Themrise Khan: The incoherence of Canada’s refugee policy

2022/01/20 Leave a comment

Overly simplistic in its focus on the “whiteness” of refugee policy given the many restrictions on refugees and discrimination of minorities in non-white countries.

And while one can characterize Afghan interpreters and the like as “helping imperial forces during an (illegal) occupation,” seems a bit divorced from the reality of the Taliban’s rule.

As for her recommendations, fine as far as they go but the challenge is not at the general principles, which most policy makers agree with, but actually implementing them in a real-time basis, where I believe the main failures likely were:

Over the past year the lives of refugees and asylum seekers of the Global South have been put at risk more than ever by potential receiving countries of the Global North. Militarized migrant pushbacks at the Poland-Belarus border. Increasing migrant deaths in the English Channel. Draconian asylum and refugee policies being proposed by the U.K. A United States that continues to be refugee-averse despite a change in government. In essence, we are witnessing the “whiteness” of refugee policy – a shift by countries of the Global North toward using the lives of refugees to wield greater power over the Global South, all the while retaining the false narrative of the white saviour.

Canada’s current refugee policy is nowhere as extreme as those examples, but it is not so distanced from this narrative either. The Afghan refugee crisis in the summer of 2021 was meant to be a moment for Canada to exhibit its good policy, particularly since it played an active part in post-conflict Afghanistan and maintained a presence in the country. Instead, the Canadian response exposed the contradictions in its refugee policy, many of them a long time coming. Whiteness does not only mean discriminating against the “other.” It also means being completely disconnected from the situation outside the Global North. Canada’s response to the Afghan crisis has provided us with several illustrations of this disconnect.

Canada’s response – gaps and discrepancies

From being one of the first northern countries to shutter its embassy when the Taliban took over to when it ended its evacuation mission in the following days, Canada’s disconnect from reality was clear. There were thousands of refugee and asylum cases that had been pending since at least 2014, and the decision to create new refugee programs or expanding existing ones at the 11th hour was a bureaucratic scramble, rather than a well thought out policy response. It stranded people in other countries, which meant Canada had to negotiate special agreements so these countries would temporarily house refugees destined for Canada. The ethics and optics were particularly weak when this involved countries like Pakistan that had closed their borders and were hostile to Afghan refugees.

The situation of Afghan interpreters and fixers who assisted Western forces, including Canada, illustrates the biggest policy disconnect from reality. Their roles were prone to being romanticized in the media, as they perfectly invoke the image of the Western white saviour and the oppressed Afghan working together against a common evil. However, Afghans did not necessarily help Western forces because the West came to save them. They did it primarily for economic survival, as some studies have found, and as a way out of the country for their families in the aftermath of a brutal conflict. This does not negate their right to seek refuge. But suggesting the prospect of asylum in return for helping imperial forces during an (illegal) occupation is a flawed and incoherent premise in the context of refugee policy.

In effect, Western interventionism created multiple tiers of refugees in a system that was never meant to view some as being more deserving than others. In Canada’s case, this threatens the lives of Afghans who directly worked with us by encouraging them with the prospect of asylum and then failing to deliver even before it was too late – all because such cases required a force-fit within a law that recognizes them as just one of many deserving groups.

What the Afghanistan situation most clearly illustrates is the absence of mechanisms within Canada’s refugee policy to respond to complex emergencies on the ground. Canada’s refugee system, like many others, looks to the United NationsHigh Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) referral program. Inthis program the UNHCR refers the applications of refugees officially registered with the organization to third countries thatare offering resettlement opportunities. These third countries, such as Canada, then select who to admit by applying their own criteria to the applications referred to them by the UNHCR. This is how Canada responded to the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015. In the recent Afghan case, however, the system was redundantsince the urgency created by the Taliban takeover was to removeAfghans from within Afghanistan, not from refugee camps elsewhere. Not anticipating this, and also leaving existing Afghan applications stagnating within our refugee system, was perhaps Canada’s worst failing in this crisis. 

Recommendations for better policy and practice

The Afghanistan case blindsided Canada’s refugee response system, but it didn’t have to. We must redesign our refugee policy to be proactive instead of reactive. For this, Canada must:

  • Design better mechanisms to predict and understand conflict-induced displacement

The West obsessively predicts large-scale displacement related to climate change and hunger. But it does little to predict or understand how armed conflict or political power imbalances can force people to flee, especially in the Global South. This includes ignoring voices within the Global South that are better able to judge tension and displacement in their countries. Afghanistan has been a location of conflict for as long as the Taliban have existed. Misjudging this was a tactical error that exposed Canada’s disregard for the views of potential refugees themselves. Refugee policy must invest in a more Southern-led understanding of how conflict manifests over time and can affect people’s lives, including the voices of refugees. It must move away from being simply a paper-pushing exercise.

  • Integrate inter-departmental efforts to respond to refugees and displacement 

Canada was involved in pre- and post-conflict Afghanistan not just militarily, but also via its development programming and humanitarian support. Information gathered by the various departmental channels is vital to developing an integrated response to potential human displacement across government. Better inter-governmental co-ordination would improve refugee response systems, particularly in countries where Canada is diplomatically present.

