UK: Statistics watchdog rebukes Sunak over inaccurate asylum backlog figures

2023/04/06 Leave a comment

Always a risk with numbers:

Rishi Sunak and his immigration minister have been scolded by the UK statistics watchdog for using inaccurate figures to back up spurious claims about asylum seekers.

In a statement to the House of Commons in December, the prime minister claimed that the asylum backlog – 132,000 cases at the time – was half the size of the backlog left by the departing Labour government in 2010. This implied the backlog in 2010 would have been about 260,000.

In the same month, the immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, and the safeguarding minister, Sarah Dines, told MPs that 450,000 and 500,000 legacy cases had been left by the Labour government.

However, the UK Statistics Authority found the statements “do not reflect the position shown by the Home Office’s statistics”.

Source: Statistics watchdog rebukes Sunak over inaccurate asylum backlog figures

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La majorité des demandeurs d’asile hébergés par Québec ne sont pas passés par Roxham

2023/03/25 Leave a comment

Of note (as Rodham Road becomes covered by the STCA):

Le premier ministre François Legault a de nouveau déclaré jeudi qu’il souhaitait que le chemin Roxham soit « fermé », car le Québec aurait « dépassé sa capacité d’accueil ». Les données montrent toutefois que la majorité des demandeurs d’asile dans des hébergements gérés par la province ne sont pas arrivés par là.

Le plus grand groupe de migrants présents sur les sites du Programme régional d’accueil et d’intégration des demandeurs d’asile (PRAIDA) provient du Mexique. Or, seuls 15 Mexicains sont arrivés au pays en passant entre des points d’entrée officiels depuis le début de 2023, selon Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada (IRCC).

Le PRAIDA confirme que la majorité des demandeurs d’asile hébergés dans ses sites sont plutôt passés par l’aéroport et proviennent du Mexique. « Ce phénomène date d’environ 12 mois et il semble fluctuer en fonction du prix des billets d’avion », indique Carl Thériault, relationniste pour le PRAIDA.

Depuis 2016, les ressortissants du Mexique n’ont plus besoin de détenir un visa pour visiter le Canada. Ils peuvent séjourner en tant que touristes au pays durant six mois et donc venir en avion.

En 2022, 7483 demandes d’asile de Mexicains ont été envoyées à la Commission de l’immigration et du statut de réfugié (CISR), le tribunal qui se charge de déterminer si un demandeur a besoin de protection ou non.

Au total, le tiers des quelque 59 000 demandeurs d’asile arrivés au Québec en 2022, soit 19 800 personnes, ne sont pas passés par Roxham. Cette tendance s’est poursuivie en janvier, dernier mois pour lequel les données sont disponibles. Ces demandes d’asile ont pu être déposées à un point d’entrée aérien ou maritime, ou à un bureau à l’intérieur du territoire. L’Entente sur les tiers pays sûrs ne concerne que les passages terrestres et, par omission, elle permet de demander l’asile à des points d’entrée non officiels.

Pression réelle et « instrumentalisation »

Dans une lettre transmise en février au premier ministre Justin Trudeau, M. Legault se plaint que la situation au chemin Roxham crée une pression intenable sur les services, dont l’hébergement temporaire.

Le PRAIDA relève du gouvernement provincial, mais ses coûts sont couverts par le fédéral. Ottawa héberge aussi environ 2400 demandeurs au Québec et près de 4900 en Ontario, surtout des personnes qui arrivent entre les points d’entrée désignés, donc par Roxham, indique IRCC par courriel au Devoir.

Les transferts vers l’Ontario ont commencé le 30 juin 2022 et, jusqu’à maintenant, environ 8000 demandeurs ont été transférés après leur arrivée au Québec à la frontière sud. Le premier ministre québécois n’en est pas encore satisfait. « On voit qu’en mars, on est rendus à 58 % des nouveaux arrivants par Roxham qui sont envoyés à l’extérieur du Québec. Mais ce n’est pas encore suffisant », a-t-il affirmé jeudi matin.

Cette situation, le fait qu’une bonne partie des demandeurs d’asile dans les hébergements ne soit pas passée par Roxham, date cependant d’avant ces transferts, comme l’indiquent le porte-parole du PRAIDA et deux organismes de terrain. Le réseau communautaire accueille également sa part de demandeurs d’asile et leur offre aussi des services durant un temps limité.

Peu importe qu’un demandeur d’asile arrive par Roxham ou par l’aéroport, « tout le monde peut avoir besoin d’un hébergement, y compris les personnes du Mexique », précise Arthur Durieux, gestionnaire de l’organisme Le Pont. Il évalue qu’environ la moitié des familles présentes dans son centre d’accueil ne sont pas passées par le chemin désormais célèbre au sud du Québec.

