the bad and the ugly of this job in the past year, as well as what’s on his to-do list with the next federal election expected 15 months from now, in October 2025.

“Canadians are less tolerant of errors right now or of a system that lacks the rigour and discipline that it needs,” the Liberal minister said. “We’re not immune to social media and what people have seen in Europe, with large flow of irregular migration and the political systems that have leveraged that or weaponized that, and swept in typically right-wing governments.”

Miller said that on top of his mind is the rapid growth of refugee claimants in Canada since 2022, when international travel returned to normal after the pandemic.

The annual number of people who sought protection here was way above the pre-COVID level of 64,030 in 2019, reaching record 91,700 in 2022 and 143,580 in 2023. In the first five months of this year, already 77,725 claimants were reported. Some 186,000 claims are pending in the system.

Although most developed countries are also seeing a rise in asylum seekers as part of the growing global displacement, the minister believes this influx is what has contributed to the public perception that Canada has lost control of its border when they see refugees sleeping on the streets and staying in homeless shelters.

It’s important to bolster the integrity of the visa processing system, he said, given that many of the asylum seekers were temporary residents who came as visitors, students and workers.

“The system itself is undermined when we see flows that are coming in and not for the reasons that they were supposed to in the first place,” said Miller. “There are a number of measures that we are looking to take and will take, and hopefully announce in short order to further bolster that integrity, including in the international student area.”

He was frustrated that proposed reforms to streamline the refugee determination process were carved out from the recent federal budget bill under pressure by advocates. That means it will now take longer to push through those changes to address the refugee board’s unsustainable backlogs.

Two other issues are also on Miller’s priority list: Fixing the foreign worker program to crack down on fraud and passing legislative amendments to help Indigenous people travel seamlessly on their native lands across the Canada-U.S. border.

Miller said he’s working with Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault to make changes to the labour market impact assessment process to ensure only those employers faced with a real labour shortage are entitled to bring in foreign workers.

“LMIA fraud is a big concern,” he said. “You (workers) shouldn’t have to pay for it … These things do get shopped around and that’s not right. Enforcement is one aspect of it, but making sure that we disincentivize that in the first place is key, particularly where we see a constricting labour market.”

Miller was shuffled from his job as minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations to his current post amid rising borrowing rates and an affordability crisis that has seen the cost of housing and living spiralling — and changing public attitudes toward immigration and immigrants.

Earlier this year, he surprised observers by introducing caps to rein in the number of international students and temporary residents as well as measures to restrict access to work permits, despite objections from the post-secondary education sector and employers. While he’s happy with the trending numbers he is seeing so far, he reminds Canadians that it takes time to see the impact.

Miller said it pained him to try to properly explain the affordability challenges faced by all Canadians when making these changes.

“We can’t blame immigrants for absolutely everything relating to affordability,” he said. “At the same time, the pure volume of temporary migration that we’ve seen in the last few years does contribute to the economic argument.

“We can’t have an unbridled backdoor entry system into Canada under the guise of an international student program that has seen exponential increases in its volume. So that does need to come under control.”

That “lack of discipline” of the immigration system is what Miller calls “the bad.” “The ugly” is the scapegoating that’s targeted new immigrants.

Poll after poll has shown Canadians’ support for immigration is declining, and Miller said he understands people’s frustration with an imperfect system. Yet, there are reasons to be hopeful.

“You have perhaps some people with undertones and frustrations, but you don’t have a major party that is running its campaign against immigration,” he pointed out. “I think that is important. At the same time, I don’t think we can discount the fact that there will be parties in the next election” that might do that.

Miller said he will continue to work on improving client experience and digitalizing the department, but is less certain about delivering the promised regularization plan that would grant permanent residence to hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants toiling in Canada’s underground economy.

At best, he suggested, a smaller-scale plan may be possible for those in the construction and health-care sectors.

“Regularization, as I confess to you quite openly, has been a challenge we recognize, particularly in this political atmosphere, in the sense of where Canadians are,” he explained. “As ambitious as we are, with 15 months to go, we have to be realistic about what we can achieve.”