  • Adopt emergency measures to respond to crises

Canada rather proudly states that it responded to the Afghan crisis by effectively accommodating on-ground challenges. This included bypassing and altering screening and documentation requirements. But this was done only after the realization that regular, peace-time processing measures were not working. Precious time was lost in the process of coming to this realization. Had such measures been in place beforehand, the response would have been immediate. Therefore, it is imperative to acknowledge the distinction between and the need for peace-time and conflict-related refugee processing mechanisms.

A Canadian government official recently commented on Canada’s refusal to bring in relatives of Afghan refugee applicants who were deemed inadmissible. He said: “the hard part of the job has been telling people: ‘I’m sorry, this is the policy.”

This comment in a nutshell sums up Canada’s disconnect from reality as it relates to its refugee response. The Afghan case has demonstrated that whiteness manifests itself not only in racial discrimination but also in policies that are largely oblivious to reality outside our borders. Canada prioritized its bureaucracy and interventions over the risks faced by the Afghan people, and the system ignored the urgency of a country on the brink of collapse. If this is what our refugee system is built around, it is clearly geared toward helping Canada, and not the vulnerable.

Source: https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/january-2022/the-incoherence-of-canadas-refugee-policy/

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UK tightens criteria for Afghans to enter despite ‘warm welcome’ pledge

2021/12/16 2 Comments

Yet another example by far too many countries:

The Home Office has tightened the criteria allowing Afghans to enter the UK despite promises from Boris Johnson to give a “warm welcome” to those who assisted British forces or worked with the government.

The department announced changes to the Afghan relocations and assistance policy (Arap) which narrows the criteria from that used during the Operation Pitting evacuation in August 2021.

After the UK’s chaotic exit from Kabul in August, the prime minister launched “operation warm welcome” to ensure the safety of staff in fear for their lives from the Taliban.

“I am determined that we welcome them with open arms and that my government puts in place the support they need to rebuild their lives,” Johnson said at the time. “We will never forget the brave sacrifice made by Afghans who chose to work with us, at great risk to themselves.”

Source: UK tightens criteria for Afghans to enter despite ‘warm welcome’ pledge

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Syrian refugees who now call Canada home look to help Afghan newcomers

2021/12/11 Leave a comment

Nice:

The living room at Zoheir and Nadia Darrouba’s home is a hive of activity in the late afternoon – their older children, just back from school, are taking turns carrying around their baby brother as their parents look on.

It’s a simple scene but one that makes Zoheir Darrouba feel at home in the mid-size Ontario city the Syrian refugee family of eight has now put down roots in.

“We have settled here. We cannot live outside Peterborough,” he says. “It’s a good and quiet city. There are not problems here … People are helpful and nice.”

The family is among nearly 46,000 Syrian refugees who were resettled in Canada under a program introduced by the Liberal government in 2015. The first flight carrying Syrian refugees landed in Toronto on Dec. 10, 2015, exactly six years ago.

The Darroubas, who made their way to Canada under the resettlement program in November 2016, used to live in Idlib, in northwest Syria, one of the first regions where local uprisings escalated into widespread violence. The family lived for a period of time in Lebanon before finding themselves settling in Peterborough.

Now, as they consider themselves firmly established locals, the family is looking to help Afghan refugees who’ve started arriving in the city following the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul earlier this year, although the pandemic has made that effort a bit more complicated.

“There are several (Afghan) families here … They are in quarantine, unlike before,” said Darrouba, who wants to offer support because he knows first-hand how hard starting over in a new country can be.

“When we came here, we didn’t know anyone here. If someone showed up to visit us, we would feel it’s great support.”

Darrouba currently works as a driver delivering COVID-19 PCR test samples for local pharmacies in Peterborough to a lab in east Toronto.

The family’s five older children, ranging in age from eight to 16, are all doing well at school, their father says, while their mother is staying home to care for her two-month-old.

Nadia Darrouba says she’s content with her Canadian home.

“In my first days in Canada, I used to look at the snow from the window and cry thinking when the winter will be over,” she recalled. “We are very comfortable now. My children grow up here. They don’t know Syria.”

Two of her daughters, who are blind, say they’re well-supported at school and feel set up for success.

“If I compare where I was and where I’m now, it’s a huge achievement … I used to speak English but it wasn’t so good. Now my English is a lot better … My grades are very good,” said Aya Darrouba.

The 16-year-old, like her father, said she feels drawn to helping Afghan refugees who are now beginning a new chapter, just as her family did.

She volunteers with a local settlement agency that’s helping Afghan refugees and, since the pandemic has made it challenging to meet in person, recently helped it make a video offering advice to the newcomers.

“I just tried to make them feel at home,” she said of the video. “I told them your first days in Canada will be difficult but you will get used to the country.”

The federal government has committed to resettling 40,000 Afghan refugees, with 3,625 now in Canada, including about 80 in Peterborough, according to government data.

Marwa Khobie, executive director at the Syrian Canadian Foundation, said Syrian refugees are well placed to help the Afghan refugees who started arriving in Canada in the last few months.

