Settlement agencies unprepared for volunteer surge amid refugee crisis: report

2017/09/06 Leave a comment

Not surprising given how rapidly public interest soared after the Alan Kurdi death and photo and 2015 election:

Many settlement agencies in Ontario were overwhelmed by a unexpected surge of volunteers looking to help the tens of thousands of Syrian refugees arriving in Canada since 2015 but were unable to tap into the additional help, a new study has found.

A report, published by the Together Project, which matches newcomers with groups of five or so volunteers, found the settlement sector was unprepared to deal with the surge of volunteer interest from Canadians. Many of the agencies did not have the experience or support to effectively mobilize the volunteer interest, the report stated.

“They didn’t have the institutional structures ready to take on board a lot of new volunteers,” said Craig Damian Smith, Together Project’s co-founder and research director. “People we talked to in the settlement sector said their phones were ringing every day and there were hundreds of people calling and wanting to volunteer but they had difficulty integrating these volunteers. Some people referred to it as too much help.”

Although the refugee crisis existed since 2011 when the war in Syria began, many Canadians hadn’t taken notice until the summer of 2015 – when images of the hundreds of thousands of refugees arriving on Europe’s shores were widely shared. The attention towards the crisis reached its peak on Sept. 2, 2015 when the world reacted in grief to the image of Alan Kurdi – a 3-year-old Syrian toddler who drowned trying to escape the war and was found on a beach.

Mr. Smith said around 80 per cent of the dozens of volunteers questioned in the study were driven to help after seeing media coverage of the crisis in 2015 as refugees crossed Europe for refuge. The study conducted surveys and field research across the province speaking to volunteers and settlement organizations.

The three-month, qualitative study identified ways to fill the gaps in service by fostering collaboration between the settlement sector, volunteer initiatives and volunteers. One of the main findings was that independent volunteer initiatives are necessary to integrate newcomers because settlement agencies do not have the history or capacity to efficiently recruit or manage large numbers of volunteers.

The Arab Community Centre of Toronto, which normally received around 10 volunteer applications a month, started receiving up to 40 a month in 2016, when the government was trying to resettle up to 50,000 Syrian refugees.

As the agency put all their resources and effort into supporting the unprecedented amount of newcomers, Zeena Al Hamdan, a manager at the centre, said it became difficult to accommodate the number of people wanting to help because they needed to be trained, recruited and screened.

Ms. Al Hamdan said her team had to act fast and implement structural changes in order to retain the volunteer interest. The centre recruited two volunteer co-ordinators responsible for supporting and integrating those wanting to help. Ms. Al Hamdan said she feels the organization is now ready to accommodate future surges in interest.

Effectively harnessing volunteer energy is an important part of ensuring support for refugee newcomers and integration, said Mr. Smith. His initiative aims to emulate the private sponsorship model by providing government-assisted refugees with a social support network of five or more volunteers.

John Scully, a volunteer at the Together Project, said he was driven to help because he felt he could learn from the experience and also make a difference in other people’s lives. Along with six other volunteers, he was matched with a family of four Syrian refugees. The volunteers help the newcomers with everything from filling applications to helping them preper for a driver’s test.

“I thought I could help out a little bit to provide an opportunity to some of the Syrian families to see a welcoming face and provide them with the chance to get support from us,” Mr. Scully said. “We visit once a week, and it is always something we look forward to very much.”

Source: Settlement agencies unprepared for volunteer surge amid refugee crisis: report – The Globe and Mail

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How Canada can restore order to its immigration system: Anglin

2017/09/05 1 Comment

Former deputy chief of staff to former PM Harper and chief of staff to former CIC/IRCC Minister Kenney Howard Anglin offers some suggestions to deal with the influx of irregular arrivals, rather than merely criticizing the government.

His first point, on joint border patrols, requires US agreement, as does the second point, amending the STCA to include irregular arrivals. Both are likely non-starters with the Trump administration as the border crossers are people they want to leave anyway. Anglin acknowledges that with respect to amending the STCA.

His other ideas are worthy of consideration although they will be anathema to some. If the government is confident about the US refugee determination system, as it has stated repeatedly, then accepting their determinations would be fully consistent with that confidence.

Equally controversial is his suggestion to deduct any increase in asylum seekers from the overall protected persons class (refugees) in order to maintain the overall share. But his logic is clear, even if Australia is not the best example to emulate regarding refugee (and citizenship) policy. But should, in the unlikely event the Canadian government would adapt this approach, it would retain the flexibility to change the numbers should circumstances warrant.

