LILLEY: Islamic hate preacher now on tour across Canada

2024/08/26 Leave a comment

Sigh….:

Imagine a controversial Christian preacher from the U.S. who tells his followers that Muslims are our enemy being allowed to tour this country.

Would the Trudeau government allow such a preacher to conduct a lecture tour if he taught that all Muslims are liars who cheat, and that homosexuals are animals?

It’s doubtful — but if it did happen, there would be outrage and demonstrations outside of the tour locations.

Right now, though, there is a Muslim preacher who holds these very views, except about Jews, touring Canada. Assim Al-Hakeem, an Imam based in Saudi Arabia, has already visited Calgary, Milton, Mississauga and Hamilton, and will be in London on Saturday, Montreal on Sunday and Vancouver next Tuesday.

There haven’t been any protests but it’s not clear if that is because Imam Al-Hakeem says protests are banned in Islam, one of many bizarre views this preacher holds. He also believes women should not share workplaces with men and that they should always be covered.

He’s now spreading his message of hate across Canada, a place he calls a “Kafir” country — meaning infidel.

“May Allah liberate it from the oppressors and our enemies, the Jews,” Al-Hakeem said in a recent broadcast discussing the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

Though based in Saudi Arabia, Al-Hakeem broadcasts online worldwide to a mostly English-speaking audience. When it comes to Jews, he sees them not only as enemies of Islam but as constantly conspiring against Islam.

“We acknowledge that through history the Jews collaborating with the hypocrites had many conspiracies against Islam,” Al-Hakeem said while discussing the Illuminati and Freemasons. “The collaboration and the fingerprints of the Jews, the hypocrites, and the Rafidah is evident.”

Is this the language and thinking we want being spread in Canada at a time when anti-Semitic attacks against Jews have skyrocketed? Is this what we want being preached in the same week that more than 100 Jewish schools, hospitals, community centres and synagogues were targeted with bomb threats?

Watching Al-Hakeem’s videos and reading his writings, it is clear that this man is an Islamic supremacist. He says that Muslims cannot take up the citizenship of Kafir countries, he was specifically talking about Canada, and that the laws of Kafir countries aren’t to be followed.

In another video, he describes how when Islam comes to your country you have two options, submit to Islam or pay the jizyah tax, and if you won’t accept either of those, then Muslims will fight you. As he says Muslims will fight you, he makes a knife across the throat motion with his hand.

The Trudeau government has done plenty to keep out people with less offensive views than this man, but Imam Al-Hakeem gets to enter freely, tour the country and not be harassed.

It was just a couple of weeks ago that Tommy Robinson, a British national, was arrested and had his passport confiscated while on a speaking tour of Canada. He was essentially harassed over his views, which are often described as anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant.

With Al-Hakeem, we have a man who calls Canada a Kafir country, teaches that Muslims don’t need to obey Canadian laws, and has said vile things about Jews, homosexuals and women, yet he is free to tour and preach his hatred.

Source: LILLEY: Islamic hate preacher now on tour across Canada

Filed under Hate crimes, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Immigration experts say Trump’s ‘mass deportations’ pledge could cause surge in illegal border crossings into Canada if he wins back the White House 

2024/08/26 Leave a comment

Opinions of note, generally reasoned and realistic:

…Michael Barutciski, a lawyer and associate professor of international studies at York University’s Glendon College, says the situation will depend on how the Canadian government responds to Trump and his immigration policies.

“If there’s a general sense that people who are not legally in the U.S. will be removed or deported, it’s logical that anyone unsure about their status in the U.S. will think it might make sense to go north to Canada,” Barutciski said.

Barutciski noted that the key question is: “What does the government do?” which he sees as “an indication of how this potential flow will be handled. Will it be stopped or will it be encouraged?”

He warned that “If Canada sends a welcoming signal—tweets about how everyone is welcome here—we’ll get tens of thousands, maybe 100,000 or even millions.”

Christian Leuprecht, a professor at the Royal Military College and Queen’s University and a Munk senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, also said a Trump presidency could result in an uptick at Canada’s southern border but does not think it would go beyond the tens of thousands.