Her organization, which is based in Mississauga, Ont., launched a campaign this week to raise money for Afghan newcomers and connect them with 100 Syrian refugees.

“Now that Afghan refugees have arrived, it was kind of a way to refresh our memories and remember what we went through five years ago,” she said.

“Many Syrian newcomers were actually asking and telling us: ‘How can we support Afghan refugees? What can we do? How can we meet them?'”

Her organization has partnered with four other groups that are supporting Afghan refugees to provide opportunities for now-settled Syrian refugees to help the newcomers in the Greater Toronto Area, she said.

Khobie said the campaign, called From Syria to Afghanistan, will also have a positive impact on Syrian refugees.

Sharing their success stories, remembering what they went through – this is a way to empower Syrian newcomers and Afghan refugees at the same time,” she said.

“For Afghan refugees, we want them to feel welcomed here in Canada, a sense of belonging, knowing that they’re not alone in the community, and everybody is willing to support in every way possible.”

Source: Syrian refugees who now call Canada home look to help Afghan newcomers

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Tories break ranks on immigration to demand safe routes to UK for asylum seekers

2021/12/06 Leave a comment

Potentially significant:

Senior Tories have demanded a radical overhaul of the asylum system to allow migrants to claim refuge at UK embassies anywhere in the world – rather than having to travel to the UK – in a bid to cut the numbers attempting dangerous Channel crossings.

Ex-cabinet members David Davis and Andrew Mitchell are among those calling for the change, which marks a stark challenge to the punitive approach taken by Boris Johnson and Priti Patel, who are demanding tighter controls on French beaches and are threatening to “push back” small boats at sea.

Mr Davis, the former shadow home secretary and Brexit secretary, and Mr Mitchell, the former international development secretary, also poured scorn on the home secretary’s plan to take on powers through her Nationality and Borders Bill to send migrants arriving in the UK to camps in third countries overseas for processing – something that has already been ruled out by Albania after it was named as a potential destination.

Writing for The Independent, Pauline Latham, a Conservative member of the Commons International Development Committee, said that allowing migrants to claim asylum at embassies abroad was “the only viable alternative to the tragedy of deaths in the Channel and the chaos of our current approach”.

Twenty-seven migrants, including three children and a pregnant woman, drowned off the coast of France in November when their boat sank, marking the single biggest loss of life of the crisis so far.

The Home Office is opposing an opposition amendment to the borders bill, due for debate in the House of Commons this week, which would allow migrants to seek “humanitarian visas” in France, allowing them to be transported safely across the Channel to claim asylum.

But Ms Latham’s proposal goes a step further, removing the need for asylum seekers to pay thousands of pounds to criminal gangs to smuggle them into Europe and then risk their lives in order to reach Britain to make their claim.

The Mid Derbyshire MP said: “This feels to me like a genuine win-win. The customer base of the people smugglers would vanish, ending deaths in the Channel and ensuring that people seeking safety here can travel in a humane fashion.

“The UK would be better able to control who arrives here, and anyone arriving without a visa or pre-approved asylum claim would face non-negotiable deportation.”

Current government policy has “got it the wrong way round” and should be reshaped as a “global resettlement programme” similar to those set up in Syria and being established for Afghanistan, said Ms Latham.

With the vast majority of those arriving in the UK by small boat having a legitimate claim for asylum, the question Ms Patel must answer is why the UK’s current policy requires them to put themselves in the hands of lawless gangs and then risk their lives in order to be able to submit their paperwork, she said.

“Desperate people will continue to seek safety in the UK for as long as there is conflict and persecution elsewhere,” said Ms Latham. “But nobody puts their child in an overcrowded, flimsy dinghy on a cold November morning if they think a better alternative is available. So, when we talk about deterrence we have to talk about alternatives.”

And Mr Davis said: “Instead of a policy which is built solely on keeping people out, the government should consider creating a legitimate route in for genuine refugees. Migrants fleeing repression in Iran or famine in war-torn Yemen are not able to apply at British embassies. The only options available to them are either illegal, or dangerous, or both.”

The bill being debated in the Commons on Tuesday and Wednesday aims to deter small-boat crossings by restricting the rights of those who enter the UK by “irregular” routes, allowing “offshore” processing of claims in third countries, and speeding up the removal of failed asylum seekers.

It would also give border and immigration staff powers to redirect boats out of UK territorial waters in a way that MPs and unions have warned could increase the risk of capsize and deaths.

Mr Davis said that offshoring would represent a “moral, economic and practical failure”, inflicting a terrible ordeal on those fleeing terror and persecution.

And Mr Mitchell said: “So far, Norway, Rwanda and Albania have all distanced themselves from suggestions that they would host a UK offshore processing centre. The bill seeks a power for a policy which the government is yet to define.

“Even in Australia, 75 per cent of those sent to remote islands for processing eventually had their claims upheld. Indeed, most of the people crossing the Channel are also having their asylum claims upheld. Offshore processing looks like a policy which delays the inevitable. But at far greater cost to the taxpayer.”