First, Canada should substantially increase joint border patrols with the U.S. to apprehend people attempting to cross illegally before they can. There is a precedent for this in the Shiprider program, in which the RCMP and the U.S. Coast Guard jointly patrol smuggling in the Great Lakes. This cooperation, which was formalized as part of the 2011 Beyond the Border Action Plan by then-president Barack Obama and former prime minister Stephen Harper, should be expanded to the land border at points of frequent illegal crossing. With a border as long and porous as ours, this will never be a complete solution, but even if it only slows the flow, it would give bite to Trudeau’s currently toothless request that migrants respect our laws.

Second, the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) should be tightened in two ways. Under the agreement, if an asylum-seeker presents himself at a regular port of entry on the Canada-U.S. land border, we will turn him back to make his asylum claim in the United States. But if he crosses outside a port of entry—even a few hundred yards to the side—he is permitted to make his asylum claim in Canada. To remove this incentive for law-breaking, the STCA should be extended, consistent with its underlying principles, to anyone coming directly from the United States, regardless of how or where they arrived.

We should also close the loophole allowing migrants coming from the United States to make an asylum claim in Canada if they have a family member here. The definition of “family member” in the STCA is much broader than the usual definition in Canadian immigration law, including not just parents and children but also siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews. That wide net is made even wider by lax enforcement. If you turn up at the border at Windsor claiming to have an uncle in Montreal, there’s not much CBSA can do beyond making some phone calls. We rarely require strict documentary proof from both parties, let alone DNA testing, as we should (and could, without U.S. approval).

Unfortunately, the likelihood of the United States agreeing to close these loopholes is slim. Previous requests have been rebuffed, and changes that mean more people will make asylum claims in the United States rather than Canada must be about as low as you can get on the American foreign policy agenda. Still, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t continue to ask and even to tie them to other negotiations over matters our neighbours do care about.

There are, however, two changes to the asylum system that we could make unilaterally. We could start by amending our laws to recognize American courts’ asylum decisions. Today, if an asylum seeker’s claim is rejected in the United States, he can walk across the border and make another one here. With reciprocal recognition and access to American asylum records, we could deny serial claimants a second kick at the can here. Trudeau and Hussen have recently reaffirmed their faith in the independence of the American asylum system and the idea that it satisfies Canadian standards of due process underlies the STCA. It’s time we took that idea to its logical conclusion.

The government could also copy Australia and amend the way we categorize and count refugees. Currently, the government sets annual immigration targets each year by category, which it submits to Parliament each autumn. In 2017, for example, as part of an overall total of 300,000 new immigrants, the government set a target of 25,000 for refugee resettlement and 15,000 for successful inland asylum claimants and their dependents. Unlike other immigration categories, which are within the government’s control, this last one is always an estimate. If many more asylum-seekers arrive in Canada, then we have no choice but to process them and to accept all successful claimants, even if they are over and above the stated target.

If we were to combine the two categories into a single class of humanitarian immigrants, then we could adjust the number of resettled refugees we admit each year to compensate for any inaccuracies in our estimate for the category of inland claimants. Using this year’s combined total of 40,000, if we end up accepting 20,000 asylum claims instead of the 15,000 the government predicted, we would reduce the number of overseas refugees we resettle from 25,000 to 20,000, keeping us within the overall target. If it’s not possible to be that nimble in adjusting resettlement numbers on an annual basis, then the total could be spread over two years, with next year’s number reduced instead (or increased in a year when we receive fewer successful inland asylum claims than predicted). A combined annual cap on all refugee immigration wouldn’t directly address the current flood of migrants, but it would be an important step towards regaining control over total immigration to Canada.

The government may have been slow to react to the migrant problem, but it isn’t too late for Trudeau and Hussen to restore order and reassure Canadians that our immigration system is as law-bound as they claim on Twitter. It will, however, take action as well as words. Decisive action, of the kind described above—backed up with tough words, of the kind Trudeau usually prefers to avoid.

Source: How Canada can restore order to its immigration system – Macleans.ca

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The Man Raising an Army of Psychologists in Iraq

2017/09/01 Leave a comment

Good initiative and investment:

A year after helping more than 1,000 escaped ISIS captives resettle in Germany, Kurdish-German psychologist Jan Ilhan Kizilhan has returned to northern Iraq with a plan to save thousands of other psychologically scarred war victims left behind.

With backing from the German state of Baden-Württemberg, Kizilhan has set out to train a new generation of psychologists and trauma specialists he believes will be among the most qualified in the Middle East

After years of war, Iraq and Syria are struggling with a mental health crisis neither country has the capacity to address. In northern Iraq alone, where more than 1 million people are displaced by violence, just a couple dozen local psychologists are believed to be treating patients.

Various nongovernmental organizations and government initiatives have sought to fill the gaps, including Baden-Württemberg’s asylum program, which physically transported some of the most psychologically scarred women and children in northern Iraq to a part of the world where they could more easily access mental health care.

