AI Can Fix Immigration, Low Fertility & Retirements

2024/07/12 1 Comment

While I believe that AI holds great potential, this analysis is overly optimistic in the shorter term. Longer-term, much more likely:

AI-enabled automation may hold the key to solving three major problems: immigration, low fertility rates and retirements. But strangely, automation is not a planned policy solution to these and related problems. Why there were all sorts of problems with how the US federal government handled the Covid 19 pandemic, Operation Warp Speed was not one of them. Should AI-enabled automation receive the same kind of investment priority the vaccine received – instead of how defensively everyone treats “automation”? Remember that Operation Warp Speed “was a public-private partnership initiated by the United States government to facilitate and accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics.” Is this a model for investments in AI and automation?

AI & Immigration

For example, instead of making economic arguments for why the US (and other countries) need immigrants, why not sidestep the argument with a massive federal investment in automation designed to contribute directly to economic growth? Is there a public-private partnership opportunity here? Obviously many companies are pursuing automation at breakneck speed. They want to save money and increase profitability by reducing their dependency on humans. Progress is impressive. But the suggestion here is a massive public-private partnership to accelerate and focus automation on the economic holes immigration is intended to fill.

Obviously, there are many reasons why people come to the US and other developed countries. The economic argument is not to diminish any of those motivations. Instead, the hypothesis is that the economic arguments around immigration might be framed very differently than they are today. We know, for example, that many immigrants come to the US to avoid political prosecution, violence and because they want better lives for their families. All good, but the economic arguments that politicians make about the need for more immigration might be influenced by warp speed investments in automation. Of course, since “politicians” are heat-seeking missiles to money and power, it’s impossible to know if they’d even entertain arguments that don’t perfectly fit their personal agendas. But that aside, there are opportunities to leverage AI-enabled automation to address some of the economic requirements that immigration might – or might not – satisfy.

AI & Low Fertility Rates

Let’s now look at human reproduction:

“The general fertility rate in the United States decreased by 3% from 2022, reaching a historic low. This marks the second consecutive year of decline, following a brief 1% increase from 2020 to 2021. From 2014 to 2020, the rate consistently decreased by 2% annually.”

(Note that “the fertility rate measures the number of live births per 1,000 women within the childbearing age range, often 15-44 years old.”)

What does this mean?

“A prolonged US total fertility rate this low – specifically, a rate substantially below 2 – would lead to slower population growth, which could in turn cause slower economic growth and present fiscal challenges. While the decline presents a fairly new challenge to the United States, other high-income countries have sustained below replacement level fertility for some years now and have attempted policies to mitigate that trend.”

Automation can help mitigate the trends. AI can provide nuanced efficiencies.

Is automation an answer to aging societies? Well, if there’s machine to replace a non-existent human – so long as the human needs to be replaced – is that all bad? All of the worry about aging societies shrinking because of low birth rates can perhaps be relieved through automation.

Retirements

The same argument that applies to low fertility applies to retirements, early or otherwise. What does it matter if someone retires from a job that can be automated?

We’re told that retirements are increasing at a pace never before seen:

“Today, the number of retirees is surging at a remarkable pace, outpacing the influx of new workers. This trend is leading to an unparalleled aging of America’s population, bringing about significant transformations in the workforce, economy, and the global mobility industry.”

Implications?

“The demand for workers continues to be robust, with approximately two job openings available for every unemployed individual. And with more than 75 million baby boomers retiring sooner rather than later, it’s clear that employers will need a strong workforce plan for replacing exiting workers.

“Meeting the workforce gap presents a considerable challenge. Relying solely on Gen X workers is not enough, and many millennials may lack essential work experience. Foreign-born workers could face immigration hurdles, and not all roles are suitable for flexible or remote workers.”

If ever there was a role for automation, this is it.

Automation Policy

I’ve discussed this before:

“Do we need tax preparers? Car salespersons? Loan officers? Automation has only begun, and as more and more employees call it quits, automation may take their place faster than we think. Why wouldn’t Uber want to eliminate their biggest headache – drivers – with autonomous vehicles? Why wouldn’t all companies want to deploy ‘workers’ that work 24/7, never need vacations, never join unions and never get sick? Checkout clerks? Postal workers? Gas station attendants (almost gone now)? And many more.”