“The bulk of people who presented irregularly at the border [during Trump’s first term] were people who always intended to cross into Canada and were not fleeing the Trump administration,” he said.

That being said, he explained that if Trump is re-elected, “the small portion of people fleeing the Trump administration would likely increase, but that increase would not be particularly significant, possibly in the thousands, possibly in the tens of thousands.”

Like Barutciski, Leuprecht said the way the Canadian government handles the situation will impact our borders. He said there is a risk the Trudeau government will forgo the rule of law in an attempt to turn the border issue into an American-style wedge for domestic political gain.

“The risk is not actually masses of people showing up on the border here, because Canada can simply invoke the rule of law and say that the better part of 90 percent of the people who would show up would not qualify,” he said. “The risk here is that the Trudeau government will actually violate its own provisions and the rule of law for political reasons so that he can use it as a wedge issue.”

The Trump refugee narrative “is one that the current federal government loves to propagate.”i

Muzaffar Chishti, a lawyer and senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, an American non-partisan pro-immigration think tank, casts doubt on the American government’s ability to deport people en masse.

“There are legal impediments that the former president seems generally unaware of. There are constitutional provisions of habeas corpus and due process of law, which strongly impede removing anyone without sending them to a court,” he said.

“Second, there are operational realities—they are not all in one place, not in a camp where you could just extract them. They are intermingled in communities across the country, and getting them out is very, very operationally difficult. Third, there will be a political backlash. Almost all of them are employed, and if they are taken out of their jobs. There could be outcries even from Trump’s own base.”

Chishti also noted that he doesn’t think that the goal of a potential second Trump administration would necessarily be to successfully deport 11 million people, it would rather be “to instill a sense of fear,” which one assumes would discourage other border crossers.

“I think people who respond to that instinct of fear may want to move to Canada. There’s a real possibility of that happening,” he said, given Canada’s reputation as being more receptive to asylum seekers.

What about the Safe Third Country Agreement?

In March 2023, Canada and the U.S. modified the Safe Third Country Agreement so that individuals could no longer make asylum claims from unofficial ports of entry, closing the loophole used by asylum seekers.

However, experts consulted by The Hub said the new March 2023 deal is not a silver bullet and could lead to new problems.

Leuprecht said those who qualify under the exemptions will take advantage and apply, leading to an increase in legal asylum claims.

“We will see a small increase in people who have a legitimate claim to refugee or asylum status, who will present at ports of entry,” he said.

He is also concerned that those without legitimate asylum claims will attempt to cross into Canada illegally at unsupervised, unofficial ports of entry, similar to how illegal immigrants enter the United States from Mexico.

“We will see a small increase in human smuggling across the border.”

Chishti echoed this sentiment, which he said will be a concern of the Canadian government.

“If there is a Trump administration, you could see much more of a commercial enterprise, where you’ll have criminal ranks getting involved,” he said.

“That, I think, will create a sense of chaos and disorder when you will see people being caught in the woods, you know, trying to sneak through, and then you will see the people’s private farms being encroached on, and all that.”

He added that this “is the kind of disorder that creates a political backlash.”

…Experts told The Hub it was crucial for Canada to be prepared and take a series of actions to promote the rule of law and orderly legal immigration, in light of a possible second Trump administration.

“We actually have to start controlling the border with more resources,” said Barutciski. “More border control sends the signal that there are rules to get into Canada.”

“Don’t give off the image to the earth that the integrity of the system has been undermined. That you’re generous and that you don’t really control this. You can’t continue like that.”

He also urged Canada to address its immigration policy issues regardless of who wins the U.S. election. “The current numbers and the way people are coming here is not sending a good signal. It’s a system that is losing credibility. Even if Kamala Harris wins and Trump isn’t President, Canada still has a very difficult situation.”

Leuprecht said Canada needs to be willing to deport those who are not in this country for the right reasons. “We want to make sure we send the right message: “[That] Canada is not the country to go to unless you have a legitimate claim and that you will be deported if you show up here if you do not qualify under the rules.”

He noted that this “would be a significant change in narrative, because, in Canada, we traditionally do not deport people, even when they don’t qualify under the rules. The deportation numbers are tiny in Canada.”