Miller, 51, has been an MP since 2015, representing a Montreal riding. He said being the immigration minister is a “difficult” job but he enjoys the work challenge, and said he’s planning to run in the next election.

When asked to confirm the rumour that he was not happy to take up the immigration minister’s job, Miller said that wasn’t true but he would have liked to finish “the unfinished job” at Indigenous Relations.

Source: Immigration Minister Marc Miller on international students, asylum seekers and life in the hotseat — plus an admission about one promise

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LILLEY: Trudeau fails to deal with out-of-control immigration

2024/07/24 Leave a comment

Repeats the same mistakes that Passifume made in ignoring drops in web interest, processed applications, and drop in April and May. But fits his narrative of the government doing nothing when in fact Minister Miller has starting trimming.

But agree, of course, on the overall numbers of permanent and temporary migrants being too high and the government being too timid in bringing them back to more reasonable levels:

We’ve already admitted more foreign students into Canada than we did in the same time period last year.

In the middle of a housing crisis.

At a time when health systems across the country struggle to hire enough doctors and nurses to care for the population that is already here.

What’s worse, we aren’t just increasing the number of foreign students, we are also increasing immigration on all fronts and even the number of people claiming asylum in Canada is up over last year. If you thought you heard the Liberal minister in charge of all of this say something about capping numbers, you’d be right.

The problem is, he hasn’t done that yet even as his boss, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has admitted the problem.

“Over the past few years, we’ve seen a massive spike in temporary immigration, whether it’s temporary foreign workers or whether it’s international students, in particular, that have grown at a rate far beyond what Canada has been able to absorb,” Trudeau said at the beginning of April.

What’s been done since then?

Nothing.

As National Post first reported, between Jan. 1 and May 31, the Canadian government approved 216,620 study permits compared to 200,205 during the same period in 2023. For those keeping track, 2023 was a record year for foreign student admissions into Canada with more than 680,000 permits granted last year.

In January of this year, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said the system was being abused.

“Enough is enough,” Miller said. “Through the decisive measures announced today, we are striking the right balance for Canada and ensuring the integrity of our immigration system while setting students up for the success they hope for.”

If that balance is coming, the numbers aren’t showing it.

Meanwhile, from January through May we took in 30,785 compared to 28,980 in the same period for 2023. Our immigration target for permanent residents in 2023 was 465,000 and we brought in 471,550.

A decade ago we were bringing in what was then considered a historic high of just over 250,000 per year and this year we will likely bring in double that.

Now, when you add all the different ways we bring people in, it’s a staggering figure. According to the Statistics Canada’s population clock which tracks growth in real time, our current population as of writing is 41,481,200.

On Dec. 19, 2023 when I wrote about our growing population, the clock stood at 40,720,342 meaning we’ve added 760,858 people in seven months or an average of 109,000 per month.

Again, all in a housing crisis and a health-care crisis.

Bringing in people on scale, faster than we can absorb them to use Trudeau’s terminology, means housing costs rise and health care wait times grow longer. Then there is the economic impact of such massive and uncoordinated growth.

A recent report from The Royal Bank found that Canada’s per-capita household spending is down, and that per capita GDP growth has declined in six of the last seven quarters.

“Canada’s economy might not be in recession but it feels like one,” the report stated.

Our population growth is masking the weaknesses in the Canadian economy.

“Surging population growth has prevented outright declines in Canadian gross domestic product, but per-person output is falling, and the unemployment rate is rising like it usually only would be during a recession,” RBC said.

So, we have a housing crisis, that is being made worse by a lack of supply and increased demand due to immigration, but that immigration is also masking a recession that would be taking place if it weren’t for all the consumer spending of newcomers.

Meanwhile, unemployment is rising in large part because we add more people to the workforce each month. StatsCan has been warning for the last year that population growth is outstripping job growth.

It’s a fine mess we find ourselves in, one created entirely by the policies of the Trudeau government.

Source: LILLEY: Trudeau fails to deal with out-of-control immigration

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Krugman: Trump’s Cynical Attempt to Pit Recent Immigrants Against Black Americans

2024/07/24 Leave a comment

Indeed. But continue to see from time-to-time articles from Black Americans arguing the same.