Honeywell reports some survey results that focus on robotics:

“The productivity gains that we see from … robotics have increased,” said John Dillon … ‘the technology has gotten better … (and) the cost of not automating has gotten higher.’

“That’s because a warehouse that might typically require 2,000 workers could deploy technologies and warehouse execution software to instead operate with only 200 people.”

Automation may be the answer to many economic problems. In 1982 (!), the government believed in the power of automation through “federal efforts to encourage automation (which included): (1) financial incentives for private sector action; (2) research responsibilities; (3) technology transfer mechanisms; (4) support of engineering education; and (5) the development of standards to facilitate integration of diverse components of automation systems.” But today – 40 years later – here’s the question heard over and over again: “what should the government do about the coming automation apocalypse?”

Automation and its closest friend “AI,” are not the apocalypse. They’re solutions to some tough economic problems the US and developed countries face. Yes, there will be job displacement and perfectly timing the adoption of automation to immigration, fertility rates and retirements is impossible. But the hypotheses should at least be tested. It may be that planned automation can reduce some economic stress — maybe a lot of stress. The technology is ready. The companies are ready. But will the politicians support Operation Automation? Or are they focused on other things?

Source: AI Can Fix Immigration, Low Fertility & Retirements

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Canada to stop processing study permits for colleges, universities that fail to track international students

2024/07/11 Leave a comment

The federal government having to take on a role the provinces should be doing given in their jurisdiction :

The federal government plans to suspend processing of study permits from post-secondary students if the schools fail to keep track of international students’ enrolment. 

The proposed regulations would compel colleges and universities to report to the federal Immigration Department whether a student is attending school and complying with all study permit requirements.

The move is part of recent attempts to restore confidence in Canada’s international student program.

Under the plan unveiled in the Canada Gazette, students must also apply for a new study permit whenever they want to switch schools, and before the start date of the new study program.

In flexing its muscle to ensure compliance, the federal government is treading a fine line, as governance of the education system falls under provincial jurisdiction.

The Immigration Department is responsible for the entry of international students, establishing the conditions that study permit holders must meet while in Canada, and deciding whether a study permit should be issued.

Although Ottawa only grants study permits to “designated learning institutions,” it’s the provinces that designate if a college or university is authorized to admit international students.

As a result, federal officials have had a tough time monitoring what goes on after a student enters Canada. They don’t know if a student is enrolled in the school named in their study permits or if they are actually studying until they need to extend a permit or apply for postgraduation work permits….

Source: Canada to stop processing study permits for colleges, universities that fail to track international students

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Posts linking crime to immigration in Canada are unfounded

2024/07/11 2 Comments

Of note and unhelpful misrepresentation of the data:
Crime rates in Canada have been on a slight rise over the last decade, but there is no evidence linking this to immigration encouraged by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government. Research shows Canadian immigrants commit fewer offenses overall than native-born citizens.

“The rise in violent crime in Canada coincides with Trudeau’s record breaking immigration levels every year since he was elected much of which is from the islamic world,” says a June 22, 2024 Facebook post.

The post includes a graph from the data-gathering site Statista that shows the violent crime rate in Canada fell between 2001 and 2014 before climbing again after 2015 — the year Trudeau assumed office. The same graph has circulated in multiple Canadian Facebook groups.

Screenshot of a Facebook post taken July 9, 2024

Screenshot of a Facebook post taken July 9, 2024

The Liberal prime minister’s term has been marked by a push to increase immigration, triggering debates about the availability of housing, food and jobs — as well as misinformation.

The Statista chart cited in the posts roughly matches data on violent, police-reported crime from Statistics Canada (archived here and here). However, government data do not indicate a relationship with immigration, which has steadily risen since the 1950s (archived here).

This screenshot taken July 9, 2024 shows a Statistics Canada graph depicting police-reported crime between 1962 and 2022

This screenshot taken July 9, 2024 shows a Statistics Canada graph depicting immigration rates from 1871 to 2021, as well as future projections

“Anyone can find a correlation between any two things,” said Frank Cormier, a criminologist at the University of Manitoba (archived here). “In-correlation most certainly does not always — actually very rarely — indicates causation.”