Chishti meanwhile stressed that Canada must do its best to avoid a chaotic situation like the one the U.S. has faced at its southern border.

“The sense of disorder never works, even if it’s a small number of people,” he said. “People like immigrants, but they don’t like chaotic scenes about immigrants, because it creates a sense that we no longer have control.”

Source: Immigration experts say Trump’s ‘mass deportations’ pledge could cause surge in illegal border crossings into Canada if he wins back the White House

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ICYMI: Concerns mount over new federal immigration policy that would grant permanent residency to low-wage workers 

2024/08/26 Leave a comment

Valid concerns:

Economists and policy experts are expressing growing concern over a potential new federal immigration program that would immediately grant permanent residency to temporary residents who are in low-wage jobs.

The program, if launched, would target people who already have Canadian work experience in what Ottawa classifies as TEER 4 and TEER 5 occupations – delivery service drivers, caregivers, food production workers and retail staff, to name a few.

TEER stands for Training, Education, Experience and Responsibilities, and it is a job categorization system the government uses for immigration purposes. TEER 4 and TEER 5 workers typically have a high school diploma or little or no formal education at all.

….This is perhaps exactly why Ottawa is thinking of introducing a new path to permanent residency for low-wage workers, Prof. Skuterud and Toronto immigration lawyer Ravi Jain both say.

“The easiest way to deal with this problem is to create a new pathway to permanent residence,” Prof. Skuterud said. “But it’s not smart policy. It will more likely suppress wages and undermine public support for immigration.”

Source: Concerns mount over new federal immigration policy that would grant permanent residency to low-wage workers

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McWhorter: The deeper grammatical logic of “weird”

2024/08/24 Leave a comment

Interesting analysis of “weird” and how it works for well:

When Gov. Tim Walz called Donald Trump and his worldview “weird,” it got immediate attention, launched a thousand memes and may very well have helped him land the job as Kamala Harris’s running mate. Michelle Obama’s dictum that “when they go low, we go high” is admirable, but there’s a lot to be said for the occasional step or two down the ladder. To many observers, “weird” immediately seemed right, a fresh approach to the mix of childish cattiness and outright menace coming from opponents of Walz and Harris. But the reasons for its success as an epithet aren’t as obvious. They come from deep in the word’s history, and in the ultimate purpose to which we put language.

In Old English the word meant, believe it or not, “what the future holds,” as in what we now refer to as fate. The sisters in “Macbeth” were the “weird sisters,” in the meaning of “fate sisters,” telling the future. But they were also portrayed as ghoulish in appearance and attire. With the prominence of this play and similar fate-sister figures in other ones, the sense set in that “weird” meant frighteningly odd.

In the 20th century, the word lost its hint of the macabre as its meaning became something quieter. “Weird” now means peculiar — perhaps passingly so, but against what one would expect.

In this sense, “weird” has settled into a realm of the language that isn’t taught as grammar in our schools but should be. Verbal communication is not only about whether something is in the past or the future, or whether it is singular or plural. It’s also about what is novel. We tend to seek people’s attention to tell them something they don’t yet know.

Imagine someone new to the English language asking you what the “even” in “He even had a horse” means. It would be hard, because school doesn’t teach us about the role that identifying novelty plays in how we form sentences. “He even had a horse” implies that someone’s possession of a horse, as opposed to just a big backyard, a fence and some dogs, is unexpected. All languages have ways of doing this. In Saramaccan, a language I have studied that was created by Africans who escaped slavery in Suriname, a little word, “noo” — pronounced “naw” — shows that something is news. “Noo mi o haika i” means not just “I will call you” but also “So, OK then, I will call you.”

Applying “weird” to MAGA is a great debate team tactic, a deceptively complex rhetorical trick that uses the simplest of language to make a sophisticated point: that the beliefs that MAGA is supposed to be getting us back to defy expectation, usually for the simple reason that they’re false.

The idea that Central American countries engage in an effort to send criminals to America not only is mean, it also fails to accord with any intuitive or documented analysis. The idea that we should all go smilingly back to an era when it was illegal for women to obtain an abortion — as though there was something sweet about Roberta’s situation in Theodore Dreiser’s “An American Tragedy” in 1925 — goes against what 90 percent of Americans espouse. It is callous to a degree that a great many find perplexing. The idea that a single woman without children is less qualified to lead is jarring even amid the trash talk flying throughout our political landscape.