Son organisme ne reçoit aucun financement public, mais il se dit « excédé » par le discours politique sur les demandeurs d’asile. « La demande est très forte en ce moment, mais Québec a nié de l’aide aux organismes depuis des années », lâche-t-il au téléphone.

Le nombre de places dans les lieux traditionnels d’hébergement du PRAIDA n’a pas changé depuis 2017, année où les arrivées se sont accélérées. Des sites temporaires avaient néanmoins ouvert leurs portes durant cette année-là, dont le Stade olympique, mais depuis que le chemin Roxham a rouvert en novembre 2021 après les restrictions pandémiques, Québec refuse d’augmenter la capacité d’accueil.

« On paie les pots cassés de ce qui n’est pas pris en charge par le gouvernement. C’est sur le dos du communautaire, car il n’y a pas de leadership, pas de volonté politique, pas de coordination », déplore quant à elle Eva Gracia-Turgeon, directrice du Foyer du monde.

Elle constate aussi que la majorité des demandeurs d’asile qui cognent à la porte de sa maison d’accueil ne sont pas passés par Roxham. « Ça date d’avant les transferts vers l’Ontario », précise-t-elle, ce qui montre à son avis « une certaine instrumentalisation » des demandeurs de Roxham.

En janvier dernier, une coalition d’organismes communautaires a lancé un cri du coeur. Cet appel a été entendu par le gouvernement caquiste, qui a rapidement débloqué 3,5 millions de dollars en aide d’urgence.

« Le message du communautaire n’était pas que le Québec est “plein”, c’était qu’on a besoin d’un financement constant et, surtout, qu’un plan d’urgence soit mis en place », ajoute Mme Gracia-Turgeon.

La situation date d’avant le début des transferts vers d’autres provinces.

Source: La majorité des demandeurs d’asile hébergés par Québec ne sont pas passés par Roxham

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‘Stop the boats’: Sunak’s anti-asylum slogan echoes Australia’s harsh policy

2023/03/10 Leave a comment

Of note and a cautionary tale of simplistic slogans vs complex realities:

“Stop the boats.” The white-on-red slogan on Rishi Sunak’s podium on Tuesday was – word for word – the slogan used by Tony Abbott to win the Australian prime ministership a decade ago.

To Australian audiences, so much of the rhetoric emerging from the UK over its small boats policy is reminiscent of two decades of a toxic domestic debate.

A succession of Australian prime ministers have led the rhetorical charge against asylum seekers, insisting that their arrival is an issue of “national security” and “border protection”. They are “illegals”, “queue jumpers” and “terrorists”, Australians have been told, while people-smugglers are the “scum of the earth”.

That hostile and militarised language has held a potent place in the Australian political debate for 20 years. And the language is the fundamental basis of the policies that flow from it: of deterrence and forcible turnbacks, of “offshoring” and indefinite detention.

The rhetoric not only allows governments to create for asylum seekers a “hostile environment”, it compels it from them. This too has been copied in the UK straight from the Australian playbook.

Even many of the characters are the same. Alexander Downer, Australia’s former high commissioner to the UK, argued in the Daily Mail on Tuesday in support of immediate deportation and a lifetime ban from Britain for “anyone caught trying to enter Britain by a dangerous ‘irregular route’, such as a Channel crossing in a small boat”.

Downer was a foreign minister in the conservative government of John Howard that first implemented the “Pacific solution” of warehousing refugees on foreign islands.

The Tory strategist Sir Lynton Crosby was the federal director of Howard’s conservative Liberal party, overseeing his four successful election campaigns.

And Crosby’s protege Isaac Levido, later an adviser to Boris Johnson, was deputy campaign director for the Liberal party’s 2019 election campaign, bolstering the premiership of Scott Morrison, who came to prominence as the architect of the adamantine Operation Sovereign Borders, and who famously adorned his prime ministerial office with a trophy of a boat engraved “I stopped these”.

Source: ‘Stop the boats’: Sunak’s anti-asylum slogan echoes Australia’s harsh policy

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UK: Braverman seeks to backdate Channel crossings law amid fears of rush

2023/03/08 Leave a comment

The latest effort by the UK government. Numbers are comparable to Roxham Road. And like Roxham Road, France may be less interested than the UK in adopting measures that restrict asylum seekers from leaving France:

Refugees who cross the Channel in small boats from Tuesday could face detention and deportation under a new migration law that Labour and charities have called “unworkable” and “cruel”.