The Labour MP behind the humanitarian visa amendment, Neil Coyle, said Ms Patel’s proposals “will cause more dangerous routes and more risk to people seeking to reach the UK”. He told The Independent it was “garbage” for her to claim they would reduce the so-called “pull factors” attracting those fleeing war, civil conflict or persecution to Britain.

“A humanitarian visa offers the government the chance to prove it means what it says, when it says it doesn’t want people to be subjected to gangs and criminality,” said Mr Coyle. “The amendment would save lives, help us meet our international obligations, and prevent money going to smugglers.”

Stephen Farry of the Alliance Party, backing the amendment alongside MPs from the SNP, Liberal Democrats, Green Party and Labour, said: “Claiming asylum in the UK is a fundamental right, but asylum seekers are in a Catch-22, whereby asylum can only be claimed on UK soil yet the UK provides no safe and legal routes to enter the country for those purposes.

“The home secretary doesn’t care about asylum seekers, but if she were serious about tackling people smuggling, this visa is a workable solution.”

But a Home Office spokesperson said: “The government has noted the amendments relating to asylum visas for persons in France and they will be debated in parliament in due course.

“However, there is the risk of creating a wider pull factor, putting vulnerable people in danger by encouraging them to make dangerous journeys across the Mediterranean and overland to France in order to make claims to enter the UK, motivating people to again entrust themselves to heinous smugglers.”

The chief executive of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, Minnie Rahman, dismissed this argument.

“Like people who travel to the UK for work or study, people seeking protection in the UK deserve safe ways of getting here,” she said. “If the government were serious about preventing dangerous crossings and upholding our commitment to refugee protection, they would back this amendment. Instead it seems they’re happy to continue driving refugees into smugglers’ boats.”

And Bridget Chapman, of the Kent Refugee Action Network, said: “The simple fact is that those who have made this journey tell us that they never wanted to leave their homes in the first place. It wasn’t the ‘pull factors’ that made it happen, it was violent ‘push factors’, such as war, conflict and persecution.

“Once displaced, most people stay close to their country of origin and only a relatively small number come to the UK. There is no evidence whatsoever that making their journey to the UK marginally more safe would be a ‘pull factor’, and we cannot allow that to be used as a reason not to give them better and safer options.”

Bella Sankey, director of Detention Action, said: “This humanitarian visa amendment would help to prevent deaths in the Channel and undermine the dangerous boat journeys offered by people smugglers.

“If the government is concerned about a so-called ‘pull factor’, they should show clear evidence of it and then expand this amendment to include refugees further upstream.”

Source: Tories break ranks on immigration to demand safe routes to UK for asylum seekers

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Canada committed to 40,000 Afghan refugees. 3,500 have made it. A piece of paper stands in the way

2021/11/29 Leave a comment

Of note:

In August, Naik Arbabzada was thrilled when she managed to quickly put together a private group of acquaintances to sponsor her elder sister’s family to Canada from Tajikistan, where the Afghans have sought refuge.

The Edmonton group quickly raised $60,000 in cash, with one person donating $8,000 worth of dental services for her sister, brother-in-law and six children.

But then they hit a snag because the family has not been able to secure the so-called “refugee status determination” paper, a document they need from the Tajikistan government to be recognized as refugees in need of resettlement.

Without that piece of paper, Arbabzada, a medical student at the University of Alberta, said her sponsorship group can’t even put in an application.

“We are asking the federal government to treat the Afghan refugee crisis similar to the Syrian refugee crisis by waiving the requirement of the RSD, so it doesn’t hinder an applicant’s ability to put a sponsorship application forward,” said Arbabzada, 30, who resettled in Canada with her parents 20 years ago. 

(Her two older sisters were left behind in Afghanistan because they were married and couldn’t come along as dependants. One is still stuck in Kabul with her family.)

Canada has committed to welcoming 40,000 Afghan refugees through its special immigration measures and humanitarian resettlement program after the Taliban took over Kabul and returned to power in August. So far only 3,500 have made it here.

Ottawa has set a target to usher in a total of 59,500 refugees in 2021 but so far only 44,300 have been admitted, according to data confirmed by the immigration department.

The goal for this year’s intake of government-assisted refugees was 12,500, and 22,500 for those privately sponsored by churches and community groups such as Arbabzada’s family. As of Oct. 31, only 7,800 and 4,500 were admitted respectively. The rest of the 44,300 admitted so far were refugees who entered Canada and were then granted asylum.

Officials said Canada’s ability to process immigration applications has been greatly hindered since the onset of COVID-19 amid office lockdowns and travel restrictions here and abroad.

This week, Ottawa confirmed it has reopened the land border to irregular migrants from the U.S., giving them access to seek asylum in Canada, which had been sending these would-be refugees back south of the border since March 2020.

“As the public health situation improves and the border reopens, Canada has removed the temporary public health measures restricting the entry of asylum claimants and the agreement with the U.S. has come to an end,” said Alex Cohen, press secretary of Immigration Minister Sean Fraser.

