A Close Look at Brussels Offers a More Nuanced View of Radicalization – The New York Times

2016/04/21 1 Comment

Interesting contrast between Turk and Moroccan-origin communities, and the impact of failing to deliver on integration expectations:

At a Turkish mosque in Molenbeek run by Diyanet, Turkey’s state-controlled religious affairs agency, the imam, who speaks only Turkish, expressed revulsion at the March attacks in Brussels and said that he and his worshipers never tolerate extremist views. He stressed that his congregants respect and follow the law.

Worshipers at a nearby Moroccan mosque angrily shooed away reporters, accusing them of fanning “Islamophobia” and stigmatizing their neighborhood as a haven of jihadists.

In contrast to Belgium’s Turks, the Moroccan community is far more divided and resistant to authority, in part because many of the early immigrants came from the Rif, a rebellious Berber-speaking region often at odds with the ruling monarchy in Morocco. “When emigration to Europe started, the king was happy to get rid of these people,” said Bachir M’Rabet, a youth worker of Moroccan descent in Molenbeek.

Another source of anger in his community, he added, is that many Turks often speak poor French and no Dutch, Belgium’s two main languages, and cling to their Turkish identity, while most Moroccans speak fluent French and aspire to be accepted fully as Belgians. This, he said, means that many Moroccans feel discrimination more acutely and, at least in the case of young men on the margins, tend to view even minor slights as proof that the entire system is against them.

Philippe Moureaux, who served for two decades as Molenbeek’s mayor, described this as “the paradox of integration.” A less-integrated Turkish community has resisted the promise of redemption through jihad offered by radical zealots. Yet, a Moroccan community that is more at home in French-speaking Brussels has seen some of its young fall prey to recruiters like Khalid Zerkani, a Moroccan-born petty criminal who became the Islamic State’s point man in Molenbeek.

“The Turks suffer much less from an identity crisis,” Mr. Moureaux said. “They are proud to be Turks and are much less tempted by extremism.”

Suspicion of and hostility toward authority, particularly the police force, run so deep among some North African immigrants in Molenbeek that when the police mobilized in the area this month to prevent a group of anti-immigrant right-wing hooligans from staging a rally, local youths, mostly young men of Moroccan descent, began hurling abuse and objects at the police.

Molenbeek immigrants of Turkish or other backgrounds generally have a less hostile view of the police. A Turkish shopkeeper who runs a general store near the police station said he feared not the police but aggressive North African youths who accuse him of being a bad Muslim because he sells alcohol. He noted that the youths steal, which is also forbidden.

Emir Kir, the Belgian-Turkish mayor of Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, a heavily immigrant Brussels borough that is worse off economically than Molenbeek, said the only Turk he knew about who had tried to go to Syria was a young man who had fallen in love with a girl of Moroccan descent. He got as far as Istanbul before being sent back. “This was a love affair, not an act of extremism,” he said.

Source: A Close Look at Brussels Offers a More Nuanced View of Radicalization – The New York Times

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Is Canada A Nation Of Immigrants? | Jack Jedwab

2016/04/02 Leave a comment

Jack and I have a disagreement here, with significant policy implications.

The issue is not, in a labelling sense, of creating multiple classes of Canadians. We are now back in the world of “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,” whether born here, born abroad or children of immigrants.

In contrast to earlier waves of mainly white and Christian immigrants, with many similar integration challenges, today’s immigrants are largely visible and religious minorities.

Without looking a the different experiences between first and subsequent generations of immigrants, we overlook the very real differences in outcomes for different groups of the second-generation compared to non-visible minority Canadians (or “old-stock” Canadians).

2G_University_Educated_25-34In some cases (i.e., percentage university-educated), the second-generation does significantly better than non-visible minority Canadians. And those that find employment have comparable median salaries.