He added that research shows “areas that have higher rates of immigration actually tend to see lower crime rates.”

“So, there is absolutely zero evidence that links higher rates of immigration with higher rates of crime,” he said July 4, 2024.

Examining crime, immigration

Researchers have for decades found an inverse relationship between immigration and crime in Canada.

A 2009 study from the University of Toronto found any trends towards youthful criminal activity among immigrants in the city decreased between two generations growing up in the 1970s and 1990s (archived here).

More recently, a 2020 paper from Toronto Metropolitan University examining crime rates between 1976 and 2011 also found the proportion of foreign-born residents was “either not significantly associated or negatively associated with changes in crime rates within Canadian cities” (archived here).

Cormier said one possible explanation is that immigrants must abide by the law to preserve their sometimes tenuous status within the country.

“Adults who are immigrants know that if they commit a crime that is serious enough, they face deportation,” he said. “So, the average immigrant has far more to lose than the average non-immigrant in Canada.”

Cormier said new arrivals also tend to place a higher emphasis on familial bonds and education, which generally lead people away from criminal activity.

Nicolas Ajzenman, an assistant professor in the economics department at McGill University (archived here), agreed that in Europe and the Americas, the effect of immigration on crime is practically non-existent.

However, he emphasized that immigrants are a heterogeneous demographic and that no trend applies globally.

“There are also a few papers documenting a positive effect, especially when the regulations to work legally are tougher,” he said in a July 4, 2024 email, noting that some research has found evidence of increased property crime rates.

A 2013 study found this trend in the United Kingdom, for example (archived here).

But property crime is not the same as violent crime, the category mentioned in the social media posts — and Ajzenman said immigrants who can fully integrate into local labor markets are usually associated with a reduction in delinquency.

Comparing crime statistics

Cormier said data alone do not paint a complete picture of crime, since they only measure incidents recorded by law enforcement.

“If police concentrate their efforts looking at certain types of crime or against certain parts of a city, then crime rates in those areas or on those certain crimes will tend to go up quite significantly,” he said.

Cormier said the Statista graph shared online also shows a relatively small date range, implying that crime has jumped dramatically in the past 10 years.

However, more complete data from Statistics Canada indicate crime reports are still below the level seen in 1990s.

“We’re still not anywhere close to where things were before,” Cormier said.

Statistics Canada reported in 2018 that while there was not one single cause for decreasing crime near the end of the 20th century, the dip could be related to an aging population, changing police strategies and shifting attitudes toward illegal behavior (archived here).

Researchers and news reports say Canada’s violent crime rate has risen since 2015 due to a combination of factors, including waning social safety nets — especially following the Covid-19 pandemic — over-reliance on police and firearms entering from the United States.

Read more of AFP’s reporting on misinformation in Canada here.

Source: Posts linking crime to immigration in Canada are unfounded

Filed under Immigration Tagged with

Steven Vertovec in conversation with Dan Hiebert

2024/07/11 Leave a comment

Nice short and informative interview:

Our Founding Director Prof. Steven Vertovec in conversation with Dan Hiebert, Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of British Columbia, on the world of migration from a policy perspective.

Source: Steven Vertovec in conversation with Dan Hiebert

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Oreopoulous and Skuterud: Once the envy of the world, Canada’s immigration system now lies dismantled

2024/07/10 Leave a comment

Another good sophisticated critique of current immigration policy:

…Labour market earnings are our best indicator of the value of workers’ skills to the economy. Studies of earnings reveal that not all skills are valued equally and not all schools are equally good at attracting and producing skills. Yet in screening applicants, our current immigrant selection system ignores the schools, fields of study and academic grades of applicants.

We’re completely ignoring the lessons of history. 2001 saw the introduction of a new Immigration Act that doubled down on the human capital model of economic immigration. Canada’s annual immigration rate was kept at a steady and predictable 0.8 per cent of the population, mandatory premigration language testing and credential assessment were introduced, and a new selection system regularly selected applicants with the highest predicted future earnings.