“Canada remains committed to upholding our fair and compassionate refugee protection system, fulfilling our domestic and international legal obligations and protecting the health and safety of Canadians and those who wish to come here.”

While it’s good news that those travel restrictions have relaxed, Arbabzada said Fraser must also remove the red tape hindering ready Canadians from bringing in Afghans in crisis.

She said her sister’s family had no plan to move to Canada until June, when they were forced into hiding and had to flee the country after her brother-in-law was threaten by the Taliban because he was a contractor providing office supplies, furniture and non-perishable food items to foreign companies in Kabul.

However, since he didn’t work for the Canadian government, the family didn’t qualify for Ottawa’s special measures to resettle here, leaving private sponsorship the only option.

“It’s a shame that Canada is unable to meet its annual refugee target when you have individuals like my sister who are going to be very well supported and are waiting to start their lives in Canada,” said Arbabzada.

Members of her sponsorship group have reached out to the immigration department, urging the government to waive the refugee card requirement for Afghans.

In an email, a senior immigration official said removing the requirement, even temporarily, would result in a greater number of applications, which affects processing times and the timely resettlement of all privately sponsored refugees.

“There is a continuing need to manage intake of these applications in order to achieve acceptable processing times,” said the letter.

The official’s response upsets Tema Frank, a member of Arbabzada’s sponsorship group.

“The government is speaking out of both sides of their mouth,” said the Edmonton writer. 

“They’re trying to claim the glory for saying we’ll support all these Afghans. And yet when you’ve got Canadians who are ready to support them and make it happen, they’re putting this artificial blockade in the way.”

Source: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2021/11/25/this-afghan-canadian-rallied-a-group-to-sponsor-her-sister-to-come-to-canada-a-piece-of-paper-stands-in-the-way.html?li_source=LI&li_medium=thestar_canada

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À quoi peut-on s’attendre au chemin Roxham? 

2021/11/24 Leave a comment

Quebec advocate perspective. Will be interesting to see how fast and how far numbers climb:

Entre 2017 et 2019, 95 % des personnes ayant présenté une demande d’asile à la frontière terrestre canadienne l’ont fait au Québec, et pratiquement toutes au chemin Roxham, où l’on ne trouve aucun poste frontalier officiel. Près de 18 mois après l’avoir interdit en raison de la pandémie, le gouvernement fédéral permet, depuis dimanche dernier, aux personnes qui traversent la frontière entre les postes frontaliers de déposer une demande d’asile. À quoi peut-on s’attendre à la suite de cette réouverture ?

Pour répondre à cette question, il faut retourner aux années prépandémie. La transformation du chemin Roxham en point névralgique de cette frontière n’est pas une coïncidence : elle découle de plusieurs décennies de politiques migratoires qui visent à empêcher l’arrivée spontanée de demandeurs d’asile. Répondant à une anxiété liée au fonctionnement du système fédéral d’asile dans les années 1990, ces politiques ont pris une tournure antiterroriste à la suite des attentats du 11 septembre 2001. Cette année-là, le Canada et les États-Unis se sont mis d’accord sur la Déclaration pour une frontière intelligente, dont fait partie l’Entente sur les tiers pays sûrs (ETPS). Mise en place en 2004, l’ETPS permet de renvoyer la majorité des demandeurs d’asile qui se présentent à la frontière canado-américaine vers les États-Unis.

Cette entente est à l’origine de ce que l’on a appelé la « crise migratoire » du chemin Roxham. En effet, parmi les exceptions qu’elle prévoit, l’ETPS ne s’applique pas aux personnes qui traversent la frontière à un endroit autre qu’un point d’entrée. En raison de sa situation géographique et à la faveur de la conjoncture politique, le chemin Roxham s’est imposé en tant que principal point d’entrée non officiel au Canada. Si les premières arrivées se sont déroulées de manière chaotique, les autorités ont par la suite mis en place certains dispositifs permettant d’accueillir ces personnes de façon ordonnée. Néanmoins, cet arrangement temporaire a permis aux autorités canadiennes d’exercer une surveillance sur les arrivées irrégulières, de garder un certain contrôle sur ces personnes et, ultimement, d’examiner leurs demandes de façon à respecter les droits des demandeurs d’asile ainsi que la législation canadienne.

Durant les premières semaines de la pandémie, le Canada a presque entièrement fermé sa frontière terrestre aux demandeurs d’asile. Alors que le gouvernement a par la suite rétabli les quelques exceptions à l’ETPS, les personnes se présentant entre les points d’entrée officiels ne pouvaient toujours pas déposer leur demande, étant renvoyées aux États-Unis dans l’attente du moment où les autorités leur permettraient de venir le faire. Bien que l’Agence des services frontaliers du Canada ait commencé à contacter ces personnes en août dernier, cette fermeture fait en sorte que de nouveaux chemins plus reculés sont maintenant empruntés. Du côté américain, des organismes d’aide aux réfugiés déplorent les conditions difficiles dans lesquelles se retrouvent les personnes qui attendent de pouvoir déposer leur demande.

