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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Foreign student permits are already outpacing 2023’s record numbers

2024/07/23 Leave a comment

Analysis fails to address time lags between expressing web interest in getting a study permit and more significantly, the number of applications processed. Both are down about 25 percent, January-May, 2024 compared to same period in 2023.

While the number of study permit holders increased January to May, the numbers have started to decline in April and May by just over 12 percent:

Even as federal Liberal government is pledging to cap the number of international study permits, its own data show Canada is approving permits at a pace faster than last year, which saw a record number of approvals.

According to numbers curated online by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), Canada handed out 216,620 international study permits in the first five months of 2024.

Just 200,205 study permits were handed out during the same time period in 2023.

By the end of 2023, 682,420 study permits had been granted to foreign students.

Canada has been granting the vast majority of permits to India, with 278,335 going to students from that country in 2023, a number nearly five times more than to students from China, the second-highest country of origin, who were granted 58,230 permits in 2023.

Canada’s third-most popular source of international students in 2023 was Nigeria, with 37,575 permits handed out in 2023, followed by the Philippines with 33,830, and Nepal at 15,920…

Source: Foreign student permits are already outpacing 2023’s record numbers

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Semotiuk: Deporting 11 Million U.S. Undocumented Immigrants: Mission Impossible

2024/07/23 Leave a comment

Indeed:

Recently, America’s Voice, a pro-immigration NGO, spoke up about the ramifications of former President Donald Trump’s plan to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. “It means detention camps full of immigrants waiting to be removed. This would affect all undocumented people living in the US, even those who have lived here for decades.” It added, “The moral cost to the country would be unimaginable. It would also lead to economic disaster. The cost to deport 11 million people would come to more than $265 billion. The deportation of every 1 million immigrants would cause an estimated 88,000 American job losses. We would lose trillions in immigrant taxes, economic contributions, and payments into Social Security and Medicare.”

Legally Speaking

Legally speaking, the complications of such an endeavour have been summarized as follows: “Even undocumented immigrants in America have certain constitutional rights, particularly those who have been here for longer periods of time. For example, longer-term noncitizens are entitled to the right to counsel, albeit at their own expense. They are also protected by at least the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process. These immigrants also have other legal protections.

These constitutional rights mean that removing illegal immigrants from America would require legal hearings in courtrooms. In addition to considering the rights of the defendants, this would create a logistical nightmare, tying up the courts from dealing with other substantive issues. Judges, prosecutors, defence counsel as well as the persons concerned would all have to coordinate their calendars to schedule mutually agreeable dates for hearings before illegal immigrants could be deported. If you multiply this by some millions of cases, you have a better idea of why legally removing these immigrants from America is going to take a long time and will be very expensive.” What is more, trying to do it without respecting these legal rights essentially involves converting America into a dictatorship and is, therefore, unacceptable.

Other Consequences

But one other consequence of all this has not been considered: its impossibility and the likely destabilization of other states if it were done.

At least 15 countries that will not accept the return of their nationals due to deportation. These include China, India, and Russia, for example. Indeed, it can be anticipated that as many as 150 countries will refuse the return of large numbers of their nationals from the U.S. Trump’s threats to cut American aid to them may work on some, but few, and certainly not on most. Thus, the proposal becomes impossible to implement.

Case In Point: Mexico

Special problems arise in the case of Mexico. Over four millionundocumented Mexicans live in the United States. When added to the problem of the flow of hundreds of thousands of migrants seeking to enter the U.S. through Mexico, the addition of four million returning Mexicans would be overwhelming for the country. There is no guarantee of cooperation in this venture.

What About Canada?

In the case of Canada, the commencement of deportation measures in the U.S. against 11 million people would likely drive many undocumented immigrants northward, legally or illegally. Each year, Canada’s current immigration levels come in at about 500,000. In past years, irregular crossings from the U.S. to Canada of about 100,000 migrants at Roxham Road were a major burden for Canadian authorities. It is not hard to imagine the dislocations in Canada that could be caused if, say, even one million noncitizens of the U.S. decided to make their way northward to avoid U.S. deportations back to their homelands.