The result? After decades of deteriorating immigrant earnings, research from Statistics Canada and a separate study by the Parliamentary Budget Officer shows unambiguous improvement in the average earnings of new immigrants up to 2019.

Why are we now undoing everything we learned?

Philip Oreopoulous is Distinguished Professor in Economics of Education Policy at the University of Toronto and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Mikal Skuterud is a professor in economics at University of Waterloo, director of Canadian Labour Economics Forum and the Rogers Phillips Scholar of Social Policy at the C.D. Howe Institute.

Source: Once the envy of the world, Canada’s immigration system now lies dismantled

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Keller: What Liberals and Conservatives can learn from the French and British elections

2024/07/10 Leave a comment

Keller continues his legitimate critique:

…Housing unaffordability is partly the result of an unprecedented and unplanned jump in non-permanent immigration, far above anything Canada has ever seen, and far above Liberal immigration plans. It was a case of severe government incompetence, and it’s still unclear to what extent the Trudeau administration is actually addressing the mess, as opposed to crafting a comms strategy to fuzzy it. Statistics Canada’s latest estimate of the non-permanent population is 2.8 million, up from less than two million a year ago.

Closing the gap between housing supply and housing demand, by greatly increasing housing supply, will take a long time. It calls for hundreds of thousands more construction workers and hundreds of billions more dollars. It risks bringing other economic distortions. In contrast, closing the gap by reducing population growth can be done quickly.

The Liberals may or may not need a new leader. They won’t win on fear. They can’t win by pitching more of the same. They definitely need a better record to run on.

Source: What Liberals and Conservatives can learn from the French and British elections

Filed under Immigration Tagged with

Meggs: Changing Course on Immigration

2024/07/09 2 Comments

Good long assessment by Meggs:

…So what can we expect as a result of these multiple announcements designed to convince us that the Liberals can bring order to the immigration system and get numbers under control?

I tend to agree with Tony Keller, who pointed out in an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail following the March 21 press conference that the target of 5 per cent of the population for temporary residents, if accomplished, would bring us back, in three years, to where we were in July 2023. Keller concluded, “What Miller served up should not be consumed without first adding many large grains of extra-coarse salt.” Henry Lotin, a research economist in this field, agrees that “given our immigration and entry laws, these targets will be almost impossible to achieve, certainly not by 2027.”

If we don’t notice much of a change by election time in 2025, whose fault will it be?

Miller provided the government’s answer in his March statement, identifying the culprits as well as the circumstances which were beyond the government’s control. Of course, there’s the pandemic: “Provinces and businesses needed us to bring more workers.” Also, “The chronic underfunding of post-secondary education and unscrupulous actors looking to profit off of vulnerable individuals – among others – led to exponential growth.” Not to be ignored, international conflicts are responsible: “Unprecedented levels of conflicts, economic and political upheaval, human rights abuses and climate change” left the government with no choice but to use temporary public policies to respond to these crises.

This government started out blindly inspired by Century Initiative siren calls that a bigger population is better for the economy and will set Canada up on the international scene, confident that Canadians would embrace the idea. Ignoring its own Advisory Council recommendations regarding highly skilled immigration, it responded willingly to “needs” expressed by the business community by providing cheap labour from foreign students and low-wage foreign workers and families. It has encouraged and accepted more applications than it can process for all types of visas and permits.

Instead of optimizing its permanent immigration system to respond more effectively to a rapidly evolving context, the government used temporary permits to entice people to the country, creating a vast class of residents who live here for years in precarious situations leading to exploitation and abuse by criminals, recruitment agencies, employers and landlords.

Had they known what was happening, Canadians would never have agreed to this kind of immigration structure. Have we really gotten to the point where our political system precludes, on issues as critical as how we welcome people into our society, a common political will to engage in a serious social dialogue for the benefit of all?

Source: Changing Course on Immigration

Filed under Immigration Tagged with

Yukonomist: The future of the Yukon’s low-wage immigration program

2024/07/09 Leave a comment

Good analysis of how one jurisdiction is focussing its Provincial Nominee Program on the lower skilled and paid:

Last month’s pause in the Yukon Nominee Program highlights a classic trade-off.