Obviously, the big political news of the past couple of days has come from the Democratic side. But before last week’s Republican National Convention fades from view, let me focus instead on a development on the G.O.P. side that may, given everything else that has been happening, have flown under the radar: MAGA rhetoric on immigration, which was already ugly, has become even uglier.

Until now, most of the anti-immigration sloganeering coming from Donald Trump and his campaign has involved false claims that we’re experiencing a migrant crime wave.

Increasingly, however, Trump and his associates have started making the case that immigrants are stealing American jobs — specifically, the accusation that immigrants are inflicting terrible damage on the livelihoods of Black workers.

Of course, the idea that immigrants are taking jobs away from native-born Americans, including native-born Black Americans, isn’t new. It has, in particular, been an obsession for JD Vance, complete with misleading statistical analysis, so Trump’s choice of Vance as his running mate in itself signals a new focus on the supposed economic harm inflicted by immigrants.

So, too, did Trump’s acceptance speech on Thursday, which contained a number of assertions about the economics of immigration, among them, the notion that of jobs created under President Biden, “107 percent of those jobs are taken by illegal aliens” — a weirdly specific number considering that it’s clearly false, because native-born employment has risen by millions of jobs since Biden took office.

What seems relatively new, however, is the attempt to pit immigrants against Black Americans. True, Trump prefigured this line of attack during his June debate with Biden, when he declared that immigrants are “taking Black jobs,” leading some to mockingly question which jobs, exactly, count as “Black.”

But the volume on this claim has been turned way up.

At the Republican convention, former Trump adviser Peter Navarro, someone very likely to have a role in the next administration if Trump wins, spoke of “a whole army of illiterate illegal aliens stealing the jobs of Black, brown and blue-collar Americans.”

In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek published last week, Trump went even bigger, declaring that “The Black people are going to be decimated by the millions of people that are coming into the country.” He continued, “Their wages have gone way down. Their jobs are being taken by the migrants coming in illegally into the country.” He went on to say, “The Black population in this country is going to die because of what’s happened, what’s going to happen to their jobs — their jobs, their housing, everything.”

Trump’s diatribe forced Bloomberg to add this, parenthetically, as a fact check: “According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the majority of employment gains since 2018 have been for naturalized U.S. citizens and legal residents — not migrants.”

There was a time when a rant like this would have signaled that a politician lacked the emotional stability and intellectual capacity to hold the highest office in the land. Alas.

Also, it’s hard to overstate the cynicism here. Trump has a history of associating with white supremacists, not to mention his longstanding obsession with crime in urban, often predominantly Black precincts. Still, he clearly perceives an opportunity to peel away some Black voters by playing them off against immigrants.

But again, even if we ignore the cynicism, this new line of attack on immigration is just wrong on the facts.

If immigrants are taking away all the “Black jobs,” you can’t see it in the data, which shows Black unemployment at historic lows. If Black wages have, as Trump claims, gone way down, someone should tell the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which says that median Black earnings, adjusted for inflation, are significantly higher than they were toward the end of Trump’s term. (You should ignore the spurious bump during the pandemic, which reflected composition effects rather than genuine wage gains.)

You might ask why, given we have indeed seen a surge in immigration, that we aren’t seeing signs of an adverse, let alone cataclysmic, impact on Black wages or employment. After all, many recent immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, lack college degrees and maybe even high school education. So aren’t they competing with native-born Americans who also lack college or high school degrees?

The answer, which we’ve known since the 1990s, is that immigrant workers bring a different set of skills to the table than native-born workers, even when those workers have similar levels of formal education. And yes, I mean skills: If you think of workers without a college degree as “unskilled,” try fixing your own plumbing or doing your own carpentry. It shouldn’t need to be said, but a lot of blue-collar work is highly skilled and highly specialized. As a result, immigrants tend to take a very different mix of jobs than native-born workers do — which means that there’s much less head-to-head competition between immigrant and native-born workers than you might think, or what Trump and Vance want you to think.