Conclusion

In short, deporting 11 million noncitizen migrants from the United States is a mission impossible. But instead of deportations, there is another more reasonable way of dealing with this problem. It would be to allow those undocumented immigrants who have been here for many years to stay by moving the registry date forward but to require them to do some community service to atone for their undocumented entry. Let reasonable minds prevail and avoid the disaster former President Trump has in mind for America.

Source: Deporting 11 Million U.S. Undocumented Immigrants: Mission Impossible

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Hansen: How the OPEC oil crisis caused mass migration

2024/07/22 Leave a comment

Interesting thesis but Hansen overly captured by his narrative as migration has existing for centuries as has elite exploitation of labour:

…By destroying economic growth and reconfiguring the global economy and geopolitics, the OPEC oil crisis set in motion processes that resulted in more than 100 million unexpected, and unwanted, labour migrants. Entire wage-debased sectors – meat processing, agriculture, construction, retail, textiles and garments, and domestic labour – are wholly dependent on badly paid, poorly treated low-skilled migrants. And oil-driven wars – the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Iran-Iraq War, and the two U.S. attacks on Iraq – generated about 15 million refugees. The world is awash in immigrants driven by war, drawn by work and destined to desire our insatiable consumer wants.

There is little evidence that anything will change. The dependence of multiple sectors, of middle-class affluence, and of economies as diverse as those of Germany, Thailand, the United States and Korea on low-skilled migrant labour suggests that, in the absence of a fundamental reform of how low-skilled work is valued and paid, such migration will continue. “Mass immigration,” is not, as economist Sir Paul Collier claims, “a temporary response to an ugly phase in which prosperity has not yet globalized.” Rather, large-scale, low-skilled, badly paid and ill-treated migrants are a structural feature of global capitalism and global politics. They, and the exploitation they suffer, are here to stay.

Source: How the OPEC oil crisis caused mass migration

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Prousky: Canada’s housing crisis is fuelling a population crisis

2024/07/20 Leave a comment

Interesting turning around debates over immigration levels. But yes, levels have to come down given the time it takes to increase housing:

…The global pool from which to attract smart, employable immigrants is slowly shrinking. Africa is now the only region on Earth whose population is expected to grow by the end of the century. Meanwhile, the world’s population is expected to decrease in that time period. So in the coming century, rich nations – all of which have birth rates well below 2.1 – may be competing for the same small pool of working-age migrants.

Beyond immigration, there are a host of pro-natal policies that countries have devised to boost fertility. Governments in Asia have spent hundreds of billions of dollars to stave off looming population crises. Singapore, with one of the lowest fertility rates in the world at just 0.97, offers generous grants and tax rebates to parents with two or more children. But its fertility rate hasn’t budged.

It’s only a matter of time, it seems, before the Canadian government begins throwing big money at the country’s nascent fertility problem. The lesson from abroad is, don’t wait. Increasing the country’s housing supply today could be the best defence against a population crisis down the road.

Source: Canada’s housing crisis is fuelling a population crisis

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Key Takeaways From the Republican Convention’s Message on Immigration

2024/07/20 Leave a comment

Useful summary:

Former President Donald J. Trump and Republicans are in lock step on the issue of immigration, further evidence that he has cemented his grip on the party during his third run for the White House.

At the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week, the rhetoric and the party platform match his vision of isolationism and border security, and his suspicion of the people crossing the 2,000-mile line dividing Mexico and the United States, as they have since his first run for president in 2016. But the broadsides have become darker and the language more conspiratorial.

Here are four immigration takeaways from the convention.

In panels and speeches at the convention, falsehoods about noncitizens’ voting have become more pervasive and central to Mr. Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.

Mark Morgan, a former top Trump immigration official, claimed without evidence that Democrats were encouraging illegal immigration for political reasons, in order to bring more people into their party. Kari Lake, a Trump acolyte and Republican nominee for Senate in Arizona, falsely accused her Democratic opponent of voting “to let the millions of people who poured into our country illegally cast a ballot in this upcoming election.”