As a dark measure of the German program’s effectiveness, its directors boast that of its 1,100 beneficiaries—mostly women held as ISIS sex slaves and their children—not one has taken his or her own life in contrast to some other ISIS survivors who didn’t get a spot in the program.

Mindful of the deadly stakes for those left behind, Baden-Württemberg invested 1.3 million euros, a small fraction of its annual budget, into Kizilhan’s new institute, which aims to cultivate the experts where they’re needed.

The Institute for Psychology and Psychotraumatology sits on a neatly manicured hill at the University of Duhok in northern Iraq. On a sunny morning in May, the campus, set against the backdrop of picturesque mountains, hummed with the sounds of lawn mowers.

Just a short drive away, hundreds of thousands of displaced people live in sprawling camps, each one having risen up in the wake of an exodus—from an ISIS advance, bombings, or clashes. Just 40 miles to the south, chunks of Mosul lay in ruin from a months-long battle to oust ISIS from the populous city. Forty miles to the west: the Syrian quagmire. And despite the campus’ unblemished appearance, everyone at the school seems to have been touched by war.

Hewan Avssan Omer, a 26-year-old secretary at the institute, only escaped a 2014 ISIS attack on her village because she happened to be away at school. The militants kidnapped other members of her family, some of whom escaped just months ago. Omer’s 7-year-old cousin spent two and a half years in captivity and returned to society unable to speak his native Kurdish, confused about who his parents are and where he is from.

The staff’s proximity to and familiarity with the local crisis is intentional.

One of the biggest criticisms of the German program was that it exposed trauma victims to the additional stress of culture shock by transporting them to a foreign place.

At his office in Baden-Württemberg in early 2016, Kizilhan said the United Nations refugee agency was one of the critics to raise this concern of detaching victims “from their roots.” The German team responded that it was a price they were willing to pay, at that precarious time, for potentially saving lives. “In Iraq they are living in camps, their parents are killed, they have no roots!” Kizilhan responded. “It’s ridiculous. They need stabilization and security before they can talk about how it felt to be raped and helpless. How do you do this in a tent?”

Source: The Man Raising an Army of Psychologists in Iraq

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Malmö: The Swedish city where Syrian refugees and hipsters have bonded over food | The Independent

2017/08/26 Leave a comment

A good integration news story from Malmo for a change:

The main square of Malmö’s alternative Möllevången district bursts with colour on Saturdays. The open-air market is in full force; fulsome purple aubergines are stacked proudly next to emerald fronds of coriander and stallholders complain about the weather with friends in foreign tongues. This cosmopolitan corner of Malmö has transformed in recent years from a working class area to a radically multicultural district, where hipsters and refugees rub shoulders. It’s also a hub for some of the most authentic Syrian food outside of Syria.

In 2015, at the peak of the crisis in Syria, Sweden took in more Syrian refugees per capita than any other European country. Of the 163,000 refugees who arrived there in 2015, 32,000 were granted asylum and many of those chose to come to Malmö, where there was already a growing Middle Eastern population.

Shamiat was the first Syrian restaurant in Malmö, founded on 1 October 2013. I visit the branch in Bergsgatan, five minutes from the square. Inside, owner Maurice Salloum twirls the ends of his handlebar moustache ruminatively as his staff lay out a feast of mezze. Salloum arrived in Malmö in 2012, at the start of the civil war, and it took him 18 days to get to Sweden from his home in Damascus. Last year Shamiat was named best Middle Eastern restaurant by a local newspaper. It was the cementing of Salloum’s place in this new city.

“I was feeling fantastic,” he says. “I was very happy and proud that the Swedish people have accepted me to be here in this country”. But he still worries that not all Swedes have accepted the migrant population. There was a terrorist attack in Stockholm in April, perpetrated by a rejected asylum seeker from Uzbekistan who announced his sympathy with Isis. “This made me very sad,” says Salloum, “I baked bread that day and went out there to give the bread away for free.”

Salloum decided to open his restaurant because he saw a gap in the market. The name of the restaurant means “Damascene,” and is also a name for a dish which is only found in Damascus.

“Before we came, there was no Damascene food available in Malmö, so we work hard to give customers something special and unique,” he adds.

I try the fattoush, a salad of roughly chopped leaves, pepper wedges, olives and fried flatbread, drenched in pomegranate syrup. “It’s a very nice, typical dish, a bit like tabbouleh,” says Salloum. It is sharp and sweet and rustic – and nothing like tabbouleh.

The trend for Middle Eastern cuisine was first brought to Malmö by Lebanese and Turkish immigrants, who created the foundations of a food scene that, in turn, helped the Syrian restaurants to flourish here.

Down the road on Baltzarsgatan 21 is Laziza, a modern Lebanese restaurant whose bountiful buffet food attracts 300 customers a day. The owner, Sadoo Iskandarani, says his grandfather opened up the very first falafel place in Malmö.