In an acknowledgment that the law will prompt a fresh rush of refugees across the Channel, the Home Office is seeking to make the illegal migration bill apply retrospectively from the day it is introduced to parliament, the Guardian has been told.

Suella Braverman, the home secretary, will ask for the proposed law to be applied from the moment she stands up in the Commons on Tuesday. The move follows criticism from unions that the legislation could result in an increase in trafficking across the Channel as refugees attempt to reach the UK before it is passed.

A Home Office source said: “If parliament passes the bill, the measures will be retrospective and apply from the date of introduction. That’s to stop people smugglers seizing on the opportunity to rush migrants across the Channel to avoid being subject to the new measures.”

Lucy Moreton, of the Immigration Services Union, said the plans would “fuel the service” for people smugglers, at least in the short term, “who could tell would-be arrivals that they needed to travel soon”.

Braverman is expected to say that under the new law, asylum claims from those who travel to the UK in small boats will be inadmissible, and the arrivals will be removed to a third country and banned from returning or claiming citizenship.

Details about how the policy will be implemented are scarce, with previous efforts to tighten procedures – such as the policy to send people to Rwanda – mired in legal challenges.

On Monday evening, a Downing Street spokesperson said Rishi Sunak had spoken to Rwanda’s president ahead of Braverman’s statement.

The prime minister and Paul Kagame “discussed the UK-Rwanda migration partnership and our joint efforts to break the business model of criminal people smugglers and address humanitarian issues”, the spokesperson said.

Source: Braverman seeks to backdate Channel crossings law amid fears of rush

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For Haitian migrants in limbo, calls to close Roxham Road clash with Canada’s friendly image

2023/03/07 Leave a comment

Of note:

Standing outside a migrant shelter near Mexico’s border with the U.S., Smyder Mesidor recounted a 10-country odyssey to get here. Driven out of Haiti by gang violence and Chile by a lack of work, the 30-year-old cook had been robbed by bandits and shaken down by customs officials as he walked across much of Latin America.

This road would end, he hoped, in either Florida or Quebec, both places where he has family.

So he reacted with a mix of bemusement and insouciance to word that Canadian politicians want to make it harder for migrants to enter by shutting down Roxham Road, the irregular border crossing south of Montreal.

Bemusement because such rhetoric seemed to clash with Canada’s immigrant-friendly image. Insouciance because, after what he’d been through, he was ready to brave the vagaries of the immigration system in a country that held out the hope of a better life.

“I don’t listen to that sort of talk,” Mr. Mesidor said. “Everyone speaks well of Canada.”

Among the thousands of Haitian migrants gathered here in Reynosa, a city of 700,000 across the Rio Bravo from Texas, there is persistent interest in reaching Canada, usually as a backup option if it proves too difficult to stay in the U.S. There is an even more persistent disregard for attempts by either country to stop people from coming.

Given the brutality and lack of economic opportunity back home, they don’t feel they have much choice but to push forward.

“We’re a little bit upset when we hear politicians say those things, because we don’t have a voice. We want to come and help them build their country,” said Kency Etienne, a 30-year-old teacher living in an encampment of several dozen tents on a concrete pad next to a Mexican government office. “But we don’t really think about it.”

Sitting nearby were Jean and Marie Petilme, who made the trek with their four children. Ms. Petilme is eight-months pregnant with a fifth. Hiking through Panama’s Darien jungle, Mr. Petilme said some migrants with them had their clothes stolen at gunpoint, others were swept away while fording a river and a few starved to death. Life hasn’t been much better in Mexico.

“We’ve been here for three months and we don’t get much to eat. We don’t have phones to fill out asylum applications,” said their daughter Miscalina, 12. “This is how we live.”

Mireille Joseph, 32, also travelled pregnant, including a five-day stretch on foot. She left her husband and two children behind in Haiti. Her hope is to get to safety and then work on having them join her. “I don’t really care at all what the politicians say. I want to come to either Canada or the U.S.,” she said.

The lifting of pandemic border restrictions, along with deteriorating economic and security conditions in Haiti and parts of Latin America, have driven a rise in northward migration this past year. In Haiti, armed gangs have tightened their control of the country, carrying out frequent kidnappings for ransom and blocking access to Port-au-Prince’s shipping terminals. The capital has suffered repeated shortages of food, fuel and medicine.