However, the second generation has higher unemployment rates than non-visible minority Canadians. Those that are not university educated have lower median incomes, as shown in the chart below:

2G_Non-Univ_Educated_25-34This is not to mentioned the well-documented instances of discrimination in hiring, police carding and other areas that show significant differences between visible minorities and others.

So while as a ‘value statement,’ one may prefer to refer second-generation immigrants as non-immigrants, this effectively masks some of the ongoing integration challenges that some elements face.

And while I fully agree with Jack that comparisons with Europe are often inappropriate given our differences in history, geography and identities, we do, like other ‘new world’ countries, view ourselves as countries of immigrants, unlike Europe. And this, with the exception of the USA, both reflects and influences how we deal with integration.

Measuring and contrasting the outcomes of both first and second generation outcomes provides useful international and internal benchmarks allow us to identify ongoing integration challenges with a view to overcoming them. Not making the distinction obscures them:

But there a significant segment of the Canadian-born population that sometimes wrongly gets labeled as immigrants. I refer specifically to persons born in Canada of foreign-born parents (a group to which I belong). Much social science literature in Europe refers to these children of immigrants as “second generation immigrants”. To many North American observers the term must seem like an oxymoron. It nonetheless gets employed by a number of Canadian scholars.

There are statistical breakdowns in the census of Canada on the basis of generational status. Immigrants are generally designated as the first generation, their children as second generation and there is a category for third generation or more. It’s inaccurate to refer to second generation Canadians as something other than non-immigrants with whom they are grouped in the census question on immigrant status.

The confusion that is created by designating them as “second generation immigrants” is sometimes influenced by European analysis with the practice in several EU countries of not automatically conferring citizenship on persons born in the country. For example, children born in France of foreign-born parents do not become citizens until reaching the age of the majority. Switzerland does not automatically extend citizenship to a child that is born in the country. Rather, a person is automatically Swiss if at least one of the child’s parents is Swiss.

Relatively few Canadian scholars that use the term second generation immigrants necessarily think of such individuals as immigrants. Rather most simply echo terminology that is used in some of the Canadian literature on immigration and citizenship and/or seek to engage with European policy-makers or scholars by employing a common vocabulary. But the Canadian-European comparisons can be problematic and regrettably they sometimes don’t make for good scholarly work.

Is Canada a nation of immigrants? It is certainly a nation with many immigrants who have played a critical role in the process of nation-building. But it is simply too limiting a concept when “the nation of immigrants” conveys the idea that immigration is the country’s principal defining characteristic.

Source: Is Canada A Nation Of Immigrants? | Jack Jedwab

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When Integrating A School, Does It Matter If You Use Class Instead Of Race?

2016/03/02 Leave a comment

Interesting article on the latest US thinking on integration:

Stronger Together is not the name of the latest social-media fitness app. It’s a grant proposed in President Obama’s new budget, reviving an idea that hasn’t gotten much policy attention in decades: diversity in public schools. If the request is approved, $120 million will go to school districts for programs intended to make their schools more diverse.
As a new pair of reports from the progressive Century Foundation shows, integration policies have seen a resurgence: In 2007, 40 districts pursued integration. Today that number has more than doubled, to 83, plus nine charter schools or networks. That adds up to a total of 4 million students in classrooms that are more diverse than they’d otherwise be.

This new wave of integration has come with one big difference that sets it apart from the busing battles of the past. These programs rely on family income, not race, as the driver.

To be clear, there’s evidence that socially as well as racially integrated schools benefit all students. When a school reaches a stable level of about 30 percent middle-class students, the lower-income students achieve at higher levels and the privileged students do no worse, says Halley Potter, the author of one of the Century Foundation reports. Similarly, the racial achievement gap shrinks in schools that have less than a “supermajority” of 60 percent of any one race.

But the real case for diverse schools is a lot bigger than test scores, says Amy Stuart Wells, who teaches at Teachers College, Columbia University, and is the author of the second report. “The qualitative and quantitative evidence is powerful enough to say, ‘We should do this.’ ”

It’s worth pointing out that because of the legacy of discrimination and institutionalized segregation in the United States, in most communities mixing up students by class also means mixing them up by race.