“He was my idol,” he says. “He was good with bread and falafel. In the Nineties he started a cart selling falafel in Helsingborg and people loved it. The teachers came to eat there and the police officers came, then maybe 20 bikers would come and stand in line, queuing for falafel.

“I think Malmö has the best of all the cultures that live here and that food is building the bridges between the cultures.”

The most recent addition to Malmö’s Syrian restaurant scene is Ayam Dimashq, which roughly translates as “Days of our life in Damascus”. It’s north of Möllevången, on the borders of the Varnhem and Carolikvarteren districts, on Östra Förstadsgatan.

Chef-owner Huni Awwad opened it just nine months ago. He came to Sweden four years ago, when he was 39. Unlike many of the younger men who move to Sweden from Syria, Huni was already well-established with his own large, successful restaurant back in Damascus, called Peacebird.

Ayam is beautifully designed, with a modern, geometric logo and tapestries depicting landmarks and streets in Damascus, with small details picked out in gold thread.

“Everything’s coming together fast here,” says Huni. “In my country everything is a little bit slower, but I come here, open a restaurant, get married and have a boy – and I have another boy on the way – all in four years!”

He came here by boat; it took him five attempts.

“I don’t know why I made it on the fifth attempt but I thought to myself, ‘I can’t turn back this time. I might die, but I can’t turn back. ’Luckily I am here, so it’s good.”

His fattah is a warm blend of pureed chickpeas, yoghurt and sesame, with soft pieces of flatbread melting underneath. It’s topped with toasted cashews, pomegranate seeds, fried strips of flatbread, pine nuts and sprinkled with sumac. The flavours are beautiful.

Awwad’s life seems to have fallen into place here, but the move from Syria was a necessity, not a choice. He works a long day; it’s Ramadan and Midsummer, so he’ll stay open until 4am for his Muslim customers to break their fast.

“It is very hard when you change your whole life,” he says. “It is a good life here, very good, people are very nice and I think my life here resembles my life in Damascus – but it is not my life. My heart is in Damascus.” He looks up at the wall-hanging depicting a winding cobbled street lined with ancient buildings. “I hope one day to walk these streets again, and taste the food of home.”

Source: Malmö: The Swedish city where Syrian refugees and hipsters have bonded over food | The Independent

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Refugee approval rates reflect subjectivity of decision-makers, prof says

2017/08/24 Leave a comment

Rehaag does good serious analysis, demonstrating the challenge of ensuring consistency among a diverse group of decision-makers. The replacement of political appointees by public servants appears to have reduced somewhat the previously wide variation among decision-makers:

The rate at which refugee claims are accepted by Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board varies widely depending on who hears the case, according to a professor who obtained data from the federal government.

Sean Rehaag is an associate professor at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University in Toronto, who specializes in immigration and refugee law and human rights. Through an access to information request, he was able to obtain IRB decisions for refugee claims filed in 2016.

‘Some board members are just more likely to believe claimants than other board members.’ – Sean Rehaag, university professor

He found a wide variability in acceptance rates, from as low as a quarter of cases heard to a high of 96 per cent.

“I do think that who we appoint as decision-makers really matters,” said Rehaag, specifying it is important to “appoint people who have a solid understanding of refugee law and who are not predisposed to denying claims.”

Rehaag’s work may provide insight into how the 7,000 asylum seekers who have crossed the border on foot at Roxham Road in Hemmingford, Que., will be handled over the next few months as they begin to appear in front of the IRB to test their refugee claims.

Some of that variability in deciding cases is due to the fact that different board members can specialize in different regions of the world.

“It makes perfect sense that if you are mostly hearing cases today from, let’s say, Syria, you are going to have a much higher grant rate than if you were mostly hearing cases from Western European countries, because Syria is much less safe,” said Rehaag.

But even when specializations are taken into account, said Rehaag, there’s still a lot of variation.

“My view is that the variation that remains reflects subjectivity in decision-making,” he said.

Variance to be expected, IRB says

In a statement, IRB spokesperson Line-Alice Guibert-Wolff said variance in acceptance rates from one member to another is to be expected.

“Members render decisions based on the evidence and argumentation presented (or not presented) and each refugee protection claim is unique, and must be determined on its individual merit,” she wrote, adding that there are many factors that impact a decision.

While consistency in its decision-making is the goal, Guibert-Wolff said that, in a quasi-judicial setting where each case is determined on its own merits, based on the evidence presented, consistency is not always possible.

However, the variance in acceptance rates is subject to a periodic review.

New system better than old one

The process for people seeking asylum in Canada changed in 2012, affecting how cases were heard and who heard them. Under the old system, decision-makers were political appointees, but under the reformed system, the decision-makers are public servants who are appointed instead.

As a result, Rehaag noticed a change in how many cases are accepted.