The typical response to all of this from the outside is to shudder at the nastiness. But an equally valid response is “Huh?” And that’s why “weird” works.

“Weird” works in another way, too: There is no great comeback. You can’t respond to being called peculiar by simply saying, “No, I’m not,” though Trump tried: “He said we’re weird,” the candidate complained, “that JD and I are weird. I think we’re extremely normal people, exactly like you.” Just asserting it convinces no one. Nor does the “No, you are!” defense. On X, Representative Matt Gaetz jibed: “The party of gender blockers and drag shows for kids is calling us weird? Ok.” But we’ve heard all that before. “Weird” is a way to call out the unexpected. Any perceived weirdness on the left is old news. It’s the Democrats who are offering the novel take.

The goal here is not getting down into the mud but opening ourselves to broader perception. Outsiders can view MAGA with dismay, intimidated by how many people subscribe to it, watch its adherents portray themselves as the only true Americans and shake our heads in horror and submission. Or we can dismiss MAGA as more heat than light. We can resist the notion that the essence of America is an ideology whose figurehead lost the popular vote in the presidential election of 2016, lost the election entirely in 2020 and may well lose again this fall. “Weird” pegs MAGA as a detour, a regrettable temptation that a serious politics ought to render obsolete. Calling it “weird” is deft, articulate, and possibly prophetic.

It’s also an example of the power of language, in particular a kind of grammar that too few people are taught. Wouldn’t more kids take interest in the subject if they knew they could use it to shut down a bully?

Source: The deeper grammatical logic of “weird”

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Urback: A mass bomb threat against Jews? Who could have seen that coming?

2024/08/24 Leave a comment

Satirical yet pointed:

…But even then, what would have given someone such a sense of impunity that they would threaten 100 Jewish institutions at once? Was it Winnipeg’s mayor taking downthe city’s menorah, or Moncton’s mayor doing the same? Or Calgary’s mayor skippingthe city’s menorah-lighting ceremony, or Toronto’s mayor declining to attend the Walk with Israel? Was it the empty words offered by Canadian politicians, over and over again, in lieu of action each time a Jewish institution is attacked?

Or maybe these individuals were emboldened by the national indifference this country has shown toward the targeting of Catholic churches, dozens of which have been set ablaze over the course of the last few years? Maybe it was the constant dismissal of the concerns of Jews feeling unsafe in Canada, because, as many have taken to saying now, why should anyone care about hurt feelings here, when people are dying in Gaza?

If only there were warnings, beyond the threats, violence, vandalism, harassment, cultural exclusion, institutional antisemitism, empty words and constant gaslighting. And when – not if – someone gets seriously injured or worse, we’ll wish there had been more signs, too.

Source: A mass bomb threat against Jews? Who could have seen that coming?

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Adam Pankratz: Wokeness is deservedly crashing. Let’s be careful about retribution

2024/08/24 Leave a comment

Good note of caution:

…This is the fear I have harboured for a while now: that the inevitable backlash against the insane and destructive scourge of activist identity politics would arrive and, when it came, the perpetrators would discover that they were a minority and, the majority now coming for them was not in a conciliatory mood. While minorities persecuting majorities is bad (as we have seen via cancel culture), a majority persecuting a minority, whatever they may have done, has the potential to be worse.

The most vehement and vocal adherents and actors in the culture wars of the past years have done enormous damage to both institutions and individuals. They have cost people their jobs, reputations and, in some cases, their lives. It is not unnatural to want to see such bad actors harmed as they harmed others. By doing so, however, those of us who have stood against the tidal wave of woke activism which threatened society, risk becoming the beasts we fought so hard to push back. The Capital Pride debacle demonstrates the societal pendulum is swinging back, my fear is it will bludgeon indiscriminately and plunge us further into extreme societal divides.