La levée de cette exception annoncée dimanche aura des conséquences au chemin Roxham et ailleurs le long de la frontière terrestre. Il s’agit d’un bon moment pour considérer l’abrogation de l’ETPS et ainsi permettre aux demandeurs d’asile de se présenter directement aux postes frontaliers. Sinon, les images de 2017 risquent de revenir à la une de nos journaux : des familles entières qui se présentent de façon irrégulière au chemin Roxham, leurs valises à la main, puisque cela constitue leur unique option pour demander le statut de réfugié au Canada. Ou, pire encore, des demandeurs d’asile qui, comme ce fut le cas en 2017, périssent dans les régions rurales enneigées des Prairies à la recherche d’un passage entre deux postes frontaliers. Ce jeu du chat et de la souris entre les autorités et les demandeurs d’asile ne sert finalement personne.

Source: https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/idees/649125/demandeurs-d-asile-a-quoi-peut-on-s-attendre-au-chemin-roxham?utm_source=infolettre-2021-11-23&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=infolettre-quotidienne

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Poland Gets Support From Europe on Tough Borders

2021/11/12 Leave a comment

Good example of “weaponization” of refugees:

The migration crisis of 2015, when millions of migrants and asylum seekers surged over Europe’s borders, nearly tore apart the European Union. Many members offered asylum to the refugees; others, like Poland and Hungary, wanted no part of it.

Six years later, the current standoff at the border of Poland and Belarus has echoes of that crisis, but this time, European officials insist that member states are united when it comes to defending Europe’s borders and that uncontrolled immigration is over.

What is different, the Europeans say, is that this crisis is entirely manufactured by the dictator of Belarus, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, as a response to sanctions that the Europeans imposed on his country in the face of a stolen election and a vicious repression of domestic dissent.

“This area between the Poland and Belarus borders is not a migration issue, but part of the aggression of Lukashenko toward Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, with the aim to destabilize the E.U.,” Ylva Johansson, the European commissioner for home affairs, said in an interview over the summer.

The crisis began in late August, when growing groups of migrants, mostly from the Middle East, began massing at the borders of Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, shepherded there by Belarus. That movement has now become much larger, with at least 4,000 or more men, women and children trapped in the freezing cold, without proper shelter or toilets, between Belarus and its neighbors.

Both Poland and Lithuania declared states of emergency and fortified their borders, while Belarusian forces have in some cases aided the migrants in breaking through. The border regions have been shut to journalists and aid workers, but upsetting videos and pictures of the migrants facing barbed wire have been distributed, often by Belarus itself.

On Wednesday, the German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, called Mr. Lukashenko’s tactics a “cynical power play” and said that blackmail must not be allowed to succeed. In Washington the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, met President Biden and emerged to say that what was transpiring on the Belarus border is “a hybrid attack, not a migration crisis.”

Source: Poland Gets Support From Europe on Tough Borders

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USA: The Rate of Successful Asylum Cases Shot Up This Year. But That’s Probably Not Due to Biden

2021/11/12 Leave a comment

Of note:

There’s been a significant uptick in the rate at which immigrants have been granted asylum since President Joe Biden took office, new research shows. But that likely has nothing to do with the new President’s policies.

Asylum case success rates jumped from 29% to 37% between Fiscal year 2020 and Fiscal Year 2021, during which Biden took office, according to a new report published Wednesday by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a data and research organization at Syracuse University. Looking only at the period Biden has been in office, the success rate has been 40% — and as high as 47% in September.
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“The obvious inference is, oh, well this is because of Biden,” says Austin Kocher, assistant professor and researcher at TRAC. But, he notes, the Biden Administration has made no major policy changes that would influence how immigration judges rule in asylum cases.

Instead, Kocher says, the higher rate of asylum grants may be due to a confluence of factors. For example, more asylum seekers this past year have had legal representation — and, historically, having a lawyer significantly increases the odds of winning asylum. (The reason for the uptick in legal representation is unclear. One possibility, the researchers say, is that attorneys representing clients with particularly strong cases may have simply succeeded in pushing their cases to the front of the line.)

Another factor may be the nationality of the people whose cases were heard. For example, Chinese applicants have more frequently won asylum cases in the past, while Haitian or Central American nationals have had lower success rates. “The country that people are from goes a long way in determining who gets asylum,” Kocher says. Geopolitics and U.S. foreign policy goals have historically played a big role in shaping asylum decisions.

The absolute number of people being granted asylum remains low, largely because courts have yet to resume their pre-pandemic decision rates after COVID-19 shut down some court activity. “The immigration courts have absolutely not recovered at all, not even a fraction really,” Kocher says. “We still have only had barely more than than 2,000 cases completed a month even right up until the end of September [2021].”

Immigrants Waiting Years for a Decision

Immigration courts are roughly 1.5 million cases behind schedule, which means thousands of people have been waiting for years for their asylum requests to be decided by a judge.

A partial shut down of immigration courts beginning in March 2020 as COVID-19 spread across the U.S. exacerbated this backlog. Before COVID-19, immigration judges were deciding approximately 10,000 asylum cases per month, according to TRAC. That number dropped after the pandemic started. In April of 2020, judges were deciding fewer than 2,000 asylum cases per month.