On one hand, the Yukon government wants to help Yukon businesses import workers to fill labour shortages. Without fresh workers, businesses would have to jack up wages — digging sharply into profits — to lure workers away from government or other employers. Some businesses would have to shrink or close.

On the other hand, the government also wants to help Yukon workers get higher wages as housing and food prices spiral.

The Yukon Nominee Program brings fresh labour to the Yukon as follows. The feds tell the Yukon they will give us so many spots for foreign workers to come to the Yukon under certain conditions. The Yukon government then takes applications from local employers.

This year we get 430 spots. Remarkably, that’s about seven times more than Ontario on a per-resident basis.

There are four streams: critical impact workers, skilled workers, Express Entry and Yukon Community Program. There are complicated rules categorizing workers and eligibility. For example, “skilled workers” requires the job to be in National Occupation Classification category TEER 0-3; bakers are an example. “Critical impact workers” are in categories TEER 4-5, such as landscapers and retail sales people.

There are also wage restrictions, but they are limited. Employers must pay at least the Yukon minimum wage, and the job’s annual income must exceed Statistics Canada’s Low Income Cut Off. For a single person in 2022, this was $20,333 per year.

The program hit the news recently when the premier put a pause on accepting new applications from employers in Whitehorse, since the territory has already received 590 applications for this year’s 430 spots.

The Yukon government will prioritize existing applications in four waves: work permit holders with approaching expirations, visitor visa holders already in Canada, work permit holders with expirations within a year and workers outside Canada.

An economist would note that these criteria have nothing to do with economic value. A skilled mining engineer in India who would make big bucks and pay lots of taxes would be at the bottom of the list.

Where you stand on all this depends, as the cliché says, on where you sit.

Suppose you own a labour-intensive small business. In this case, the nominee program is critical to keeping wage costs down and finding staff to keep the operation humming. Otherwise, with our labour shortage, wages might have to rise dramatically to attract Canadians already working to leave other jobs and come work for you.

This would eat into profits, and probably require closing some unprofitable locations.

At the other end of the spectrum, workers do not want to be competing with imported labour in the job market.

If you are neither an owner nor a low-wage worker, you probably enjoy the lower prices that low-wage workers enable at shops and restaurants.

In the old days, before left-versus-right economic issues were overshadowed in our politics by culture war conflicts, you might have expected all of this to be a big political issue pitting unions and social justice groups against chambers of commerce.

However, we have a centre-left government in the Yukon, backed by the NDP, running the nominee program. It seems strange to write this, but if a Martian political economist beamed down they would say there appears to be a broad political consensus in the Yukon behind importing hundreds of low-wage workers each year to keep wages at the bottom end of the wage spectrum lower than they would be otherwise, even during a housing shortage.

One reason for this is that the nominee program was overshadowed for many years by Canada’s traditional immigration program. This “points-based” system has broad support and has served the country well. In this system, foreign applicants earn points based on their youth, education, job experience and language skills. It serves to admit immigrants who can contribute quickly and substantially to the economy, even though there are ongoing issues with immigrants getting their skills recognized here.

The use of the nominee program for workers at or just above the minimum-wage level contradicts this logic. People used to talk about it as a temporary fix for episodic labour shortages, but now it is an ongoing feature of our labour market.

Some economists debating Canada’s poor productivity performance have hypothesized that such programs — by boosting the supply of low-wage workers — have disincentivized business investment in labour-saving technology.

I have seen this framed best by Harald Eia, the Norwegian equivalent of comedian-pundit John Oliver. In his segment “Rich and Equal,” Eia compares car washes in Norway and the United States. In Florida, he says, your car is washed by a team of people who are not paid very much. In Norway, you don’t see a human as you tap your card and drive through an automated car wash.

Union agreements cover much more of the economy in Norway than in Canada. Eia says these tend to have high minimum-wage floors, and have for years been pushing Norwegian employers to invest in automation.

Despite this, Norway currently has a lower unemployment rate than the Yukon.