Under the Canada-United States Safe Third Country Agreement, migrants arriving in Canada from the U.S. are prohibited from making Canadian asylum claims, allowing for their swift deportation. But the rule only applies at official points of entry, leading asylum seekers to enter the country at irregular border crossings.The vast majority do so at Roxham Road near Plattsburgh, N.Y., because of its relative accessibility.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has vowed to renegotiate the Safe Third Country Agreement to apply to the entire border. The White House, however, has shown little interest in changing the status quo. Meanwhile, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been busing migrants from his state to northern cities such as New York, where Mayor Eric Adams has sent many of them on to the Canadian border.

The influx has led Quebec Premier François Legault and federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to ramp up pressure on Mr. Trudeau to stem the tide. “We as a country can close that border crossing. If we are a real country, we have borders,” Mr. Poilievre said last month.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, Mr. Legault said that the province’s social services could not handle any more asylum seekers. He also warned that the new arrivals, who predominantly speak Haitian Creole or Spanish, would contribute to “the decline of French in Montreal.”

The number of people who made refugee claims after crossing at Roxham Road last year – almost 40,000 – is high by the standards of Canada, used to being geographically insulated from migration. In Mexico, it seems modest, a fraction of the more than 200,000 who tried to cross into the U.S. in December alone.

In Reynosa, the shelters are full, leaving many to live on the streets, in parks and in vacant lots. Hot, dusty and perpetually sunny even in late winter, the city feels a world away from the snow-covered forest surrounding Roxham Road. At one intersection near a large encampment, a dozen small businesses have sprung up under tarps strung between trees, with everyone from barbers to fruit sellers providing services to the migrants.

Over a charcoal fire, 19-year-old Natalie Joseph helped prepare gorditas. She has spent much of her life on the move: She left Haiti at the age of 5, she said, with her family settling in Chile. Two years ago, worried about her prospects for finding work, she decided to hit the road with two friends. “You can get the basic necessities in Chile but we wanted something better,” she said.

Across the street, Maricianne Pierre said she had been waiting in Reynosa 2½ months. “I’d love to go to Canada. There are possibilities of school, social programs, work. I’m stuck here right now,” said Ms. Pierre, 40.

Hector Silva, a pastor who runs two shelters in the city, said he wasn’t sure what to tell people who were setting their sights north. He only hoped that the leaders of wealthy countries wouldn’t shut anyone out.

“We have a lot of people asking, ‘How can we do it – if we get the paper from the U.S., how do we get all the way to Canada?’ We don’t know,” he said as a U.S. Border Patrol chopper buzzed overhead. “They’re not criminals. Many people are running for their lives. Leaving the country looking for a better life is not against the law.”

At another shelter a few blocks away, Ricot Picot and his wife watched their two small children play. Mr. Picot, 42, who was a teacher in Haiti, said everyone would be better off if the people with power to decide immigration policy allowed them to complete their journey. “I pray for them,” he said. “We don’t have anything – no jobs, no support. We are not achieving anything staying here.”

Source: For Haitian migrants in limbo, calls to close Roxham Road clash with Canada’s friendly image

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Lanctôt: Préparer l’avenir [future waves of climate refugees]

2023/02/25 Leave a comment

Reminder that today’s problems may be insignificant compared to the futuree:

Puisqu’il faut battre le fer pendant qu’il est chaud et qu’on fait tout pour qu’il le demeure, nous y voilà encore. La panique entourant le chemin Roxham semble s’être installée pour de bon, dans les termes déplorables qu’on connaît. Si au moins il s’agissait de braquer les projecteurs sur le drame humain qui se joue dans l’espace liminal des frontières, ce serait une chose. Or, c’est sur le « fardeau » de l’accueil qu’on se focalise, pendant que les demandeurs d’asile eux-mêmes flottent en périphérie de la discussion, comme une simple variable dans un calcul qui se fait sur leur dos, mais sans eux.

C’est ainsi que, cette semaine, le premier ministre François Legault s’est adressé directement à son homologue fédéral, Justin Trudeau, pour exiger qu’Ottawa agisse pour soulager le Québec de la pression exercée par les demandeurs d’asile sur sa société. La lettre est remarquable en ce qu’elle condense, en quelques paragraphes, plusieurs années d’une construction méticuleuse de la version toute québécoise du discours sur le péril migratoire aux frontières.

Les États-Unis, l’Europe aussi, ont une longueur d’avance à ce chapitre, alors que ces discours se construisent, se reconfigurent et se peaufinent depuis bien plus longtemps. Mais alors que la migration d’urgence s’intensifie partout dans le monde, le Québec fait face soudain, lui aussi, à une détresse qu’il lui était autrefois plus facile d’ignorer. Sans surprise, on réagit en important les dispositifs idéologiques qui, partout ailleurs, président au durcissement des frontières et à la construction de la figure du migrant comme menace.