“There used to be decision-makers who denied every single case that they heard over several years. Those were political appointees and that no longer happens,” he said. “There is still subjectivity in decision-making, but it’s not as bad as it was before.

“To me, though, the biggest challenge that the Immigration and Refugee Board is facing right now is a resourcing question,” said Rehaag.

Procedural protections

One way to change the variation rate is to create procedural protections, similar to the criminal justice system.

For example, many asylum seekers are denied access to appeal, which Rehaag said would never happen in a criminal law context.

In 2016, 33 per cent of appeals were granted, a rate Rehaag characterizes as “remarkably high.”

Some claimants, especially those who came to Canada through the United States, are denied access to appeal and are ineligible for automatic stays of removal pending judicial review at the Federal Court.

That means once they’ve gotten a negative decision, they are forced to leave Canada quickly.

IRB spokesperson Guibert-Wolff said the majority of refugee claimants can appeal to the refugee appeal division, except if they fall under a few categories listed.

He said the government must properly fund the IRB so that there are not only enough decision-makers, but administrators, managers and support staff for the system to work smoothly.

Source: Refugee approval rates reflect subjectivity of decision-makers, prof says – Montreal – CBC News

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Will Haitians force Trudeau into being hard-hearted? Andrew MacDougall

2017/08/12 Leave a comment

I always find MacDougalls’ (former Harper PMO Director of Communications) commentary valuable and thoughtful given his conservative perspective is expressed and argued in a largely non-partisan manner (in contrast to some former CPC staffers such as Candice Malcolm and Mark Bonokoski in Sun media).

This piece is no exception:

It’s summertime, and the border crossing is easy.

What was once a slow trickle of bodies from the United States to Canada threatens to become a steady flow. And instead of Muslims fleeing the imprecise scope of Donald Trump’s “Muslim ban” across the Manitoba border, it’s now worried Haitians who form the majority of those seeking sanctuary this summer in Quebec.

Why Haitians? Why now?

Essentially, those who fled Haiti in the wake of the devastating 2010 earthquake have been spooked by a change to their status in the United States under the Trump administration. And so they’re fleeing again. But it’s to a place where a similar change has already been made; Canada sends its failed Haitian claimants back to Haiti.

The particulars don’t matter; the Haitians are here, and more are coming because they think Canada is a soft mark. The Big O(we) in downtown Montreal is even being converted to a shelter for their arrival. And if they come in stadium-sized numbers it means a hard choice is coming for Justin Trudeau.

And it’s a choice (somewhat) of the prime minister’s own making.

When President Donald Trump unveiled his inaugural “Muslim ban” Trudeau responded with a tweet declaring: “To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength. #WelcometoCanada.”

It got great headlines at the time, and isn’t strictly applicable to the Haitians now coming, but what Trudeau is now finding out is that tacking on a sieve or a barrier to the sentiment expressed in that tweet is hard to do, especially when your political brand is basically that of the world’s saviour.

The Haitians in question aren’t fleeing persecution, terror, or war; they’d mostly rather not go back to Haiti. And every place they occupy in our asylum system is one less for those who are genuinely suffering.

Trudeau, for now, is holding firm. “Canada is a country that understands that immigration, welcoming refugees, is a source of strength for our communities,” Trudeau repeated last week. He also added, “protecting Canadians’ confidence in the integrity of our system allows us to continue to be open.”

The second half of the prime minister’s statement was, in Liberal eyes, butt-covering. But for a lot of Canadians, including the opposition Conservatives, it’s the operative half of the equation.

And right now that half is showing signs of severe strain.

A recent memo on the state of the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) released under access-to-information highlights a massive backlog of claims and a system starved of needed resource.

The Trudeau government will either need to increase funding massively, turn down more people at the border, or — more likely — some combination of both to maintain “confidence in the integrity of our system.”

Doing so will be a tricky proposition for a government that has carefully cultivated its tolerant political brand. Any tightening of Canada’s policy under Trudeau could be seen as betrayal, no matter how justified it might be.

Fortunately, for Trudeau’s image anyway, there are no good policy options to stem the flow, at least not with a recalcitrant President Trump in the White House. Canada cannot do a rewrite of the laws on its own, and closing the loophole that allows the current arrivals would only force more people to official border posts, where dealing with migrants is even more difficult politically.

This situation would then seem to favour more cash to the refugee system, but no such funding was included in the most recent federal budget. The Trudeau government has instead opted for a “wide-ranging” review of the system, with a report due in the summer of 2018.

It appears, then, the Trudeau government is hoping to ride out the current situation, hoping the word eventually gets back to the tens of thousands of Haitians in the United States that things really are no better in Canada and that they should stay where they are. Then again, a years-long backlog for processing might still be the better alternative.