Meanwhile, Germany has made a major revamp of its immigration policy to attract more skilled workers. If your job pays at least $60,300 (Canadian), then a wide range of occupations such as nurses, tech workers, teachers and engineers can be fast tracked. This also applies to recent university graduates who have a job offer above that amount.

If the Yukon Nominee Program switched to this system, the impact would be dramatic. Tax revenues would go up as higher-paid immigrants paid more income tax. Wages would rise at the lower end of the scale, forcing business owners to raise their prices and close some locations.

That kind of change would be too shocking to do all at once. But the Yukon government could raise the floor wages for the program and prioritize applications by economic contribution rather than freezing out nurses and engineers stuck in the government’s low-priority bucket for the rest of the year.

Keith Halliday is a Yukon economist and the winner of the 2022 Canadian Community Newspaper Award for Outstanding Columnist. His most recent book Moonshadows, a Yukon-noir thriller, is available in Yukon bookstores.

Souùrce: Yukonomist: The future of the Yukon’s low-wage immigration program

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Alicia Planincic: We know the one thing Canada could be doing to select better economic immigrants. So why aren’t we doing it? 

2024/07/09 Leave a comment

Some useful ideas but all ranking systems are imperfect predictors of success. And wages only work for two-step immigration as numbers from other countries are not easy to compare. And there are risks in changing criteria and priorities too quickly without sound evidence and data:

…Candidates receive CRS points for things like language abilities, number of years of schooling, and whether they have a sibling in Canada. But factors like what their degree was in, or where they got it from, are not reflected. Meanwhile, the biggest limitation of the points system is that it ignores labour market information. It therefore tells us little about how valuable someone’s skills are to the Canadian economy.

To go back to hockey analogies, this way of assigning CRS points is like ranking players based on the number of games they have played in the NHL, whether they have a brother in the league, and whether they speak French—while neglecting things like how many points they tend to get every year. The evaluation would not be meaningless, but it’s easy to see how some of the best players wouldn’t be ranked at the top.

To improve the CRS, Canada needs to better capture the value of the skills a candidate brings. As it turns out, the best-known way to do so is pretty simple: have the points system reflect their current earnings.

Why is that? Wages reflect both the needs of the economy (demand) and the relative availability of labour (supply). Generally speaking, if demand for a certain occupation or skillset is strong, or few are willing or able to do this work, wages will be high.

There are other ways to improve the CRS, too.

One is to remove the variables that don’t influence an individual’s economic potential. These factors not only muddy the ranking of candidates but also can unfairly bias certain people or groups. For instance, individuals can earn points for having a sibling in Canada even though the math shows this has no direct impact on economic success. Family in Canada may be a legitimate reason to consider someone for immigration, but is not an economic one, and it is being used in the economic stream. At the same time, favouring people who already have family in Canada puts individuals from smaller countries, or those with less immigration to Canada, at a disadvantage.

Another way to improve the CRS is to regularly refine it as new and better information—including the type and quality of skill (e.g., field of study, program of education) most highly valued—becomes available and can be incorporated. The CRS cannot reflect the economy of 50 years ago. It has to be the latest and greatest of today.

The recruitment of skilled talent globally is big, exciting, and holds much potential. But Canada should not lose sight of the power of the points system, nor the talent that is in plain sight. Before marketing the country to individuals around the world, Canada should do more to select the best among those who have already put their name in the hat—to support greater prosperity for all.

Alicia Planincic is the Economist & Manager of Policy at the Business Council of Alberta. She regularly provides insight and analysis on the Canadian economy, public finances, labour markets, equity and social mobility, and public policy.

Source: Alicia Planincic: We know the one thing Canada could be doing to select better economic immigrants. So why aren’t we doing it?

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Artificial Intelligence and Immigration Implications

2024/07/08 Leave a comment

More directed at legal and immigration firms than governments but nevertheless interesting. Predictive technology, if fed with the right assumptions and data, could be a very useful tool for governments as they often appear flat-footed and late with respect to impacts and change:

According to the International Monetary Fund, almost 40% of global employment will be impacted by artificial intelligence.

The field of immigration is no exception, and several countries are already implementing or planning to implement artificial intelligence (AI) into their immigration systems to obtain benefits such as increased productivity by their staff members, enhanced security measures and streamlined recruitment of foreign nationals.