Source: Adam Pankratz: Wokeness is deservedly crashing. Let’s be careful about retribution

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Le Devoir Éditorial | Sur la question de l’immigration, la stratégie des petits pas

2024/08/24 Leave a comment

Worth reading. Money quote: “Le dossier de l’immigration demande qu’on l’aborde avec franchise, lucidité, bienveillance et mesure. (The immigration file requires that it be approached with frankness, lucidity, benevolence and measure.)”

Lassé peut-être de vociférer son message à Ottawa sans être réellement entendu, le gouvernement du Québec a joint le geste à la parole cette semaine en annonçant deux mesures censées permettre de réduire le flux d’immigration temporaire. Un moratoire de six mois sur le programme des travailleurs étrangers temporaires à bas salaire, dans la région de Montréal ; et un projet de loi destiné à limiter le nombre d’étudiants étrangers par établissement d’enseignement.

Cette stratégie des petits pas ne contribuera pas à faire fléchir de beaucoup les tendances. Mais dans cette joute que se livrent sans résultats Québec et Ottawa sur le dossier migratoire, ce petit geste fait foi de grand symbole.

« Le fédéral ne manque pas une occasion de dire qu’il faudrait que [le Québec] donne l’exemple », a expliqué mardi le premier ministre François Legault, flanqué de sa ministre de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration, Christine Fréchette. Québec a donc décidé de donner l’exemple. Responsable de 180 000 des 600 000 immigrants temporaires sis au Québec, le gouvernement de François Legault tente depuis des mois de convaincre Ottawa de l’aider à juguler les entrées, car, selon lui, elles exercent une « pression énorme » sur les services publics, la crise du logement et l’avenir du français à Montréal. Le moratoire et le projet de loi tout juste annoncés constituent l’exemple qu’offre Québec au fédéral, sur qui reposent les 420 000 autres entrées.

Les mesures annoncées ne changeront pas le portrait de manière radicale. Québec concède que le moratoire sur le programme des travailleurs étrangers temporaires à bas salaire (sous la barre des 27,47 $ l’heure) ne viserait, dans la région montréalaise ciblée, que 3500 personnes, sans plus. Quant au projet de loi visant à mieux encadrer l’entrée d’étudiants étrangers dans certains établissements, il cherche à faire diminuer le flot que représentent ces 120 000 étudiants, mais on ne sait pas de combien.

Ce geste symbolique constitue « un premier pas ». Qu’il ait des répercussions mathématiques importantes ou non, il vient confirmer une fois de plus l’encroûtement du dossier de l’immigration dans la joute Québec-Ottawa. Il révèle aussi une certaine mauvaise foi : le Québec a beau plaider aujourd’hui l’urgence nationale et faire porter le poids de plusieurs maux aux nouveaux arrivants, il ne faut pas reculer bien loin dans le temps pour constater qu’il a lui-même contribué au problème, puis a sciemment choisi d’en ignorer les incidences.

Novembre 2021. Le Devoir titre : « Québec veut stimuler l’immigration temporaire ». Sous la plume de notre journaliste spécialisée Sarah R. Champagne, une première phrase qui parle d’elle-même : « Québec presse Ottawa de faire sauter les plafonds de l’immigration temporaire. » Il y a donc moins de trois ans, l’urgence était tout autre : il s’agissait de rehausser les seuils de travailleurs étrangers temporaires dans 71 métiers et professions à bas salaire.

Les temps ont changé. Les chiffres confirment que, de 2021 à 2024, les migrants temporaires sont passés de 300 000 à 600 000. Une « explosion » que le système ne peut prendre en charge, fait valoir le premier ministre. « Ça fait mal à nos services publics [éducation et santé], ça fait mal à notre crise du logement, ça fait mal à l’avenir du français. » Même s’il se veut le plus « factuel » possible, le premier dirigeant du Québec use d’une rhétorique pour le moins glissante en laissant entendre que les engorgements que subit notre système sont le fait des nouveaux arrivants. C’est regrettable. « Je sais qu’il y en a que ça choque quand je dis ça, mais c’est factuel. »

Le gouvernement a raison d’agir pour ne pas aggraver une situation déjà sous haute tension. Il est également en droit de fouetter Ottawa pour obtenir un peu plus de soutien dans ce dossier — la régulation du nombre de demandeurs d’asile et une meilleure répartition de leur entrée sur le territoire canadien, le Québec en accueillant en ce moment plus de la moitié. Mais il est très discutable de tout faire porter sur les épaules du fédéral sans concéder sa propre part de responsabilité.