In Fiscal Year 2021, which ended in September, just over 23,800 asylum cases were decided in court. That’s down from 60,000 cases that were decided in Fiscal Year 2020. Roughly 8,350 people won their asylum claim in FY21, about half the number of people who won their claims in FY20, according to TRAC, which analyzed data it received through a Freedom of Information Act Request.

An additional 400 people won some type of relief from deportation in FY21 that was not asylum, the researchers note.

In the meantime, asylum seekers will likely have to continue to endure long waiting periods before their cases are heard in court. Prior to the pandemic it was not uncommon for people to wait up to four years for a case to be heard.

“The key thing here in terms of what’s driving a lot of the data is really getting past the pandemic,” Kocher says. “Until the immigration courts are fully open, and society is fully back to normal there’s just no way that the courts are ever going to be able to really get through these cases.”

Source: The Rate of Successful Asylum Cases Shot Up This Year. But That’s Probably Not Due to Biden

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Online criteria for Afghan refugee program changes, applies only to those who’ve fled

2021/10/27 Leave a comment

While one can understand the rationale given the difficulties in leaving Afghanistan under the Taliban, arguably the need is greatest for those stuck in the country. Will likely provoke controversy among the many who have already been working to raise the issues and help them leave:

The Canadian government has quietly changed the criteria on its website for a special program for vulnerable Afghan refugees so that only those who have already managed to escape to other countries are eligible.

The online criteria for the “special humanitarian program” used to include Afghans “who are in Afghanistan or outside of Afghanistan,” but it was changed this month to apply only to those “outside of Afghanistan.”

The program is one of two set up to help bring 40,000 Afghan refugees to Canada and is intended for vulnerable groups including women leaders, persecuted religious or ethnic minorities, LGBTQ people and journalists.

The online criteria for the other program, which is aimed at interpreters and others who helped Canada during its military mission as well as embassy staff, still allows those inside Afghanistan to apply.

When the government first announced the special humanitarian program in August, it said it would apply to those outside Afghanistan, but it ultimately included those stuck inside the war-torn country in its online criteria.

Canada was the first country worldwide to  launch a special pathway to Canada for women, girls, LGBTQ and targeted minorities in Afghanistan.

Groups working with Afghans trying to flee the country said the change to the program’s eligibility criteria on Canada’s official website would sow confusion and desperation among Afghans hoping to come to Canada.

It could drive Afghans to resort to people smugglers to get outside the country in order to qualify, they warned.

Alex Cohen, a spokesman for Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino, said Canada was “the first country in the world to announce a humanitarian program for Afghan refugees, which will see some 40,000 refugees start new lives in this country.”

The humanitarian initiative, he said, requires refugees to have left their country of origin to be consistent with the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees.

He said the government is “adapting our programs to the evolving situation in Afghanistan, and have added a provision to enable two new partner organisations to refer exceptional cases of individuals who are inside Afghanistan.”

“We regularly review IRCC’s public communications to ensure they reflect our policies and provide the best possible information to applicants, and update them accordingly,” he said. “The edit to our website was a communications change, not reflective of a policy shift.”

Stephen Watt of Northern Lights Canada, a refugee organization, said the government’s plan to bring 40,000 Afghans to Canada has been wrapped in secrecy ever since it was announced.

“There is still no clear way to apply to the program, or to discover who it is accepting or how it is operating,” he said. “This is a life and death question for many of the people we are talking to within Afghanistan.

“Our government needs to come clean about its plans for these very vulnerable people who it promised to help in the heat of the election, and provide a clear path for providing that help. This isn’t a time for empty promises and secret processes.”

Canada ended its airlift mission from Kabul near the end of August as the U.S. was completing its own withdrawal from the country. Thousands of people with permission to travel to Canada were left behind — including Canadian citizens.

Since the Taliban seized control, it has been increasingly difficult to get people out.

Wendy Noury Long, director of the Afghan Interpreters Association, said she feared that government’s change to its criteria, made in mid October, would drive desperate Afghans to go to extreme lengths to get out of the country so they qualify.

“People will be thinking how do I get out? Do I contact human smugglers? Countries are actively deporting people back to Afghanistan,” she said.

“This is a policy change. This is the explanation of whether you qualify. You are taking a huge risk to try to get out to another country and you might find yourself deported back to Afghanistan.”

The humanitarian program Canada set up to help Afghans at risk has strict eligibility criteria. To qualify, Afghans must also be a woman leader, a human rights advocate, a member of a persecuted religious or ethic minority, in the LGBTQ community, or a journalist or someone who has helped Canadian journalists. As of mid October, they must be located outside Afghanistan.

Those who fit these criteria need to register for refugee status through existing refugee programs, with the United Nations Refugee Agency or the government where they live, and wait to be referred. They can also be identified as eligible by a private sponsor.

Around 3,700 Canadians and Afghan refugees, including former interpreters, were airlifted out by Canada before the end of August.

Approximately 1,700 interpreters and other Afghans with papers to come to Canada are currently in safehouses in Kabul. Some safehouses, being run by an NGO and funded by veterans and private donations, face closure within weeks because of lack of funding.