For their part, the Conservatives would do well to suggest a fix in addition to keeping up pressure on the government to act.

Who knows? Coming up with a helpful solution could help redeem Tories in the eyes of voters who might not trust them on these and other matters.

Source: Will Haitians force Trudeau into being hard-hearted? | Toronto Star

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ICYMI: Canada has a border problem. Here’s how to fix it: Doug Saunders

2017/08/12 Leave a comment

Published in February but remains relevant given ongoing border crossings. Not convinced, however, re full suspension of safe-third country agreement with USA given signals it would send to future border crossers:

Stop illegal entries by creating a legal path. People aren’t making these crossings because they’re an easy way into Canada. In fact, illegal foot crossings are an exceptionally difficult and expensive way into Canada: Some migrants have paid drivers enough to buy business-class airfare.

People make them because they’re the only way into Canada. Under the 2004 Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement, Canada does not allow foreign refugee claimants who landed in the United States through its official border crossings: You’re required to apply for asylum in the first country in which you arrive. But if they can get themselves physically onto Canadian soil, they will be arrested, detained, released and given an assessment, a hearing and a right to appeal.

This is not, as some have said, a flaw in the act; rather, it is a feature of the Canadian Constitution: Once in Canada, you are entitled to the full suite of rights – including due process and a fair hearing.

We can deal with this in two ways. One, as suggested by some MPs, would be to secure the border more, by adding hundreds or thousands more police and border agents. They would probably spend their days and nights processing a rising tide of border-crossers, at great expense.

The other would be to stop the illegal flow completely by creating a legal entry method, with processing centres at border crossings. The numbers would increase somewhat, but it would be far less expensive and much less dangerous – and it would look secure, fair and rational to Canadians.

Consider suspending the Safe Third Country Agreement. The treaty made sense when it was signed, because the United States and Canada both treated refugee claims similarly, and offered similar treatment to people pursuing those claims. (The worry then was that claimants would try to sneak from Canada into the United States.) That has changed under the Trump administration. Refugee claimants fear, first, that their claims will get a less generous hearing under the refugee crackdown, and second, that they might be held in awful detention centres while awaiting a decision.

Since the agreement no longer serves its intended purpose, it mainly creates perverse incentives. Illegal foot crossings are one. Another is an exemption provided in the treaty to “unaccompanied minors” – which might tempt someone to send a child alone across the border. Suspending the treaty wouldn’t overwhelm us with migrants: There’s a very limited supply of asylum seekers who’ve made it into the United States. And under current conditions, it is easier for them to fly directly to Canada.

Get people processed fast. Many of those border-crossers – perhaps most – won’t qualify as refugees. They’ll wait months for a hearing, then years for an appeal, before they go home or are deported (by which time they’ll have roots in Canada, creating a second set of crises). Those who are legitimate refugees will also wait, in ambiguous status, in border towns for long periods and possibly in large numbers.

To avoid this becoming an enduring, high-visibility crisis with grave political implications, Ottawa should bring on board extra Immigration and Refugee Board staff and judges to work the border stations, so hearings can be made in weeks rather than months and appeals in months rather than years. This would cost, but not as much as supporting thousands of ambiguous people for years, or rebuilding the reputation of our immigration system. By making it legal, rational and quick, we can make the border act like a border again.

Source: Canada has a border problem. Here’s how to fix it – The Globe and Mail

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Canada welcomes refugees, but shuts the door on asylum seekers: Vic Satzewich

2017/08/10 Leave a comment

A reminder to those critical from the right of the Liberal government’s approach of the alternative critique from the left, suggesting that the Liberals remain in the centre:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen sound a lot like former Conservative Immigration Minister Jason Kenney these days when it comes to immigration. Last Friday the Prime Minister said, “Protecting Canadians’ confidence in the integrity of our system allows us to continue to be open, and that’s exactly what I plan to continue to do.” Over the weekend, both the Prime Minister and the Immigration Minister counselled Haitians thinking about crossing the U.S. border into Canada to stay where they are and make their refugee claim in the United States. Many of Mr. Kenney’s public comments about changes to the immigration system introduced under his watch were also peppered with references to the need to maintain the integrity of, and public confidence in, the immigration system.

Maintaining the “integrity of the immigration system” is in part the shared code language for how our governments (Conservative or Liberal) think about asylum seekers. Canada may love refugees like Syrians who are selected and screened abroad before they set foot in the country, but the same cannot be said about asylum seekers who wash up on our shores in boats, or who walk across our border with the U.S.

