Refugees | Multicultural Meanderings

Canada’s refugee acceptance rate up despite asylum restrictions | Toronto Star

2015/03/03 Leave a comment

Some of the initial comparative data on the impact of refugee reforms of 2012:

Canada received 20,223 refugee claims in 2012 but the number dropped to 10,356 in 2013 after the asylum reforms. The number of claims climbed last year to 13,652.

The main refugee source countries have remained steady, led by China and Pakistan, with Hungary, Colombia, Syria, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Haiti next; their overall acceptance rate was at 67 per cent in 2014.

The Conservative government introduced the changes to the refugee system in 2012 to crack down on bogus refugee claims from democratic countries and reduce the then growing backlogs by expediting the process.

Processing of new asylum claims is down to three months from more than 20 months under the old system, with the backlog reduced by two-thirds to 9,877 claims — one-fifth of them in the system for more than three years — from the peak of 30,750 in 2012.

“I’m heartened that under the new system, Canada is still granting refugee protection to a significant number of claimants,” said Osgoode Hall Law School professor Sean Rehaag. “The overall figures challenge the government’s assertion that Canada is having its generosity abused by fraudulent claimants.”

Canada’s refugee acceptance rate up despite asylum restrictions | Toronto Star.

The attached table provides the details:

	2014	2013
China	42%	34%
Pakistan	78%	72%
Hungary	35%	20%
Colombia	52%	38%
Syria	93%	90%
Nigeria	53%	35%
India	18%	15%
Korea (North)	0%	0%
Afghanistan	77%	71%
Haiti	41%	40%
Congo	43%	49%
Iraq	82%	63%
Sri Lanka	58%	51%
Croatia	11%	11%
Slovakia	52%	8%
Ukraine	59%	41%
Bangladesh	64%	39%
Iran	71%	75%
Egypt	86%	89%
Somalia	54%	59%

Filed under Refugees Tagged with refugee reform

Ottawa spent $1.4M in court to fight for refugee health cuts

2015/01/30 Leave a comment

Not surprised at the legal costs in defending the cuts to refugee claimant healthcare but one of the consequences of a bad initial decision:

In November, the government announced to partially restore the service cuts while it appealed the ruling.

“It is unfortunate that the government had chosen not to spend the money on the care of pregnant women and sick children,” said Dr. Meb Rashid of the Canadian Doctors for Refugee Care, one of five groups and individuals who took the government to court. “$1.4 million can buy a lot of vaccinations.”

On Tuesday, the court also heard a motion by the advocates to compel the government to fully reverse the cut. A decision is pending.

“We will continue to appeal the flawed ruling. . . by the Federal Court. Our government is defending the interests of Canadian taxpayers as well as the integrity of our refugee determination system,” said Kevin Menard, spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Alexander.

Ottawa spent $1.4M in court to fight for refugee health cuts | Toronto Star.

Filed under Refugees Tagged with legal costs, refugee health care

Paying failed refugee claimants to leave Canada didn’t work: Review

2015/01/24 Leave a comment

Classic case of anecdote driving assumptions, assumptions not validated prior to launch. It would be interesting to know what was CBSA and CIC advice to the political level on the design of this program: was it ‘fearless’ or going along with the flow?

And an interesting reference to “like many aspects of the refugee reform,” suggesting other aspects were similarly driven more by anecdote than evidence:

But an evaluation by Canada Border Services Agency found that’s not what happened.

“The need for the AVRR as currently designed is questionable in that removals take longer and cost more compared to other low-risk removals since the refugee reform came into effect,” the evaluation found.

The controversial program was part of the Conservative government’s overhaul of the refugee system, launched in a bid to crack down on people making unfounded refugee claims and tying up government resources.

Critics said the changes were made without considering the implications, a point echoed by the government’s own evaluation of the return project.

“Like many aspects of the refugee reform, the pilot program was designed based on a set of assumptions that could not be validated prior to launch, some of which proved not to be accurate,” the evaluation said.

Among them: the idea that giving people money to help them resettle in their home countries would convince them to stop trying to appeal negative decisions.

“Since the assistance received decreases with each additional appeal made, it was expected that more failed refugee claimants would choose to leave instead of filing an appeal,” the evaluation report said.

“The assistance paid so far shows this was not the case as more participants made two appeals in 2013-2014 than in 2012-2013.”

Those making claims from so-called safe countries, known as DCOs, were offered $500 and those from elsewhere were eligible for up to $2,000.

That didn’t work as planned either.

“The Immigration and Refugee Board databases did not initially include a marker to indicate which failed refugee claimants were from a DCO,” the report said.

However, the evaluation process worked, and it was a pilot program. Sometimes you have to try things to see if they will work, but better testing and challenge of assumptions would help reduce risk of failure.