François Legault l’a bien compris, et sa lettre à Justin Trudeau est une formidable radiographie de la panique migratoire telle qu’elle se vit chez nous. Le premier ministre québécois campe d’abord ses revendications sur le terrain de la défense des services publics, soulignant que l’arrivée « massive » de demandeurs d’asile au Québec pèse bien lourd sur des institutions déjà à bout de souffle.

Il ne se trouvera personne pour le contredire : les services publics, tout comme les groupes communautaires — à qui l’on demande d’éponger le trop-plein du réseau public avec une fraction des ressources —, sont poussés à bout de manière structurelle. La crise est chronique, et elle a été délibérément fabriquée par des décennies de gouvernance néolibérale.

Il est vrai que les ressources manquent pour accompagner les demandeurs d’asile de manière digne. Les histoires que l’on entend brisent le coeur ; des familles qui passent d’un refuge à l’autre, des gens contraints de dormir dans la rue après avoir traversé la frontière par Roxham, une attente interminable pour obtenir de l’aide financière, et le dépassement bien réel des organismes qui prodiguent de l’aide immédiate. Tout cela est insupportable, sauf qu’on pose le problème à l’envers : notre échec à accueillir correctement ces personnes est le symptôme de carences préexistantes, et non leur cause. On pointe la lune et on regarde le doigt.

Il faudrait plutôt renverser la question : comment se fait-il que le Québec n’ait rien de mieux à offrir que l’itinérance et des dédales administratifs déshumanisants à des personnes qui ne demanderaient pas mieux que de pouvoir contribuer à la société québécoise ?

François Legault brandit le chiffre de 39 000 migrants arrivés de manière irrégulière en 2022, ajoutant que cela s’ajoute aux 20 000 personnes admises par voie régulière. Il veut souligner, on l’imagine, l’ampleur de la contribution du Québec. Or, comme le remarquait la directrice générale d’Amnistie internationale Canada francophone, France-Isabelle Langlois, dans une lettre parue dans ces pages, on compte actuellement 100 millions de personnes déplacées de force à travers le monde. À travers les Amériques, la Colombie accueille à elle seule 1,8 million de personnes. On estime par ailleurs que d’ici 2050, plus de 200 millions de personnes seront déplacées par la crise climatique à l’échelle mondiale.

Qu’à cela ne tienne, le Québec, lui, a déjà statué quant à sa responsabilité dans la prise en charge des mouvements de population mondiaux : « La capacité d’accueil du Québec est désormais largement dépassée », écrit le premier ministre. François Legault le dit sans détour : il ne veut pas améliorer la capacité d’accueil du Québec. Il ne demande pas à Ottawa plus de ressources pour mieux accueillir. Il affirme au contraire que le Québec en a déjà fait assez, et qu’il espère même être dédommagé pour les efforts déjà déployés.

Il fait ensuite un pas de côté pour mentionner le déclin du français à Montréal, qu’il associe, d’ailleurs, à l’arrivée de tous les migrants, pas seulement les demandeurs d’asile — après tout, il a une base à exciter. Puis, il réclame l’élargissement de l’entente sur les tiers pays sûrs à tous les points d’entrée au Canada, et la fermeture complète du chemin Roxham. Comme si l’interdiction de demander l’asile au Canada par voie terrestre, ainsi que la fermeture d’un seul point d’entrée devenu emblématique n’allaient pas tout simplement pousser plus de gens sur des routes clandestines.

Au-delà de ce que cette lettre dit de la situation présente, on y lit aussi l’ébauche, plus troublante, d’une vision à plus long terme. François Legault prépare le terrain, il entame doucement la normalisation du mot d’ordre qui sera celui de l’avenir cauchemardesque de la crise climatique : laissez-les se débrouiller.

Source: Préparer l’avenir

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We can throw escaped Uyghurs a lifeline by bringing more to Canada

2023/02/02 Leave a comment

Of note. Legitimate case – MPs voted unanimously in support:

At midnight on Dec. 27, Uyghur public speaker Abdulla Abdulhamit was home when armed Turkish police broke into his house. He was arrested and sent to a deportation centre. Despite numerous attempts by other Uyghurs in Turkey to learn his status, the authorities have not released any information and his fate remains unclear. His family and friends fear that he will be sent back to China, where he is likely to be executed.

In Canada, our Parliament has been clear that Beijing is perpetrating a genocide of the Uyghurs, and they voted unanimously to call it that, consistent with the United Nations 1948 Genocide Convention. While some have criticized Liberal cabinet ministers for being absent from the vote, we can be sure that if the Prime Minister had opposed it, the Liberal whip would have persuaded Liberal MPs to vote nay.