Canada’s approach to asylum seekers pokes holes in the image of the country as inherently welcoming to immigrants and refugees. The fear and panic Canadians expressed about the arrival of 174 Sikhs off the coast of Nova Scotia in 1987, the arrival of “ghost ships” from Fujian, China in 1999, and 492 Tamils aboard the MV Sun Sea in 2010, bear little resemblance to Mr. Trudeau’s tweet in January where he told the world that, “To those fleeing persecution, terror and war, Canadians will welcome you.” Indeed, a 2015 Environics poll found that nearly half of Canadians believe that refugees coming to Canada do not have a legitimate claim.

Though the policy climate in the United States toward immigrants and refugees is changing for the worse, I am not optimistic that the Liberals will do much to make it easier for Haitians and others to make a refugee claim in Canada.

The immigration department is obsessed – and this is not too strong a word – with preventing the arrival in Canada of “jumpers” (their shorthand for “queue jumpers.”) One of the responsibilities of a visa officer is to try to predict whether a person who applies for a visitor visa will make an asylum claim after they arrive. If they think a person might “jump,” they can refuse to issue a visa. Even though making an asylum claim in Canada is not illegal, Canadian authorities dislike it when individuals use the visitor visa system to get to Canada to make a refugee claim.

Nor am I optimistic that the Liberals will rescind the Safe Third Country Agreement. Doing so would be a slap in the face to American authorities because it would send a very clear message that Canada does not have confidence that U.S. authorities can deal fairly with asylum claims. Some might say that with the current chaos in the White House, the U.S. will not notice, but at a time when there are heightened tensions about immigration in that country, you bet they will. I also doubt whether the Liberals are going to want to muddy the waters as we renegotiate NAFTA.

Nor is the government likely to close the “loophole” in the Safe Third Country Agreement that allows individuals to make an asylum claim if they cross into Canada outside of an official port of entry. To do so would involve an unprecedented militarization of the Canadian border and most Canadians are not ready to see the spectacle of the RCMP or CBSA officials physically preventing asylum seekers from crossing into Canada. We would look a lot like Hungary and its approach to preventing the arrival of asylum seekers.

The government of Canada has benefited more from the Safe Third Country Agreement than the United States. The two countries entered into the agreement for different reasons. For the U.S., it was part of a post-9/11 effort to enhance security. For Canada, it was an effort to stop asylum seekers from entering from the United States. One study found that before the Safe Third Country Agreement was put into effect, between 8,000 and 13,000 refugee claimants entered Canada annually from the United States. During the same period (1995-2001), only about 200 refugee claimants entered the United States from Canada.

The sad reality is that Canada’s welcoming approach to immigrants and refugees comes at the expense of asylum seekers.

Source: Canada welcomes refugees, but shuts the door on asylum seekers – The Globe and Mail

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There’s no easy solution to Canada’s border problem: Campbell Clark

2017/08/08 Leave a comment

Sensible and realistic commentary:

The latest spate of asylum seekers crossing the border over dirt paths in Quebec has once again sparked some, including Conservative politicians, to ask why Ottawa doesn’t press Washington to allow those people to be turned back to the United States.

There is, after all, a deal in place with the Americans that allows Canadian border guards to turn back asylum seekers who arrive at official border crossings from the United States – but not in between them. Many have called for the Canadian government to close that “loophole.”

But the Americans don’t want to close it. They don’t want to go through a lot of trouble to stop migrants from leaving the United States. It’s time to stop thinking there are easy, wave-of-the-pen solutions for Canada’s border problem.

…So those demanding that Canada strike a new deal with Washington to close the border “loophole” – as Conservatives did throughout the leadership race that ended in May – can save their breath.

Jason Kenney, who is running for the leadership of Alberta’s new United Conservative Party, told The Globe and Mail’s Laura Stone last week that the Liberal government should renegotiate the safe-third-country deal. But he also admitted that when he was the federal immigration minister, Obama administration officials refused.

Before 2003, asylum seekers often came through the United States to Canada. But after 9/11, the two countries signed several border-management agreements, including a “safe-third-country” agreement that stipulates if someone arrives at an official Canadian border post and claims refugee status, they can be turned back to make their claim in the United States. But the Americans didn’t want to agree to take back anyone who managed to sneak into Canada elsewhere.

That means anyone who crosses the border through a field or a across a dirt path can claim refugee status, and have their claim heard. That loophole has always been there. It’s just that more people are using it lately.

Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown is one reason. That sparked a number of Somalis living in Minnesota to cross into Manitoba last winter. Now many Haitians who fear they will be sent home when a U.S. moratorium on deportations ends in January are coming to Quebec’s border, reportedly encouraged by false info on social media that suggests they will automatically be allowed to stay.

What to do? Conservative MP Michelle Rempel issued a press release calling for Mr. Trudeau to “take action” – but tellingly, she didn’t specify what kind.

Some suggest suspending the safe-third-country agreement, because people will at least cross the border at official entry points if they can make a refugee claim there. But history suggests that will lead to a major increase in people travelling through the United States to seek refugee status in Canada – especially with Mr. Trump cracking down on migrants from Mexico.