“Diversification by socioeconomic status also means by race,” says Mercedes Ebanks, an associate professor in the school of education at Howard University. “The movement towards socioeconomic integration will lead to racial integration and educational equality.”

http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/02/29/466543209/when-integrating-a-school-does-it-matter-if-you-use-class-instead-of-race?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news

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Action Canada: Barriers to Belonging Report and Municipal Voting

2016/02/06 Leave a comment

Attended the presentation of the Action Canada report 5 Feb (I had been one of the people consulted in its preparation)Citizenship and Selection).

Well attended, including the Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Arif Virani, who signalled the change and tone of the new government.

The one part of the report that I have a friendly disagreement with is the push for municipal voting.

The main arguments used – Permanent Residents use municipal services, pay taxes, live in the communities – apply also to provincial services (e.g., healthcare and education) and federal services (e.g., Service Canada and related employment programs). Comparisons with Europe are largely irrelevant given the barriers to or length to obtain citizenship in most European countries.

And I have never seen – readers to correct me – any convincing data or evidence on whether extending municipal voting to non-citizens will make a marked difference in voting participation or overall integration.

Recommendations as follows:

  1. Recognize and facilitate permanent immigration and citizenship acquisition as critical to nation building in selection, citizenship, settlement and integration policies. Avoid policies that risk leading to long-term residence without permanent status or citizenship.
  2. Factor the settlement and integration needs of immigrants into selection policy, alongside the long-term social and economic needs of the country.

Designing smarter services:

  1. Engage stakeholders to identify information gaps, design usable data formats, and create platforms for consolidating evidence on what works. Include, at a minimum, settlement service providers, and provincial and municipal governments.
  2. Create a $10M pay-for-success fund – about 1% of the total settlement and integration budget – focused on immigrant inclusion outcomes. This could be modeled on the UK DWP Innovation Fund.
  3. Expand eligibility criteria for settlement services.

Building Bridges to Employment

  1. Engage employers to develop demand-driven employment solutions.
  2. Work with small and medium-sized enterprise business support programs, accelerators, incubators and innovation hubs to create entrepreneurship training, mentorship, loan and venture capital programs targeted to recent immigrants.

Strengthening Political Engagement

TARGET AUDIENCE: PROVINCIAL AND TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENTS

  1. Amend provincial and territorial legislation to remove barriers to non-citizens voting in municipal elections, including school board elections.

TARGET AUDIENCE: PROVINCIAL, TERRITORIAL AND MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENTS

  1. Remove barriers to non-citizens becoming members of municipal governance bodies.
  2. Publish an annual report card on the extent to which municipal governance bodies reflect the diversity of the communities they serve. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities should spearhead this initiative, alongside leading municipalities.

View Report

 

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Needs of some Syrian refugees higher than expected, analysis finds

2016/02/04 Leave a comment

While this data is not totally surprising, it does highlight the integration challenges being faced by some refugees:

While the report says the government doesn’t foresee the need for widespread changes to existing programs, here’s a look at what it found, and some of the implications for resettlement providers.