The bottom line is that the attempt to portray immigration as an apocalyptic threat to Black Americans is refuted by the facts. Will it nonetheless work politically? I have no idea.

Source: Trump’s Cynical Attempt to Pit Recent Immigrants Against Black Americans

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The rich world revolts against sky-high immigration

2024/07/24 Leave a comment

The Economist’s take but ignores likely impact of AI and automation in many sectors:

Immigrants are increasingly unwelcome. Over half of Americans favour “deporting all immigrants living in the us illegally back to their home country”, up from a third in 2016. Just 10% of Australians favour more immigration, a sharp fall from a few years ago. Sir Keir Starmer, Britain’s new centre-left prime minister, wants Britain to be “less reliant on migration by training more uk workers”. Anthony Albanese, Australia’s slightly longer-serving centre-left prime minister, recently said his country’s migration system “wasn’t working properly” and wants to cut net migration in half. And that is before you get to Donald Trump, who pledges mass deportations if he wins America’s presidential election—an example populist parties across Europe hope to follow.

It is not just words either. Australia, Britain and Canada are cracking down on “degree mill” universities offering courses that allow in people whose true intention is to work. This year Canada hopes to reduce the number of study permits by a third. Other countries are making it harder for migrants to bring family with them. Last month President Joe Biden announced measures to bar those who unlawfully cross America’s southern border from receiving asylum. In France President Emmanuel Macron wants to expedite deportations; Germany is enacting similar plans. More extreme restrictions could be on their way. After all, Mr Trump’s plans imply the removal of perhaps 7.5m people. What will this crackdown mean for economies across the rich world?

chart: the economist

The change of approach follows a period of sky-high immigration. In the past three years 15m people have moved to rich countries, the biggest surge in modern history (see chart 1). Last year more than 3m people migrated to America on net, 1.3m went to Canada and about 700,000 turned up in Britain. The arrivals are from all over, including hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing war and also millions from India and sub-Saharan Africa.

Now there are signs the boom may be coming to an end. Net migration to Canada has nearly halved from its recent peak, while in New Zealand it is falling sharply. The rich world has fewer job vacancies than before, giving potential migrants less incentive to move, and the flood of refugees from Ukraine has slowed to a trickle. New anti-migrant measures are also starting to play a part. In the eu the number of third-country nationals who were returned to their home country, following an order to leave, has risen by 50% over the past two years. In the first quarter of 2024 “enforced returns” from Britain rose by 50% year on year. Illegal crossings at America’s southern border recently fell to a three-year low.

Some anti-immigration measures, especially large-scale deportations, could prove immensely damaging to economies. When Canada ramped up deportations during the Depression, it came at a large fiscal cost and clogged the ports. In 1972 the Ugandan government expelled thousands of people of Asian descent, whom it accused of profiteering. “There are virtually no African entrepreneurs left to take over the commerce,” a confidential cia memo reported in 1972, which also noted that it had become impossible to get a haircut in Kampala as all the barbers had shut.

Those close to Mr Trump argue that “Operation Wetback”—Dwight Eisenhower’s derogatorily named policy in the 1950s which expelled thousands of undocumented Mexicans—shows mass deportations can work without ill effect. True, the period was one of strong economic growth, and inflation remained low. Yet the comparison is misleading. During the 1950s legal Mexican immigration to America sharply rose, rather than fell. There is little doubt that Mr Trump’s proposal would cause economic chaos, as entire industries would be forced to find new staff. Warwick McKibbin of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a think-tank, reckons that in the unlikely event that Mr Trump successfully deported 7.5m people, American gdp would fall by 12% cumulatively over three years.

There is greater uncertainty about the effects of more moderate anti-immigration policies, even if they are still likely to be damaging. In the short term, efforts to bring down sky-high migration would probably reduce inflation in the housing market. Research by Goldman Sachs, a bank, suggests that in Australia each 100,000 decline in annual net migration reduces rents by about 1%. As migration to Britain has slowed in recent months, so has the pace of rent rises (other factors are playing a role, too). In time, though, falling migration would probably push up other inflation. As labour supply declined, wages might grow faster than otherwise, raising the price of services such as hospitality.