There’s really two ways to discourage the flow. You can make the lives of border crossers rougher, by locking them up. But that means locking up desperate families.

Or you can speed the processing of refugee claims, either through reform or extra funding, so that people without valid claims are returned home quickly – in theory, that might discourage those who aren’t bona fide refugees. Right now, Mr. Trudeau’s Liberals are hoping this latest flow of asylum seekers will subside. After Mr. Trudeau’s words about refugees being welcome, they don’t want to act tough. And there just aren’t simple solutions: Certainly, Canada can’t expect Mr. Trump’s help.

Source: There’s no easy solution to Canada’s border problem – The Globe and Mail

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False information sends asylum-seeking Haitians to Canada

2017/08/08 Leave a comment

Suggests that more targeted communications, using diaspora networks, are needed to help reduce expectations and false information (beyond the recent PM and IRCC Minister comments in that regard):

An exodus of Haitian migrants seeking asylum at the Canadian border is being fuelled by incomplete and false information spreading like wildfire throughout the community.

Refugee advocates say many of the 58,000 Haitians living in the United States under temporary protection – which was granted after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and exempted them from deportation to the devastated country – began to look at options in May when the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump announced the status would end in January. Attention turned to Canada in June when false rumours spread that the country was automatically welcoming people with temporary protected status (TPS) in the United States.

The effect was quickly felt in Quebec, where the daily arrival of about 50 asylum seekers a month tripled in July. Montreal’s Olympic Stadium is now being used as a temporary shelter for up to 1,050 people. Hundreds of Quebeckers rallied at the stadium Sunday to show support for the migrants. An anticipated anti-immigration protest did not happen.

Farrah Larrieux, a Haitian TPS holder and advocate who lives in Florida, said when the Trump administration announced the status would end Haitians were faced with a choice: spend nearly $500 (U.S.) in fees to extend their stay for six months or put the money toward an attempt to get into Canada.

Opportunists quickly popped up advertising Canada was offering a free ride. “There are posts on social media, ads on messaging apps, even Haitian radio hosts telling people they were willing to organize a bus to get them to Canada where they would be welcomed with open arms,” said Ms. Larrieux, who was facing deportation in 2010 for overstaying a tourist visa when an earthquake struck Haiti and she received TPS protection. “When you have this kind of chaos, you have people willing to take advantage.”

Sophia Cineas, a 31-year-old Haitian woman, was one of hundreds of people who arrived at an unofficial border crossing between upstate New York and Quebec last week. She described how much more welcoming Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is to immigrants than Mr. Trump and how she believed Canada would welcome her. “I cannot stay in the United States and there’s no better place than Canada,” she said. “I’m doing what I’ve got to do.”

Jean-Nicolas Beuze, the representative in Canada for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), interviewed 30 newly arrived asylum seekers last week, about two-thirds of whom were Haitian. He said many of them appeared to have bad information about how easily they could get established in Canada. “There is an impression that Canada is a more generous country when it comes to refugees, but when you look at the statistics, it’s very similar.”

In Canada, 52 per cent of Haitian refugee claims were accepted in 2016, compared with 48 per cent in the United States, Mr. Beuze noted, but refugee claims will be tough to make for Haitians who have been living in the United States with protected status. “They have a different profile from the Haitians who normally come to Canada,” he said.

Many of the Haitians under TPS permits have been in the United States for years and often arrived with legitimate visitor visas or by clandestine methods. People who want to make asylum claims from within the United States are generally required to make the claim within their first year in the country. Many of the new arrivals in Quebec say they’ve been living in the United States for five to 10 years.

Most people who have legitimate refugee claims would have likely made them upon arrival in the United States, Mr. Beuze said.

In the first six months of the year, Canada processed 18,306 asylum claims. Official numbers for July are not available, but estimates indicate a big spike, ranging from about 1,100 to 2,500 for the month in Quebec alone. If the pattern continues, the numbers might approach the recent high of 44,640 in 2001, when the rules were more relaxed.

Canada can handle the load, Mr. Beuze said. The UN representative also cautioned against relying too much on projections. He noted Canada expected an influx of Mexican asylum seekers when Ottawa lifted a visa requirement for visits. It didn’t happen. This winter, as the number of border-hopping asylum claimants increased exponentially from January to March, many predicted the numbers would explode when the snow melted. Instead, the numbers from April to June stabilized before the July spike.

“You do not always understand the triggers, the push and the pull factors,” Mr. Beuze said. “People have different profiles and weigh different factors while making very personal decisions.”

The difficulty of claiming refugee status in Canada may become clearer to potential migrants and people may pursue other options to stay in the United States or return home to Haiti, he added.

Source: False information sends asylum-seeking Haitians to Canada – The Globe and Mail

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