  • Government-assisted refugees have bigger families: 53 per cent of approved cases listed five to eight people on the application, compared with seven per cent of privately sponsored cases. This highlights the current housing crunch — it’s harder to find apartments to accommodate that many people within available budgets.
  • They’re younger: 55 per cent of approved applicants were 14 years of age or younger, compared with 27 per cent of privately sponsored ones. The report notes that services directly targeted at children will need to be stepped up and the report notes they’ve often only gone to school in Arabic.
  • They speak little English or French: 67 per cent of approved applicants reporting speaking neither language, compared with 37 per cent of privately sponsored ones. Resettlement agencies have previously highlighted that in some cities, wait lists for language training are over a year long.
  • How much education they have is unclear: The analysis says anecdotal reports suggest the average level of schooling for adult Syrian government-assisted refugees is six to nine years. Of cases coming from Jordan, 90 to 95 per cent have not finished high school. The report notes that many kids are also a year or two behind their peers, putting new demands on the school system.
  • Their most recent jobs may not reflect their skills: Many refugees can’t legally work in their host countries, and often find general labour jobs. “Anecdotally, reports from visa officers abroad indicate that work experience is largely low-skilled and almost entirely limited to males,” the analysis said.
  • They are generally healthy: The brief says the health of refugees runs from entirely health to those with severe diseases such as cancer. But only 12 per cent of the medical assessments had at least one condition listed. The most common were hypertension, diabetes and vision or hearing impairment. “While mental-health issues were not identified as one of the most frequent conditions at the time of the (medical exam), it is a condition that can arise soon or several months after arrival in Canada,” the brief says.

The data shows that 15,157 Syrians landed between Nov. 4 last year and Jan. 31 this year. Of these, 8,767 were government-assisted, 5,341 were privately sponsored and 1,049 are part of a program that combines the two.

Source: Needs of some Syrian refugees higher than expected, analysis finds – The Globe and Mail

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Le français, non merci – Language of Immigrants in Quebec

2016/01/28 Leave a comment

Interesting study on the degree to which Quebec immigrants integrate to French or English-speaking environments (the vast majority of immigrants settle in Montreal where this is an option).

Not totally surprisingly, Latin American and Arab immigrants tend to integrate into francophone environnement, those from China, South Asia and the Philippines remain more anglophone in orientation:

Plus de 200 000 Néo-Québécois, soit 20 % de la population immigrée au Québec, ne parlent pas français. La plupart de ces immigrants, soit 160 000, parlent anglais. En dépit de la sélection prioritaire de candidats connaissant le français — 60 % du total —, l’immigration continue de contribuer au déclin du français, surtout dans la région de Montréal.

C’est ce que signale un portrait des efforts du Québec en matière de francisation et d’intégration intitulé Le Québec rate sa cible. Commandité par la CSN, le Mouvement national des Québécois, la Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal et le Mouvement Québec français, le document exhaustif de 130 pages, rédigé par le chercheur Jean Ferretti de l’Institut de recherche en économie contemporaine (IREC), s’appuie sur des données du ministère de l’Immigration, de la Diversité et de l’Inclusion (MIDI) et de Statistique Canada ainsi que sur diverses études de chercheurs comme Marc Termotte, Paul Béland, Michel Pagé, Brahim Boudarbat, Gilles Grenier, Patrick Sabourin et Guillaume Marois.

« On dirait que par négligence, le gouvernement du Québec refuse de voir l’impact de l’immigration sur le français à Montréal », a affirmé Jean Ferretti au Devoir.

« La politique migratoire menée depuis 1991 ne permet pas d’atteindre l’objectif du [ministère] de pérenniser le français. Les efforts de sélection ont permis de hausser la part d’immigrants connaissant le français, mais ne sont pas suffisants pour endiguer le déclin du français », écrit Jean Ferretti.

Concurrence linguistique

Le Québec est dans une situation particulière par rapport à d’autres sociétés, note-t-il. « L’adoption de la langue de la majorité par les immigrants ne va pas de soi. À Montréal, la possibilité de vivre dans la langue de son choix et la forte présence des anglophones du Québec créent une situation de concurrence linguistique qui limite les transferts linguistiques vers le français. »

Jean Ferretti cite Paul Béland, qui a démontré que les immigrants de langue maternelle latine ou originaires de la Francophonie, quelle que soit leur langue maternelle, sont enclins à adopter le français, alors que c’est l’inverse pour les immigrants de langue maternelle non latine. Depuis 1971, la proportion des immigrants de langue latine qui adoptent le français a augmenté à 87 %, tandis que le transfert vers le français des immigrants de langue non latine est resté le même en 30 ans, à 15 %.