A clampdown would also benefit gdp per person—the yardstick by which economists usually assess living standards. As immigration surged in 2022 and 2023, gdp per person in Britain fell. It has tumbled in Germany. In Canada it remains nearly 4% off its high in 2022. This has happened in part because the latest arrivals are on average less skilled than the resident population, meaning that they cannot command high salaries. Although this is a mechanical effect, rather than an actual hit to natives’ living standards, reducing immigration could stop the slide in the short term.

But it would do so with long-term costs. The new arrivals are finding jobs. Although for decades immigrants to Britain were less likely than natives to work, for the first time ever this is no longer true (see chart 2). The employment rate of migrants in Europe is the same as that for natives. Immigrants in America have long been likelier to work than people born in the country, and in recent months the gap has widened. Cracking down on migration risks provoking the re-emergence of labour shortages that plagued rich economies in 2021 and 2022, and which drag on gdp per person by creating inefficiencies. In the long term, immigration also allows for more specialisation in the labour force.

chart: the economist

Crucially, the new arrivals often work in unglamorous, poorly paid but nonetheless vital industries, including construction and health care. From 2019 to 2023 the number of foreign-born people in America’s construction workforce rose sharply, even as the number of native builders fell. In Norway the number of foreign workers employed in health care has jumped by 20% since the covid-19 pandemic. The number of doctors working in Ireland but who trained elsewhere is up by 28%. During the same period the number of Chinese staff in Britain’s struggling National Health Service has doubled, while the number of Kenyans tripled.

Over time rich countries, which have ageing populations, will need more workers who are young and keen to work. This is because few politicians are talking about measures such as drastically raising the retirement age or how to make health care much more efficient. Although cracking down on new arrivals may buy politicians support for now, economic logic means the stance will be a nightmare to maintain. 

Source: The rich world revolts against sky-high immigration

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Canadian provinces in open competition for economic immigrants

2024/07/24 Leave a comment

Summary of interesting research:

At a time of widespread labor shortages, the competition to attract and retain skilled immigrants isn’t just between countries; Canada’s provinces are also competing against each other. Catherine Xhardez, a professor in the Department of Political Science at Université de Montréal who studies immigration policy, discussed the trend in a talk on June 6 at the Forum sur l’intégration 2024 in Montreal.

Based on her recent study titled “‘Stand by me’: competitive subnational regimes and the politics of retaining immigrants,” Xhardez examined the strategies used by the provinces to attract, select and above all retain economic immigrants.

The work is published in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

More immigration powers

While Quebec was the first province to gain increased powers over immigration, the other provinces quickly followed suit. Under bilateral agreements with the federal government, they now have significant powers, particularly over economic immigration.

“Of all the federated entities in the world, Canada’s provinces have the greatest say in immigration matters,” Xhardez said. “They have used their autonomy to develop policies for attracting, recruiting, selecting and receiving immigrants, as well as distribution strategies to spread newcomers across their territory.”

The instrument most frequently used by provinces to attract economic immigrants is the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP), which lets them directly select a significant portion of their skilled immigrants. In some cases, up to 90% of a province’s economic immigrants have been selected through the PNP.

After these targeted selection efforts, however, provinces face a major challenge in retaining the immigrants they have selected.

“Under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, immigrants enjoy the same freedom of movement as Canadian citizens, with some qualifications, and can therefore change province at will,” Xhardez noted.

Varying retention rates

The data Xhardez gathered by reviewing provincial documents published between 2005 and 2022 and 63 economic immigration programs show significant interprovincial differences in retention five years after arrival.

British Columbia, Quebec and Alberta lead the way with retention rates of 86%, 85% and 83% respectively (5-year rates), all immigrant categories). At the other end of the scale, some Atlantic provinces struggle to hold onto immigrants: New Brunswick retains 50%, Newfoundland and Labrador 46%, and Prince Edward Island 31%.