Paying failed refugee claimants to leave Canada didn’t work: Review.

Link to evaluation here.

Filed under Refugees Tagged with AVRR, CBSA, refugee claimants

Refugee health-care advocates criticize government inaction

2015/01/23 Leave a comment

The risks of trying to be too clever in implementing partially a Federal Court ruling. Will see the Court rules on the motion:

The Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers and the Canadian Doctors for Refugee Care, however, say the government re-repealed that measure on Nov. 6, 2014, only two days after it was supposed to restore the health coverage.

The advocates first pointed out the return to the repealed measure in December, but the Canadian Medical Association Journal drew attention to it in an article published Wednesday.

Waldman said the Federal Court was clear the government was supposed to restore the pre-2012 coverage. He’s filed a motion to the court asking for a finding that the government has breached the court order.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Alexander declined an interview request and responded by email. He called the court ruling “flawed.”

“Our government is defending the interests of Canadian taxpayers as well as the integrity of our refugee determination system,” Kevin Menard wrote.

“We have implemented temporary health-care measures as per the Federal Court’s ruling on Nov. 5. Regrettably, the Federal Court’s ruling is costing taxpayers an extra $4 million a year.”

Dr. Philip Berger, one of the founders of Canadian Doctors for Refugee Health, says the government showed contempt for refugee claimants and doctors and is now extending that contempt to the Federal Court.

“There’s nothing the federal government says about refugee health that can be believed,” he said.

“The costs have simply been downloaded to the provinces and to hospitals who must see people in emergency departments and doctors who are prepared to provide coverage for free.”

Refugee health-care advocates criticize government inaction – Politics – CBC News.

Filed under Refugees Tagged with CARL, Lorne Waldman, Philip Berger, refugee health care

Canada vows to accept 13,000 more refugees from Syria and Iraq

2015/01/09 1 Comment

Good commitment – finally, now the challenge will be in implementation:

Canada has already accepted 20,000 Iraqis and since mid-2013 has brought 1,060 Syrian refugees to Canada. Total approvals for resettled Syrian refugees now exceed 1,275, with thousands more applications still being processed. This number doesn’t include the many more Syrians who’ve been accepted as refugees after making “inland claims” from within Canada.

The government also announced another $90-million in humanitarian assistance for people affected by the intensifying violence in both Iraq and Syria, home to a long-running civil war as well as battles between Islamic jihadis and government forces. The assistance will be distributed via UN agencies, the Red Cross and aid groups.

Mr. Alexander said the 10,000 new Syrian refugees will be resettled in Canada through both government and private-organization sponsorship. He said he expects roughly 60 per cent will be supported by private sponsors such as church groups and 40 per cent through government arrangements – “roughly the same proportions we’ve always had.”

Refugee sponsor groups said it will be a huge task to help 6,000, or 60 per cent of Syrian refugees, settle in Canada over 36 months. This is on top of the 3,000 additional Iraqi refugees Canada is now accepting.

Some said they hadn’t been officially informed of the proportion that private sponsors are expected to shoulder.

“Over three years, it will be probably on the edge of possible,” Alexandra Kotyk, director of sponsorship at AURA, a charitable organization representing the Anglican Diocese of Toronto and the Toronto Conference of the United Church of Canada.

I have less of an issue than some critics on the issue of need and possible preference given to Christian refugees, as it is hard to argue that Christians, and other minorities, are not likely at more risk than others.

Canada vows to accept 13,000 more refugees from Syria and Iraq – The Globe and Mail.

Filed under Refugees, Religion Tagged with Minister Alexander, Syrian refugees

In Sweden, the Land of the Open Door, Anti-Muslim Sentiment Finds a Foothold – NYTimes.com

2015/01/07 Leave a comment

Good article on the politics of refugees and immigrants in Sweden:

Despite a lackluster economy, Sweden was third behind only Germany and France in the number of people registering for asylum in 2012, according to the Migration Policy Institute in Washington. Relative to its population, Sweden received the second-highest share of asylum applications in the European Union after Malta, the institute says.

The Syrian conflict has boosted the number of asylum seekers. Of 81,000 people seeking asylum in Sweden in 2014, roughly half were from Syria, the Swedish Migration Board said.

Opposition to the rising numbers is growing. The far-right, anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats had their best showing ever — nearly 13 percent of votes — in elections in September.

The entry of the Sweden Democrats to parliament in 2010 had already opened the door for a previously unthinkable discussion about turning back the country’s policy of taking in foreigners on humanitarian grounds and granting them access to the country’s generous welfare system.

Adrian Groglopo, a professor of social science at the University of Gothenburg, has studied discrimination in Sweden over the past decade. He said that Sweden has long been a racially segregated country where many immigrants live in ghettos and struggle to find jobs, but that the success of the Sweden Democrats has made racism more socially acceptable.