Ainsi 88 % des Latino-Américains et 90 % des Arabes installés au Québec connaissent le français, alors que plus de 40 % des Chinois et des Sud-Asiatiques ne connaissent pas le français. Dans le cas des Philippins, 58 % d’entre eux ne parlent pas français.

Pour préserver le caractère français du Québec, il importe non seulement de recruter une forte proportion d’immigrants qui connaissent le français, mais il faut choisir parmi les immigrants qui ne connaissent pas le français ceux qui sont les plus aptes à adopter la langue commune, estime l’auteur.

Si le gouvernement du Québec poursuit la même politique en matière d’immigration qu’à l’heure actuelle, le poids démographique des francophones continuera de diminuer. Reprenant les projections des démographes Guillaume Marois et Marc Termotte, les francophones ne représenteraient plus que 75 % de la population du Québec dans 40 ans, contre 82 % en 2006. Si le seuil d’immigration de 50 000 à l’heure actuelle était porté à 65 000 — Philippe Couillard a déjà indiqué son intention d’augmenter le nombre d’immigrants reçus au Québec —, le poids des francophones s’élèverait à 73 %.

De son côté, Marc Termotte évalue qu’avec un seuil de 60 000 immigrants par an, la proportion de francophones sur l’île de Montréal passerait de 52,4 % [donnée de 2011] à 42,3 % en 2056. Ces projections, qui montrent un accroissement de la présence des allophones (de 23 % à 34 %) ne tiennent pas compte des transferts linguistiques au terme de la deuxième génération d’immigrants.

Source: Le français, non merci | Le Devoir

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Quebec: Les cours de français boudés par les immigrants

2016/01/27 Leave a comment

Not a good development but the article offers few reasons to explain the drop from 60 to 40 percent of those taking language training. I have not seen any articles or studies on comparative take-up rates in English Canada (readers please correct or advise):

Environ 60 % des immigrants adultes qui ne connaissent pas le français en arrivant au Québec refusent de suivre les cours de français qui leur sont offerts gratuitement par l’État, une proportion en nette progression ces dernières années.

Selon le rapport annuel de gestion 2014-2015 du ministère de l’Immigration, de la Diversité et de l’Inclusion (MIDI), des 13 455 immigrants reçus qui déclaraient ne pas connaître le français en 2012, seulement 3689 s’étaient inscrits à un cours de français dans les deux ans qui ont suivi, soit un pourcentage de 27,4 %. Mais comme les cours offerts par le MIDI ne représentent que les deux tiers des cours de français offerts aux nouveaux arrivants, a-t-on précisé au ministère — l’autre tiers est le fait du ministère du Travail, de l’Emploi et de la Solidarité sociale (MTESS) —, il s’agit d’un peu plus de 40 % des immigrants anglophones ou allophones qui jugent bon d’apprendre formellement le français dans les deux ans qui suivent leur arrivée.

Or en 2008, la proportion était inversée : 60 % des nouveaux arrivants ne connaissant pas le français assistaient aux cours offerts par l’État, évaluait-on au ministère. On s’inquiétait toutefois du fait que 40 % d’entre eux choisissaient de bouder les cours.

Délais et budgets en baisse

On montrait du doigt les longs délais que les immigrants devaient subir avant de pouvoir participer à un cours de français. Ces délais n’ont plus cours aujourd’hui. « En matière de francisation, le Ministère répond à la demande et les budgets sont ajustés en conséquence », a soutenu dans un courriel la porte-parole du MIDI, Karine Baribeau.

Et les budgets sont revus à la baisse : réduction de 1,45 million en 2012-2013, de 809 000 $ en 2013-2014 et de 3,4 millions en 2014-2015, pour un total de 5,7 millions, soit près de 10 % du budget consacré à la francisation des immigrants par le MIDI. Selon la porte-parole, la diminution de l’an dernier est due à une baisse de fréquentation des cours à temps complet alors que le nombre d’immigrants qui suivent des cours à temps partiel s’est maintenu. Près de 10 800 immigrants se sont inscrits au cours à temps complet, soit 15 % de moins qu’il y a deux ans, contre 15 350 à des cours à temps partiel et 3000 à des cours en ligne, pour un total d’un peu plus de 29 000 étudiants de tous les niveaux de connaissance du français.