Où étaient le sentiment d’urgence et la pression intolérable sur les systèmes publics quand, au printemps 2023, en pleine étude des crédits de son propre ministère, la ministre Fréchette a choisi de rejeter la demande de l’opposition d’étendre la réflexion sur l’immigration au Québec aux travailleurs temporaires, aux étudiants étrangers et aux demandeurs d’asile, préférant se restreindre à l’immigration permanente seulement ? Où est la préoccupation pour l’avenir du français à Montréal quand on sait que la demande explose en francisation, signe d’une volonté d’intégration, mais que les budgets et l’offre sont en diminution ? Pourquoi avoir refusé de nommer la crise du logement quand il était encore temps d’agir pour en atténuer les effets ?

Gare aux envolées catastrophistes qui pourraient faire peser (trop) lourd sur les épaules des principaux intéressés. Ceux-ci ne sont coupables de rien d’autre que d’avoir voulu savoir s’il faisait bon vivre au Québec. Le dossier de l’immigration demande qu’on l’aborde avec franchise, lucidité, bienveillance et mesure.

Source: Éditorial | Sur la question de l’immigration, la stratégie des petits pas

Tired perhaps of shouting its message in Ottawa without really being heard, the Quebec government joined the gesture to the floor this week by announcing two measures supposed to reduce the flow of temporary immigration. A six-month moratorium on the low-wage temporary foreign workers program in the Montreal area; and a bill to limit the number of foreign students per educational institution.

This strategy of small steps will not help to bend trends much. But in this joust that Quebec and Ottawa are taking place without results on the migration file, this small gesture is a great symbol.

“The federal government does not miss an opportunity to say that [Quebec] should set an example,” explained Prime Minister François Legault on Tuesday, flanked by his Minister of Immigration, Francisation and Integration, Christine Fréchette. Quebec has therefore decided to set an example. Responsible for 180,000 of the 600,000 temporary immigrants in Quebec, François Legault’s government has been trying for months to convince Ottawa to help it curb entries, because, according to him, they exert “enormous pressure” on public services, the housing crisis and the future of French in Montreal. The moratorium and bill just announced are the example that Quebec offers to the federal government, on which the other 420,000 entries are based.

The measures announced will not radically change the portrait. Quebec concedes that the moratorium on the low-wage temporary foreign workers program (below $27.47 per hour) would target, in the targeted Montreal region, only 3,500 people, no more. As for the bill to better regulate the entry of foreign students into certain institutions, it seeks to reduce the flow represented by these 120,000 students, but it is not known how much.

This symbolic gesture is “a first step”. Whether it has significant mathematical repercussions or not, it confirms once again the encrusting of the immigration file in the Quebec-Ottawa joust. It also reveals a certain bad faith: although Quebec today advocates national urgency and carries the burden of several evils on newcomers, we must not go far back in time to see that it himself contributed to the problem, then knowingly chose to ignore its implications.

November 2021. Le Devoir headlines: “Quebec wants to stimulate temporary immigration”. Under the pen of our specialized journalist Sarah R. Champagne, a first sentence that speaks for itself: “Quebec urges Ottawa to blow up the ceilings of temporary immigration. So less than three years ago, the urgency was quite different: it was a question of raising the thresholds for temporary foreign workers in 71 low-wage trades and professions.

Times have changed. The figures confirm that, from 2021 to 2024, temporary migrants increased from 300,000 to 600,000. An “explosion” that the system cannot support, argues the Prime Minister. “It hurts our public services [education and health], it hurts our housing crisis, it hurts the future of French. Even if he wants to be as “factual” as possible, Quebec’s first leader uses a slippery rhetoric to say the least by suggesting that the congestions that our system undergoes are caused by newcomers. It’s regrettable. “I know it’s shocking when I say that, but it’s factual. ”

The government is right to act so as not to aggravate a situation already under high tension. He is also entitled to whip Ottawa to get a little more support in this file – the regulation of the number of asylum seekers and a better distribution of their entry into Canada, with Quebec currently welcoming more than half. But it is very questionable to put everything on the shoulders of the federal government without conceding its own share of responsibility.