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said Democrats “wanted votes from illegals more than they wanted to protect our children.” Senator Rick Scott of Florida recalled a nightmare, he said, in which “Biden and the Democrats flew so many illegals” into the United States that it “was easy for Democrats to rig the elections.”

Voter fraud is extraordinarily rare, and allegations that widespread numbers of undocumented immigrants are unlawfully voting have been consistently discredited. But Mr. Trump’s false claim, which is being used to disenfranchise Americans, has almost universally been adopted by his party.

Kate Steinle. Laken Riley. Rachel Morin. Republican political candidates and leaders are invoking the names of women, many of them young and white, who authorities have said were killed by undocumented immigrants. Their deaths have been used to amplify calls for mass deportations and other hard-line immigration restrictions.

On Tuesday, Mr. Cruz drew shudders from some audience members as he described sitting in homes with the grieving families of some the women. “Tonight, I speak for Kate and Laken and Rachel,” he said.

A day later, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas named 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, who was killed in Houston. Two undocumented Venezuelan men have been charged in her strangling. “She’s one of thousands whose lives have been destroyed by Joe Biden’s open border policies,” he said.

There is little comprehensive data on the crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. But many studies show that crime has gone down while illegal immigration has increased, and that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than are people born in the United States. Republicans say that any crime committed by a person not lawfully in the country is one too many.

Source: Key Takeaways From the Republican Convention’s Message on Immigration

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‘Shocking and unjustifiable:’ Canada is deporting migrants at its highest rate in more than a decade [or is it?]

2024/07/19 Leave a comment

Cue the outrage. Cite statistics without context and you get a header like this.

Rather than absolute numbers, which indeed show the Liberal government having lower numbers that the previous Conservative government and a sharp spike in 2023/24, it is the percentage of removals compared to the number of temporary residents admitted that is relevant.

The last 9 years when numbers of temporary residents increased dramatically presents a different picture of removals compared to international students and asylum claimants:

Fiscal RemovalsStudentsAsylum ClaimantsTotal  %
201511,938219,03516,055235,0905.1%
20168,696264,28523,860288,1453.0%
20178,014314,98550,375365,3602.2%
20188,220354,27555,035409,3102.0%
20199,707400,58564,030464,6152.1%
202011,577255,57023,690279,2604.1%
202111,258443,61524,885468,5002.4%
20227,522548,43091,700640,1301.2%
202310,222682,430143,580826,0101.2%

So perhaps the header should have read: “‘Shocking and unjustifiable:’ Canada is deporting migrants at its lowest rate in more than a decade:”

Canada has spent more than $115 million deporting nearly 29,000 migrants since 2022, an unprecedented rate that flies in the face of the federal government’s promise to regularize the status of undocumented workers, advocates say.

In 2023, Ottawa spent more than $62 million on deportations, the highest amount spent in a year in over a decade, according to data from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) dating back to 2011.

The deportation rate in 2023 was the highest since 2012, when more than 19,000 people were deported under Stephen Harper’s Conservative government. The deportations include “all removals enforced in each fiscal year,” the CBSA said, including refugee claimants, and migrants residing, working or studying in Canada who have overstayed their legal status.

When asked about the growth in deportations, the agency said “the number of removals enforced in any given year will fluctuate,” adding that the March 2023 expansion of the Safe Third Country Agreement, aimed at limiting asylum seekers entering Canada through unofficial entry points, has contributed to this year’s increase.

About 90 per cent of the total deportations since 2005 are due to “non-compliance,” the CBSA added, referring to migrants living in Canada without authorization. “Criminality,” the second most common reason for deportation, accounts for just over seven per cent of removals.

“The fact that $200 million has been spent to deport tens of thousands of people since 2020 — and after this promise has been made — is shocking and unjustifiable,” said Syed Hussan of the Migrant Rights Network, a national advocacy group for farmworkers, care workers, international students and undocumented people.