Source: Les cours de français boudés par les immigrants | Le Devoir

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Action Canada Report: Barriers to Belonging – Paving a Smoother Path to Immigrant Inclusion

2016/01/27 Leave a comment

For those interested in Ottawa, presentation of a report February 5 by a group of young Canadian leaders on immigrant integration (Barriers to Belonging session – disclosure I was one of the people interviewed for the report):

Fellows Presentation Invite EN (Feb '16)There are currently 1.6 million permanent residents in Canada. These newcomers are central to the economic, social and political fabric of the country. Yet these recent immigrants continue to face considerable challenges to participating in the full spectrum of Canadian life.

Join us for the release of our report: Barriers to Belonging – Paving a Smoother Path to Immigrant Inclusion, and participate in a public dialogue around recommendations concerning the design of smarter services, building bridges to employment and strengthening the political engagement of recent immigrants.

What:              Action Canada Presentation of Final Report

When:             Friday February 5, 2016

Time:              8:45am – 9:45am (light refreshments and welcome beginning at 8:00am)

Where:           Sheraton Ottawa Hotel, Rideau Room, 150 Albert Street 

 

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Italy creating ‘Italian Islam’ by making new religion in line with ‘Christian tradition’

2016/01/25 Leave a comment

While the focus on integration is welcome, it appears to be one-way with the obligations only on Italian Muslims and not also on the ‘mainstream’ in facilitating integration, or a more inter-faith or multi-group approach:

Italy is setting up a council of “Italian Islam” that claims to be bringing the religion into compliance with the country’s “Christian and humanist tradition”.

The reason for the controversial creation was not made clear in a statement by interior minister Angelino Alfano, although he did say provinces “concerned with immigration” would be involved.

Announcing the move on Tuesday, he said the Council of Relations with Italian Islam would be an advisory body aiming at furthering integration.

“The Council will be responsible for providing opinions and making proposals on issues concerning the integration of people of Islamic culture and religion in Italy,” Mr Alfano said.

“Respect and co-operation between cultural and religious identities in Italy must constitute the basis for a dialogue that enriches democracy, promoting the aims of peace, social cohesion and unity, and that fosters a community of those who…intend to contribute to the peaceful development and prosperity of our country, in full compliance with our laws and our Christian and humanist tradition.”

The Interior Ministry said Islamic leaders, experts and professors would be working towards “the formation of an Italian Islam”.

Source: Italy creating ‘Italian Islam’ by making new religion in line with ‘Christian tradition’ | Europe | News | The Independent

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At Davos and beyond, let’s remind the world why it needs more Canada

2016/01/23 Leave a comment

Tawfik Hammoud, Boston Consulting Group and Michael Sabia, CEO of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec on the Canadian advantage of inclusiveness:

Canada remains an open society. Most leaders we meet view us as a gold standard in building a post-globalization society with a multiplicity of identities and a rejection of fear and “otherness.” Our capacity to foster co-existence is rare and increasingly important given both the migrations that are under way and the proximity of once-distant cultures.

We are also world leaders when it comes to opening our doors to qualified immigration candidates – and we do so without exaggerating security concerns. Canadian opinion polls show a majority in public support for the world’s highest immigration levels. No political party advocates cutting immigration. We should be proud that seven million of our 35 million citizens were born outside Canada, that the federal cabinet has as many women as men and that a few cabinet members arrived here not so long ago as virtual refugees.

None of this is to say that Canada is the promised land. There is work to do…

Source: At Davos and beyond, let’s remind the world why it needs more Canada – The Globe and Mail

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