But what can Canadians tangibly do to help the Uyghurs? Liberal MP Sameer Zuberi proposed a motion to call on the government to design a program to bring 10,000 Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims to Canada over two years. These are Uyghurs in other countries where they are at daily risk of being arrested and deported back to China to be incarcerated in indoctrination camps – what witnesses described to the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development as concentration camps – where deaths, torture, rapes and forced sterilizations of women are common, and where some detainees are executed without trial.

Nearly two million Uyghurs have spent many months of indoctrination in China’s prison-like facilities before being sent to an actual prison or to factories in other parts of the country as forced labour. Few are sent home. According to Human Rights Watch, China has put half a million Uyghurs in prison after their time in a camp. This is often because they were not sufficiently contrite in renouncing their culture and religion or accepting the political ideology of Xi Jinping Thought. More than a million Uyghur children are already in indoctrination schools or state-run orphanages to learn Chinese and Xi Jinping Thought, many without sufficient food or clothing for cold weather.

Uyghurs who have escaped west to Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries have often left China without documentation, and so have become stateless. Officials and agencies in those countries may be vulnerable to China’s political and financial pressure. Consequently, the Uyghurs are often deprived of services such as health care, schooling, and work or residence permits that would allow them to integrate into the community. It is therefore difficult for them to meet their basic social needs or develop future employment prospects. These Uyghurs are also at serious risk of rendition to China. Thousands have already been sent back only to disappear into the camps and prisons, or worse.

China’s policy of genocide for the Uyghur people is well known around the world. Less known is Beijing’s identification of “nine forbidden countries,” including Turkey and the UAE, where Chinese citizens should not go unless they have an approved reason to be there. These countries are popular destinations for Uyghurs, as they are already home to established communities of that culture. By having an explicit policy, Beijing can try to pressure those countries to deport any Uyghurs. Indeed, it has been reported that the UAE has a Chinese-run detention centrefor Uyghurs and other critics of China in Dubai.

The vote on Mr. Zuberi’s Motion-62 will be held in the House of Commons on Feb. 1. The first and second debates in October were strongly supported by MPs of all parties, so success is a good possibility. If passed, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada will design a funded program for 2024 to 2026 to bring Uyghurs and other Turkish Muslims as refugees from third countries to Canada, where they will be safe and will contribute positively to society as thousands of other Uyghurs have already. We have done this before for Vietnamese, Syrians and others who have become stellar citizens.

Hundreds of Uyghurs will be in the gallery of the House of Commons for the vote. If Motion-62 passes, it will give Canadians the concrete measures that Parliament’s earlier vote on the genocide really demands. And if cabinet ministers vote in favour, they will be giving a strong signal for meaningful action. Canada will be leading the world in supporting Uyghur refugees at dire risk – people such as Abdulla Abdulhamit.

Mehmet Tohti is executive director of the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project. Margaret McCuaig-Johnston is a senior fellow with the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa.

Source: We can throw escaped Uyghurs a lifeline by bringing more to Canada

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Adams, Khanji: Canada must continue modelling its refugee efforts on its response to the Syrian crisis

2023/01/31 Leave a comment

Indeed. Unfortunate that increased administrative requirements are making it more difficult for private sponsors (Federal changes could make it impossible for private groups to sponsor refugees, say faith leaders):

The arrival of Syrian refugees in Canada a few years ago is a well-known “feel-good” story. Images of Justin Trudeau greeting refugees at the airport and private citizens stepping up as sponsors are etched in the minds of many Canadians. The compelling stories of particular refugees and families who suffered hardship and became successful, such as Tareq Hadhad of Peace by Chocolate in Antigonish, N.S., and Abdulfatah Sabouni of Aleppo Savon in Calgary, have been showcased as wonderful examples highlighting the resilience and entrepreneurial spirit of Syrian newcomers. But what about the other refugees who arrived with them, most of whom are living outside the media spotlight?

Canada acted quickly to take in 40,000 Syrian refugees in a short span of time between November, 2015, and December, 2016, and it is important to know how they are doing today (and not just through the success stories captured by the media). This is the question that the Environics Institute sought to answer in a national study with a representative sample of Syrian refugees on their lived experience since arriving in Canada.