Taking local ties into account

To maximize their chances of retaining economic immigrants, the provinces apply specific selection criteria, using PNPs not only as tools for attraction and selection but also as levers for retention.

Xhardez divides the provinces’ actions on this front into four categories:

  • Adaptability factors: Applicants are favored if they already have family, professional or educational ties to the province.
  • Demonstrated intent and ability to settle permanently: Some provinces, such as Manitoba, require proof of ties to the local community.
  • Detailed settlement plan: Applicants may be required to provide a concrete integration plan, including points such as place of residence and education for their children.
  • Exclusion criteria: Candidates may be rejected if, for example, they reside in another province or own property in another province.

These practices give rise to a new selection criterion: According to Xhardez, the “ideal migrant” is no longer just someone who has the required professional skills but also someone who shows a strong commitment to the host province.

“It remains to be seen whether these policies work in the long term and we need a better understanding of immigrants’ trajectories,” she said. There are, she noted, other factors that can influence the decision to stay in a province or leave.

Major financial and societal challenges

The importance that Canadian provinces attach to retaining economic immigrants “is due to the provinces’ investments and efforts in both attracting and integrating newcomers,” Xhardez observed. “The departure of an immigrant to another province is therefore a net loss for the original host province.”

Beyond the financial considerations, these retention strategies raise questions about the balance between the provinces’ economic needs and immigrants’ right to mobility. They also highlight the challenges of long-term integration of newcomers and building a sense of belonging.

“As the competition for talent intensifies, Canadian provinces continue to refine their approaches,” said Xhardez. “The effectiveness of these policies and their impact on the country’s demographic and economic distribution will remain subjects of study and debate in the years to come.”

Source: Canadian provinces in open competition for economic immigrants

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Canadian Christian Colleges Hit Hard by New Immigration Restrictions

2024/07/23 Leave a comment

Notable impact:

It seemed like a door had opened.

Providence University College and Theological Seminary in Manitoba started an associate’s degree program that could be marketed to international students. To president Kenton Anderson’s delight, the two-year degree attracted a significant number of applicants eager to study in Canada. Several hundred students enrolled.

For the private evangelical school, that generated significant revenue and helped further fulfill the mission of spreading the gospel around the world.

Providence made plans to grow the program—could they attract 500 international students? 600? 700?—and bought an apartment building in nearby Winnipeg to provide increased student housing.

Then, a single government decision closed that door.

Canada’s federal government announced new restrictions on undergraduate international students in January 2024. When the rules take effect this fall, the total number will be reduced by about 35 percent.

Providence was anticipating several hundred new international students. Now, when the semester starts the first week of September, the school will only greet about 20.

“It’s many millions of dollars of revenue just gone,” Anderson told CT. “And, of course, as a private tuition-funded Christian school, it’s not like we have a lot of that money lying around.”

According to the Canadian government, there are several reasons to reduce the number of international students at Canadian colleges and universities. Officials said they were concerned that lax admissions were diminishing the quality of the country’s education.

“We want to ensure that international students are successful and to tackle the issues that make students vulnerable and hurt the integrity of the International Student Program,” Julie Lafortune, a spokeswoman for the department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, told CT in an email.

The government was also concerned about the strain that the influx of internationals puts on the already stressed housing market. Many cities across Canada have seen housing costs skyrocket in recent years. Experts estimate 5.8 million new homes would have to be built by 2030 to bring prices back down to affordable levels.

“While international students are not responsible for the challenges that communities are facing in housing, health care, and other services, the growth in the number of international students is unsustainable and has added significant demand for services that all Canadians must be able to access,” Lafortune said.

The new rule sets limits on international students for each province. The provinces will then determine the allocation of that limited number of students—how many will go to one school, how many to another.

In Manitoba, the government decided to prioritize permits for international students attending public universities. Providence was allowed just a small amount.

Anderson said the combined decisions of the federal and provincial governments were enough to threaten the existence of the evangelical university. But Providence isn’t alone, he said. Many institutions of higher education are going to suffer.

“That was a very popular move politically for them to make, but it was a bit of a blunt instrument,” he said. “It just kind of like hit everybody.”