Source: Online criteria for Afghan refugee program changes, applies only to those who’ve fled

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This Syrian IT worker was stuck in limbo in Lebanon. Now he works at Shopify — thanks to a Canadian pilot program for skilled refugees

2021/10/14 Leave a comment

Looks like a success story for this approach even if numbers are relatively small:

With years of experience in IT and surveillance systems, Omar Taha could easily transfer his skills and knowledge anywhere if an employer would give him a chance.

But being a refugee in Lebanon, the Syrian man didn’t know where to start to find an international employer to sponsor him to another country, let alone have the money and proper documentation such as university transcripts for relocation.

Then a fellow Syrian refugee told him about the recruitment drive by Talent Beyond Boundaries, a global non-profit organization that matches skilled refugees with employers around the world in need of their skills.

“It was in October 2018 when I contacted them. Honestly, I thought my chances of getting a job through them was one in a million,” said Taha, who has a master’s degree in computer engineering and years of work experience in IT and system operations in Syria and Lebanon.

“Then they reached out to me in 2019 and told me there’s this job opportunity with a company called Shopify in Canada and asked if I would be interested. And I was like, ‘Hell, yeah!’”

The 31-year-old man finally ended a life in limbo in January when he and his accountant wife, Roula Dannoura, arrived in Hamilton as permanent residents — among 18 former refugees (plus 27 family members) who came under Ottawa’s pilot program to resettle refugees here based on Canada’s labour market needs.

“A lot of the refugees I know in Lebanon have all sorts of skills and knowledge. But we don’t know how, when or where to start,” said Taha, who now works as a support adviser for Shopify, a multinational e-commerce company headquartered in Ottawa.

“I always dreamed of going to Europe or Canada or the U.S. to work there. But it’s very, very hard. How would I go through the process? Why would an international company be interested in someone who was a refugee in Lebanon and didn’t have any Canadian experience?”

With the resounding success of the pilot, Ottawa has expanded the program to recruit up to 500 skilled refugees from around the world.

“We have on a daily basis employers across different sectors now reaching out to us. We’re seeing a significant increase in the private sector engagement,” said Patrick O’Leary, Talent Beyond Boundaries’s Canada director.

“So it’s no longer a proof of concept. And this is really being seen as truly an untapped talent pool in Canada and around the world.”

Since its inception in 2016, the organization has vetted and developed skill profiles of refugees. Its international talent pool currently has 32,000 candidates — in backgrounds from engineering to health care and IT among others — including some 350 Afghans who have registered recently.

Over the last three years, through partnerships with different countries, more than 312 refugees, including 141 principal applicants, have resettled based on this model. While Australia has committed to welcoming 100 skilled refugees, the U.K. is set to usher in 205 refugee nurses in the next six months.

“In terms of the current pandemic, the biggest thing that we’re hearing across sectors in Canada is we need skilled workers,” said O’Leary, whose organization will launch a new online platform soon to allow Canadian employers to glean candidates’ professional profiles directly.

“We are providing a solution that hasn’t been on the table before and employers are coming out now.”

Under Canada’s expanded program, candidates with a job offer are waived permanent residence application fees and biometrics fees. They also have their pre-departure medical services and the immigration medical exam covered.

Those without enough initial settlement fund for their move to Canada are eligible for government loans to help with travel and start-up costs. To make the program more appealing to Canadian employers, immigration officials also aim to process 80 per cent of the cases within a standard of six months through a dedicated team.

Glen Haven Manor, a long-term care facility in New Glasgow, N.S., which has recruited talent locally and globally, welcomes the expanded program. It successfully brought two skilled refugees on staff under the original pilot.

“The long-term care sector throughout Nova Scotia and Canada has been chronically understaffed for many years now,” says Janice Jorden, employee relations specialist at Glen Haven Manor.

“Added pressures from the pandemic have escalated this critical need as well as the growing demands from the constantly increasing care levels of residents. For many nursing homes, being in rural Canada compounds the critical nature of this situation.”

One of the most recent additions to her team is Lamis Alhassan, a former Syrian nurse and nursing instructor, who joined the home in July after living in limbo in Lebanon with her husband, Abd Alazeez Alabaas, also a nurse, and two young daughters for six years.

The 31-year-old registered with Talent Beyond Boundaries in 2016 and spent three years upgrading her English to meet the required language standards before she was offered a job by Glen Haven in late 2019. Due to the visa processing disruption caused by COVID-19, her family received their Canadian visas in April.

“My bosses, colleagues and the residents here really welcomed us with open arms,” said Alhassan, who was matched with a co-worker on the same shift so she can be picked up and dropped off for work because the town only has one bus.

“Life is so quiet and peaceful here. I’m so happy that Canada is expanding this program so more refugees can have a better future and use their skills to make a contribution.”

Alhassan said both she and her husband plan to study toward being licensed to practise nursing in Canada once they are settled.

Source: This Syrian IT worker was stuck in limbo in Lebanon. Now he works at Shopify — thanks to a Canadian pilot program for skilled refugees

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