This blog discusses recent and forthcoming examples of AI in immigration systems; ways for companies and governments to prepare for the AI revolution and adapt it for their uses; and addresses some of the challenges and concerns surrounding the use of AI in immigration.

Some recent examples of AI being utilized in immigration systems include:

  • In the United Arab Emirates, the Dubai airport launched an iris scanner to confirm identity, allowing travelers entering the country to move rapidly through passport control while still maintaining security precautions.
  • Portugal uses AI tools to validate the authenticity of documents submitted with an online citizenship application.
  • The government of Brazil is planning to utilize AI to analyze residence permit applications for employment, to reduce bureaucracy and speed up processing times.
  • France is expected to begin using AI to uncover and trace document fraud on the ANEF (Digital Administration for Foreigners in France) portal.

How can companies and governments prepare for AI and adapt it for their purposes?

  • Ensure compliance with standards in the region they are operating. Across the world, countries and regions are taking different approaches towards regulating AI and affected employers should be aware and revise their business practices if they are subject to these new rules. For example, the European Union is set to become the world’s leading tech regulator when the Artificial Intelligence Act goes into effect; the law will implement regulations on AI in phases, with the first phase banning prohibited AI systems that pose “unacceptable risks”.
  • Adopt specific AI visas to attract talent. Many governments recognize the transformative nature of AI and the critical need to attract individuals specialized in AI practices to transform industries and boost productivity.
    • The United States is considering changes to the J-1 exchange visitor program that could enhance opportunities for AI talent. The U.S. government is also reviewing existing immigration pathways, including the EB-1, EB-2, O-1 and International Entrepreneur Parole Program, to clarify and modernize these pathways for experts in AI.
    • Australia launched a Mobility Arrangement for Talented Early-Professionals Scheme, which provides 3,000 places for Indian national early professionals in several fields, including AI.
  • Utilize predictive technology to understand how migration management affects their companies. AI is being used for migration management, allowing the public and private sectors to pool information that can be used to predict migration flows, leading to more informed decisions and policy-making.
  • Implement upskilling and reskilling initiatives. The private sector should include AI upskilling initiatives as part of their workers’ regular assignments. This is particularly important as, according to the Harvard Business Review, “the half-life of [tech] skills is now less than five years, and in some tech fields it’s as low as two and a half years.” Constantly hiring new talent for emerging AI technology would result in a revolving door at a company, creating a loss of institutional knowledge, productivity, and revenue. By adopting upskilling and reskilling initiatives to keep up with the latest AI technology, employers build employee loyalty.

What challenges and concerns should companies and governments be aware of when utilizing AI or immigration systems built with AI?

  • Confidentiality of information. Governments and the private sector alike collect highly sensitive data essential to immigration procedures, such as biometrics and passports. With the AI transfer of information into systems, employers and government officials must ensure that these systems comply with data privacy laws, contain adequate cyber security precautions, and will not be used to harm the individual.
  • National security issues. Governments want to ensure that information they store on private sector AI platforms is only shared with select partners and does not end up with adversaries that could potentially use this information for nefarious reasons.
  • Translation issues. AI has already proven to be somewhat unreliable when used for translation purposes, due to the nuances of written and spoken languages. Although it may be cheaper and faster to utilize AI for this purpose, translation errors may lead to undesirable outcomes, such as denied visa applications. Employers and government individuals should be extremely circumspect in determining when and what type of AI translation technology they employ.
  • Divide in uptake of AI by countries. To effectively utilize AI, companies and governments must operate in countries with a suitable information and communication technology infrastructure. Developing countries, which may not have this infrastructure or individuals with the skill set to operate such infrastructure, may be slower adopters of AI technology. As a result, if AI is needed for productivity, companies may end up reshoring jobs originally outsourced to these developing countries, causing greater disparities among countries.

Due to the ever-changing nature of AI technology, companies should reach out to their immigration professionals for guidance in navigating the complex landscape at the intersection of these two fields.

Source: Artificial Intelligence and Immigration Implications

Filed under Immigration Tagged with

← Older posts

Newer posts →