The answer is that Syrian refugees who arrived in the first wave are doing remarkably well. Our study shows that most Syrian refugees who arrived in 2015 and 2016 have established new lives for themselves and their families in Canada, largely overcoming the initial hurdles that face all refugees (and especially those who come from societies with different languages and cultures). The research shows that most are supporting themselves financially and have achieved functional fluency in English or French. Their children are doing well in school, they feel accepted by other Canadians and identify strongly as Canadian, and are active members of their local communities. These refugees, having had only a few years to create new lives in a foreign place, are notably optimistic about the future for themselves and their children.

Not everyone is doing equally well and many continue to face challenges, most notably with employment and underemployment, along with other immigrants who find their native credentials of little value in the Canadian workplace. Achieving financial security and accessing affordable housing are issues for some refugees, as they are for many Canadians. And many of these refugees miss having family nearby and struggle to become comfortable with an unfamiliar culture.

But the big picture is positive. Canada rose to the occasion through an unprecedented effort by governments, civil society and citizens, to open the country and make it home for Syrians fleeing a horrendous humanitarian crisis. And these refugees are now contributing to their communities and the country in important ways. Only now are other countries taking our lead, with the U.S. announcing a similar program just last week.

It is important to remember the tragic story of Alan Kurdi, a two-year-old Syrian boy pictured lying face down on a Mediterranean beach in 2015, which helped spark the Canadian response to the Syrian refugee crisis. Alan’s story continues to serve as a powerful reminder of the dangers and hardships facing many refugees, and how a country and its people can respond in a meaningful way. We did so once before on a large scale, in the late 1970s, when Canada stepped up to accept more than 60,000 people fleeing war and persecution in Southeast Asia.

These examples demonstrate that Canadian society – not just our governments – has both the interest and the capacity to get directly involved in making this country a welcoming refuge. Canada was the first country to make it possible for private citizens and faith-based institutions to sponsor refugees. Our research highlights the essential role that private sponsors played in Syrian refugees’ successful resettlement. And we know from one of our other studies that many Canadians across the country – estimated to be around four million – are interested in getting directly involved in helping refugees in this way. Our governments can and should do whatever they can to enable and support this goodwill.

Doing so requires a more robust level of focus and effort. The scale of support provided to Syrians has not been sustained, with subsequent waves of refugees now arriving from Afghanistan and elsewhere. The effort put into Syrian resettlement, compounded by the protracted COVID-19 pandemic, has pushed government agencies, settlement support services and private sponsors to their limits.

There is much to be learned from our recent experience in welcoming Syrian refugees, and we now have the opportunity – and responsibility – to repeat this accomplishment on a sustainable basis. Canadian institutions and citizens stepped up in a big way to welcome Syrians. Let’s find a way to make this an enduring feature of our country’s future.

Michael Adams is the founder and president of the non-profit Environics Institute for Survey Research. Jobran Khanji is the community outreach co-ordinator for the Institute’s Syrian Refugee Lived Experience Project. Keith Neuman is a senior associate with the Environics Institute.

Source: Adams, Khanji: Canada must continue modelling its refugee efforts on its response to the Syrian crisis

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with , ,

Hotel rooms for asylum seekers cost Ottawa $94-million since last election

2023/01/24 Leave a comment

Of note:

The federal government has spent almost $94-million since the last election booking entire hotels for months to accommodate an influx of asylum seekers entering Canada, according to an access-to-information request.

Since September, 2021, the Immigration Department has paid $93,886,222 for “long leases” with hotels, mostly in Quebec, setting them aside for asylum seekers, including those entering the country through the irregular border crossing at Quebec’s Roxham Road.

The department booked 30 hotels between April and December last year – 10 in Montreal alone, according to a redacted response to the access-to-information request.

The Immigration Department said it wants to help take pressure off the provinces, even though the housing of asylum seekers is a provincial responsibility.

By block booking hotel rooms, it can ensure there are enough places to house the “the rising volume of asylum claimants crossing between the ports of entry, who have no housing options available to them,” said Nancy Caron, a spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

She added that most come through the Roxham Road and Lacolle border crossings in Quebec from the United States.

The discovery of the body of Haitian migrant Fritznel Richard near Roxham Road this month reignited a debate in Quebec about the irregular border crossing, about an hour’s drive from Montreal.

A briefing document for the Immigration Department’s deputy minister on irregular migration from July last year said at that time the government had 1,721 rooms leased in 24 hotels in 12 locations across Canada.

It said a big rise in airport arrivals, mainly in Montreal, in June last year meant that the department had to transfer asylum claimants from Quebec to hotels in Ottawa and Niagara Falls. They hired 300 hotel rooms in Niagara Falls in July, to cope with an “accommodation crisis in Quebec.”