Where was the feeling of urgency and intolerable pressure on public systems when, in the spring of 2023, in the middle of a study of her own ministry’s appropriations, Minister Fréchette chose to reject the opposition’s request to extend the reflection on immigration in Quebec to temporary workers, foreign students and asylum seekers, preferring to restrict herself to permanent immigration only? Where is the concern for the future of French in Montreal when we know that demand is exploding in francization, a sign of a desire for integration, but that budgets and supply are decreasing? Why did you refuse to name the housing crisis when there was still time to act to mitigate its effects?

Beware of catastrophic flights that could weigh (too) heavily on the shoulders of the main interested parties. They are not guilty of anything other than wanting to know if it was good to live in Quebec. The immigration file requires that it be approached with frankness, lucidity, benevolence and measure.

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Aftab Ahmed: I speak English. Stop asking.

2024/08/24 Leave a comment

…There is also an obvious inconsistency in how language proficiency is treated for permanent residency versus citizenship. Those seeking citizenship are not required to retake the language test if they have passed it once, even if their test results have expired. Permanent residency applicants, however, must retake the test if their results are no longer valid, despite having lived and worked in Canada. This variation further weakens the logic of the current system.

There are simple solutions to this issue: First, remove the two-year validity rule. Second, remove the language proficiency requirement for those who have studied or worked in Canada for a reasonable period. Define that period. Third, for those arriving on a work permit without a certified letter from a recognized international post-secondary institution that provides education in English or French, language testing would be necessary.

Some argue that a steady flow of international students is vital for economic growth, given the billions they contribute to the higher education sector and the labour force. Others claim the influx worsens the housing crisis. Whatever the federal government’s target for permanent residents from this pool may be in the coming years, it is absurd to think someone could study in Canada without knowing one of the official languages. The same principle should apply if they have studied and then worked here. The current system is poor policy….

Source: Aftab Ahmed: I speak English. Stop asking.

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Industrial Policy Needs an Immigration Policy

2024/08/23 Leave a comment

The case for higher skilled immigration as part of industrial strategies:

As the face-off between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris draws nearer, the United States is awash in partisan rancor, with the candidates and their supporters fighting bitterly over abortion, the southern border, taxes, health care, and more. Yet even though Democrats and Republicans are miles apart on most policy matters, they have nevertheless demonstrated a common renewed faith in one particular tool of economic statecraft: industrial policy….

If the United States wants to succeed in the global competition for talent, there is little time to waste. Other countries are already rushing to poach workers that are unable (or unwilling) to settle in the United States. Last June, Canada unveiled a new Tech Talent Strategy, which grants a three-year work permit to up to 10,000 people who hold H1-B visas in the United States to come to Canada, with work or study permits for accompanying family members. The program reached 10,000 applications in less than 48 hours. Germany, for its part, has rolled out a job seeker visa that grants temporary entry for foreign workers so that they can find employment.

In the past year, the Biden administration has taken modest steps to streamline processing for highly skilled workers. In October 2023, the Department of Homeland Security announced several changes to the H1-B program, including extending the grace period for graduates seeking to stay in the United States as they transition from student to work visas. The administration also issued an expansive executive order providing guidance to simplify visa applications and processing times for noncitizens with experience in critical and emerging technologies.

For years, Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill have been unwilling to consider high-skilled immigration reform outside of a comprehensive immigration solution. Biden deserves credit for waking up to the United States’ talent crunch. But his administration’s tepid position is no longer tenable. Any viable solution will require both executive and legislative action.

If congressional leaders can break this impasse, there is plenty of low-hanging fruit to grab. For starters, Congress could increase the annual cap for H1-B visas. There is precedent for this. In the 1990s, Congress temporarily increased the annual cap from 65,000 to 115,000 visas and later to 195,000, as the United States scrambled to find computer programmers to address the dreaded “Millennium Bug,” a computer flaw that experts worried could wreak havoc because the original code used by most machines could not deal with dates beyond December 31, 1999.