Advocates for migrant workers say the surge in deportations runs contrary to the government’s December 2021 commitment to a ‘regularization program’ for undocumented migrants. Such a program would allow migrants to stay in Canada as the government responds to historic labour shortages by ramping up immigration and issuing work permits to non-Canadians in record numbers.

Source: ‘Shocking and unjustifiable:’ Canada is deporting migrants at its highest rate in more than a decade

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What Would It Take to Deport Millions of Immigrants? The G.O.P. Plan, Explained

2024/07/19 Leave a comment

Good long read on the practicalities and virtual impossibilities of doing so. Any such efforts would of course be divisive, disruptive, costly and likely only partially successful (like the partially completed wall in his presidency):

When Donald Trump ran for president in 2016, he vowed to build a wall to seal the border and keep criminals from entering the country. This campaign season, his immigration agenda has a new focus: a mass deportation program unlike anything the country has seen.

His party’s platform, ratified at the Republican convention in Milwaukee, promises the “largest deportation effort in American history,” and immigration was the theme of Tuesday’s gathering.

What would it take to deport millions of people? Is it even possible?

There were 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States in 2022, according to the latest government estimates, and more than eight out of 10 have been in the country for more than a decade. Mr. Trump said during the debate last month that there were 18 million, which is unsubstantiated.

Fleeing political and economic turmoil, migrants from countries like Venezuela have crossed the border in record numbers during the Biden administration.

Mr. Trump and the Republican platform have made broad declarations but thus far offered scant details about their intended operation.

The former president has suggested that any undocumented immigrant is subject to removal.

The party platform states that “the most dangerous criminals” would be prioritized.

It also said: “The Republican Party is committed to sending illegal aliens back home and removing those who have violated our laws.”

The consensus among immigration experts and former homeland security officials is that logistical, legal, bureaucratic and cost barriers would make it virtually impossible to carry out the mass deportations Mr. Trump seeks in the span of a four-year presidential term.

“It’s enormously complicated and an expensive thing to decide to deport people who have been here years,” said Laura Collins, an immigration expert at the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas.

Currently, ICE agents focus on locating and deporting convicted criminals, such as child molesters and others suspected of being a threat to public or national security.

Some one million immigrants with final removal orders living in the country could be a targeted group.

“Let’s say you find these people. You then have to detain them,” said Mr. Neifach. “How are you going to expand detention in a way that won’t blow the bank?”

Every potential deportee is held in a detention facility, and in the current fiscal year, Congress funded the detention of 41,500 immigrants daily at a cost of $3.4 billion, which would need to increase exponentially.

And many immigrants hail from countries that do not have diplomatic ties with the United States or that refuse to take back their nationals. They cannot be immediately flown out of the country, and the Supreme Court has ruled that people cannot remain detained for limitless periods awaiting removal.

The ICE budget for transportation and deportation in fiscal 2023 was $420 million, and the agency deported 142,580 people that year.

Another Trump administration could speed up deportations by terminating programs that the Biden administration has introduced.

For example, since 2022, some 500,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela have been allowed to fly to the United States and live and work for two years, provided they have a financial sponsor. Mr. Biden has also allowed nearly 700,000 migrants who make an appointment on a mobile app to cross the border through an official port of entry and receive work permits.

“Trump could flick the switch and revoke it,” said Mr. Neifach. But, he added, many of the migrants could make asylum claims and become part of the clogged courts.

Expedited removal at the border enables the swift deportation of migrants without a hearing, unless they convince an agent that they would face the threat of violence back home, and Mr. Biden in June issued an executive order currently being challenged in court to amplify use of this tool.

Mr. Trump could try to extend it to the interior, though he would likely face court challenges.

Mr. Trump has not addressed whether he would exercise any discretion, or make any exceptions.

More than one million Americans are married to an undocumented person, and a large share of undocumented immigrants have children who are U.S. citizens.

“When you are talking those kinds of numbers and law enforcement presence, you have to think at the end — what does that do to the atmosphere in the country?” said Ms. Napolitano, the former Homeland Security secretary.

Source: What Would It Take to Deport Millions of Immigrants? The G.O.P. Plan, Explained

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