“While this option is not cost effective, it was the only immediate solution in this circumstance,” the briefing document said.

Quebec Conservative MP Pierre Paul-Hus said he and other MPs were concerned not just about the cost of block booking entire hotels, but the fact that many rooms are unoccupied a lot of the time. He said one such hotel, Hotel St-Bernard in Lacolle, seven minutes from the Roxham Road border crossing, is often empty. The hotel declined to comment.

“What we want is to stop the illegal border crossing. If they don’t do anything to stop it, we will need more hotel rooms and the problems will get worse,” he said, adding that it was also having an impact on tourism.

The organizer of an annual kids’ hockey tournament in Montreal – which is holding its 30th anniversary event in May and June – told The Globe that families cannot find rooms in hotels the tournament has booked for decades because so many have been totally reserved.

Dave Harroch, who runs the Montreal Madness hockey tournament, said families may now have to stay far from where the games will be held, on the West Island of Montreal.

“One of the hotels told me they are only 20 per cent occupied,” he said.

Between last April and December, the Immigration Department booked one Montreal hotel with 175 rooms for $7.5-million and another 160-room hotel in the city for $9.7-million.

In Dorval, near Montreal’s international airport, it booked a 112-room hotel for $5.2-million in the same period. And between September and December, a 117-room hotel was leased for $1.3-million.

The Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton, near the airport, is among those reserved for asylum seekers. The hotel declined to comment.

The Comfort Inn Aeroport in Dorval is another. Choice Hotels Canada, which has the Comfort Inn brand within its stable, said it was up to its franchisees to decide whether to lease their hotels to the government.

The access-to-information request shows the Immigration Department had a long-term lease on a 39-room hotel between April and December last year in Lacolle, just minutes from the Roxham Road border crossing, at a cost of $1.7-million. It refused to name the hotel.

The information request shows that in Niagara Falls, the government booked a 150-room hotel between October and December last year and an 85-room hotel between April and December, each at a cost of about $1.6-million.

From July to December last year the Immigration Department spent just over $2-million on a 50-room Ottawa hotel. Between April to October it spent just over $1-million on a 30-room hotel in the capital.

The government has also spent millions reserving entire hotels for asylum seekers who move on to other parts of Canada, including in Winnipeg, Lethbridge, Alta. and Surrey, B.C.

Source: Hotel rooms for asylum seekers cost Ottawa $94-million since last election

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A new program lets private citizens sponsor refugees in the U.S.

2023/01/20 Leave a comment

Welcome return:

Everyday Americans will be able to help refugees adjust to life in the U.S. in a program being launched by the State Department as a way to give private citizens a role in resettling the thousands of refugees who arrive every year.

The State Department plans to announce the program, dubbed the Welcome Corps, on Thursday. The agency aims to line up 10,000 Americans who can help 5,000 refugees during the first year of the program.

“By tapping into the goodwill of American communities, the Welcome Corps will expand our country’s capacity to provide a warm welcome to higher numbers of refugees,” according to the announcement.

The State Department has traditionally worked with nonprofit groups that specialize in refugee issues to help people from around the world when they first arrive in the country and face a dramatically different way of life. Under the program being announced Thursday, five or more Americans would be able to form a group and fill this role as well.

They would apply to privately sponsor refugees to resettle in America, and would be responsible for raising their own money to help the refugees during their first 90 days in the country. Assistance would include everything from finding a place to live to getting kids enrolled in school.

A consortium of nonprofits with expertise in refugee resettlement will help oversee the vetting and certification of people and groups who want to be private sponsors. They’ll also offer training so private sponsors understand what’s needed to help refugees adjusting to life in America. The consortium will be responsible for monitoring the program.

The new initiative will roll out in two phases, according to the State Department. Under the first phase, private sponsors will be matched with refugees already approved for resettlement under the U.S. Refugee Assistance Program. That will start during the first half of 2023.

In the second phase of the program, private sponsors would be able to identify refugees abroad that they would like to help and then refer those people to the Refugee Assistance Program and assist them once they arrive in the U.S.

The Welcome Corps program comes on the heels of a similar, smaller scale endeavor under which Americans were able to sponsor Afghans or Ukrainians fleeing their country. That program launched in October 2021 and has helped just over 800 people coming to America through a network of 230 certified sponsors.

President Joe Biden vowed in a 2021 executive order to restore the U.S. as the world’s haven and called for private sponsorship of refugees. The previous administration, under President Donald Trump, had largely rolled back the refugee program.

Source: A new program lets private citizens sponsor refugees in the U.S.

Filed under Refugees Tagged with ,

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