“It is a very difficult time in Sweden,” Dr. Groglopo said. “Now we can talk about things that we weren’t allowed to talk about before. It is a kind of coup d’état.”

In Sweden, the Land of the Open Door, Anti-Muslim Sentiment Finds a Foothold – NYTimes.com.

Filed under Multiculturalism, Refugees Tagged with Sweden

UNHCR counting on Canada to increase commitment to Syrian refugees

2014/12/10 Leave a comment

Will Canada respond? Will Canada meet its existing commitment?:

“Canada is a very important country to the UNHCR not only for the support it gives to refugee programs but also for the leadership that it provides in terms of international standards of global protection,” De Angelis said.

“This is another occasion for countries who have a leading role in global refugee protection to really show their strength.

”The UNHCR is making a pitch at meetings in Geneva on Tuesday for countries to help resettle more than 100,000 refugees from the Syrian civil war over the next two years.

The plea follows formal requests that began in 2013 for direct help getting some of the most vulnerable people out of refugee camps in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt.

That year, Canada agreed to take in 1,300 refugees.

Private sponsorship groups were allotted 1,100 spots and the government agreed to directly resettle the rest.

While the government’s promise to settle 200 people has been met and exceeded, only 163 people being sponsored by private groups have made it to Canada as of the middle of November.

UNHCR counting on Canada to increase commitment to Syrian refugees – The Globe and Mail.

Filed under Refugees Tagged with Syria, Syrian refugees, UNHCR

Did Sweden Opening Its Borders Backfire?

2014/12/10 Leave a comment

Interesting analysis by a number of commentators on Sweden’s integration and political challenges in accepting so many refugees:

For much of modern Scandinavian history, immigration was rare. Those who did move to Stockholm or Oslo came from neighboring or other European countries—places with relatively similar cultural habits and understandings. Prior to the 1980s, for instance, Swedes often viewed the word “immigrant” as meaning Finns who had left the Soviet Union. …

In recent decades, Sweden has seen a large influx of immigrants from Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and other non-Western countries. The Norface Research Programme on Migration finds that the children of uneducated, non-Western parents have considerably less success in school than their native counterparts in Sweden (and Denmark); once again, the gap is wider than that between native and non-Western immigrant students in the United States.

Worse, and unlike in the United States, things don’t improve over generations. Many immigrants have arrived too recently to trace their children’s trajectory, but the most recent poverty rates for children with a Turkish background born in Sweden are three times higher than they are for native children. Unemployment and poverty are much higher in the immigrant group.

“Poverty in Sweden has taken on an ethnic dimension,” Björn Halleröd, a sociology professor at the University of Gothenburg, told the Local, an English-language Swedish newspaper. Sweden remains egalitarian by international standards, but inequality grew by a third between 1985 and the late 2000s—faster than in any other OECD country.

Did Sweden Opening Its Borders Backfire? « The Dish.

Filed under Integration, Refugees Tagged with Kay Hymowitz, Sweden

457 Syrian refugees resettled in Canada, but pledge was for 1,300

2014/12/08 Leave a comment

Sharp contrast between the Minister’s statements and the reality. Other countries (e.g., Sweden, with over 30,000) have done much better.

Not exactly inspiring and in keeping with best of the Canadian tradition (e.g. the Vietnamese boat people):

The document says that as of Nov. 13, 457 Syrian refugees have landed in Canada. That number includes 163 refugees sponsored by private groups and 294 sponsored by the government.

Alexander has repeatedly said more than 1,150 Syrians “have received Canada’s protection” in response to questions both inside and outside the House of Commons.

Groups working with refugees in Canada have said that figure is misleading as it likely includes Syrians who have arrived in Canada on their own and claimed asylum.

They have urged Alexander to do more to increase the number of refugees being resettled in Canada. So far, the government has only committed to 1,300 by the end of 2014.

That promise was made in July 2013 by Jason Kenney, who was then the immigration minister. Refugee sponsorship groups have warned for months the promise would be difficult to keep, given delays that already existed in processing applications.

The newly released document says the first privately sponsored refugee to land in Canada under the government’s promise only arrived in March of this year. Another figure though, suggests there is a large number of Syrians who want to come to Canada as refugees. It states that the immigration department received 2,343 applications for privately sponsored refugees from October 2013 to September 2014.

“It is important to note that the scale and scope of the Syrian refugee crisis will not be solved by resettlement alone,” the document said, echoing statements made by Alexander.

457 Syrian refugees resettled in Canada, but pledge was for 1,300 – Politics – CBC News.

Filed under Refugees Tagged with Minister Alexander, Syria, Syrian refugees