Kingswood University in New Brunswick will notice the hit.

In its 80-year history, the Methodist-affiliated school has come to rely on the flow of enrollments from abroad. Sometimes as much as 40 percent of the student body has been international. The majority have come from the United States, but many have come from further away as well, reflecting Kingswood’s Methodist ties and its missions-minded identity.

“It’s impossible for us to do what we were chosen and funded to do because of this new rule,” president Stephen Lennox told CT.

In the rural community of Sussex, where the university is located, housing is not a major problem, according to Lennox. He understands the government concerns about education quality and housing stock, but neither issue actually applies to Kingswood. So the rule doesn’t solve anything but does seriously hurt the school.

Christian Higher Education Canada sent a letter to Marc Miller, minister of immigration, refugees, and citizenship, asking him to reconsider. Lennox, who is on the board, is one of the leaders at 22 Christian schools in Canada who signed the appeal.

“Our schools provide theological education, preparing individuals to fill positions as pastors and other religious professionals,” it said. “Limiting the number of international students restricts us in our mission to help alleviate the pastoral leadership deficit in churches around the world.”

One major issue that will impact Kingswood is the change to the process of admitting US students. Americans who want to study at evangelical schools in Canada will find it’s a bit more difficult than it was before.

“They’ve always been allowed to enter by a door that’s a little easier to pass through than a typical international student. Now they all have to come through the same door,” Lennox said. “A student two hours away in Calais, Maine, has to go through the same process that someone coming from Swaziland has to go through. And to me, that just doesn’t seem to make any sense.”

Some evangelical schools in Canada have seen problems with housing. The government concern about people having places to live is relevant to their context. But they were already figuring out solutions.

“Finding housing in Moncton can be a challenge,” said Darrell Nevers, marketing and communications manager at Crandall University, a school associated with the Canadian Baptists of Atlantic Canada. “However, our student network is strong; most students can find suitable housing before arrival or soon afterwards. We also work with community partners to help students find safe and affordable housing.”

Crandall, which is also in New Brunswick, typically recruits between 400 and 450 international students each year to the Moncton campus—just under 50 percent of overall enrollment. The largest numbers of students come from India, Nigeria, Columbia, Ghana, and Bangladesh. The majority are enrolled in graduate programs, however, which are exempt from the new restrictions for now.

That reduces the impact but doesn’t entirely eliminate it. Crandall is welcoming only 8–12 international undergraduate students this fall but 140 additional students are enrolled in graduate programs.

“While we are certainly concerned that these changes will impact our undergraduate student enrollment, we believe that our provincial government has been incredibly fair in how they have allocated numbers to New Brunswick schools,” Nevers said.

Faced with the new restrictions, some universities have chosen to pivot.

“We feel like the Lord has definitely closed a door for this season. We hope that it opens again, either with a change of government or just because they see there is a better way. But we also feel like, ‘Hey, the Lord wants us to exist. What other options are out there for us?’” said Lennox at Kingswood.

Currently, the school has plans to offer a one-year master’s in leadership starting in January 2025. Those students will be exempt from the new restriction, and Kingswood hopes to recruit enough of them to offset the losses in undergraduate enrollment. Since it’s a one-year program instead of a four-year program, however, they will have to recruit at a faster rate.

Providence has also taken steps to expand its graduate offerings. Anderson said it was incredibly difficult for faculty and staff to get a new program in place as quickly as they needed to, but it was essential to the future of the institution.

“It was just one of those things where you do or die, so to speak,” the president said. “We’re doing a lot of things to strengthen our work and our sustainability as an institution and what we offer to the kingdom of God, to the church, to our communities.”

New graduate programs will bring about 300 international students to Providence this fall. That alleviates immediate financial concerns, but school officials have a new awareness of how easily that could change. Recruiting more international students no longer seems like a key piece of a solid plan for sustainability.

“The international work was good in that it was helping buy time, essentially,” Anderson said. “Now, we’re going to have to dig a little deeper.”

Source: Canadian Christian Colleges Hit Hard by New Immigration Restrictions

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