Even if the number of temporary visas were increased, the H1-B lottery has other shortcomings: it creates significant uncertainty for job seekers and lacks any sense of prioritization. No private-sector firm would randomly select their future employees, nor does it make sense for the U.S. government to do so when admitting its workers. The U.S. government should set up a system that prioritizes individuals working in sectors or possessing skills that are uniquely in high demand in any given year, a system made possible by the growing sophistication of AI-driven predictive analytics.

Even without congressional action, the executive branch could provide automatic work authorization for the spouses of H1-B workers, who currently must apply separately for permission to work in the United States. One study has shown that 90 percent of H1-B spouses have at least a bachelor’s degree, and half of those degrees are in STEM fields. The Department of Homeland Security has the authority to immediately extend work authorization to H1-B spouses, an action it could take if it wanted to.

When it comes to permanent residency, it is unlikely that there will be much political appetite to increase the overall number of green cards. It is easier, however, to envisage a change that would reduce the number of family reunification–related green cards and increase the number of work-related green cards—a rebalancing that would enhance the larger national interest.

Another relatively simple fix would be to reform or remove the country-specific caps built into the green card process. The statistics, compiled by the economist William Kerr, are undeniable: Chinese and Indian inventors are responsible for 20 percent of all U.S. patents; around half of all international students come from China and India and are disproportionately concentrated in STEM fields; and immigrants from these two countries account for eight in ten H1-B visas issued each year. In the face of these numbers, and with China and India accounting for one-third of the world’s population, limiting each country to seven percent of the United States’ total annual pool of green cards makes little sense.

Another idea that has been proposed is the “recapturing” of unused green cards, another move within the executive’s purview. For bureaucratic, financial, or other reasons, including pandemic-era delays, there have been years when green card caps have not been met. Some experts have called for the administration to recapture those unused green cards (more than 200,000 in number), which would make an immediate dent in the backlog. There is precedent for this maneuver, and, best of all, it would not require legislative action, although explicit congressional approval could expand the total number of unused green cards put back into circulation.

WITHIN REACH

For the past several decades, the political class in Washington has been obsessed with managing and controlling illegal immigration. It is high time policymakers devoted the same degree of attention to legal—and especially high-skilled—immigration.

Just as there is a bipartisan consensus behind industrial policy among politicians, there is also a bipartisan consensus among voters that the United States should do more to encourage high-skilled immigration; three of four respondents in a December 2022 Bipartisan Policy Center survey embraced expanding high-skilled immigration, including 68 percent of Republicans, 74 percent of independents, and 85 percent of Democrats. And in the past, Democratic and Republican lawmakers have joined forces to adjust immigration rules that would strengthen the United States’ standing at a time of geopolitical stress and technological upheaval.

Today is another such time. In a globalized world, top talent goes to the highest bidder. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the United States’ unique ability to attract immigrant labor facilitated the country’s rise as a manufacturing powerhouse. In the twenty-first century, maintaining a position of technological dominance will require the United States to retain its status as the destination of choice for the most skilled workers. The bipartisan “Made in America” vision can become reality, but only if it is built by harnessing the talent of immigrants.

Source: Industrial Policy Needs an Immigration Policy

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Trump H-1B Visa Wage Rule Gives Clue To Second-Term Immigration Policy

2024/08/23 Leave a comment

Of note:

A Trump administration rule in 2020 designed to price H-1B visa holders and employment-based immigrants out of the U.S. labor market offers clues to U.S. immigration policy if Donald Trump wins in November. Although blocked on procedural grounds, the rule alarmed companies by boosting the required minimum salary for foreign-born professionals far beyond the pay of similar U.S. employees. The rule may give pause to those who expect a second Trump administration to be different from the first one on business immigration.

How The Trump Rule Aimed To Price Immigrants Out Of The U.S. Labor Market

On October 8, 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor published a rule that significantly raised the minimum wage required for employers to pay H-1B visa holders and employment-based immigrants. Currently, the law requires employers to pay H-1B professionals the prevailing wage or actual wage paid to similar U.S. workers, whichever is higher. Employment-based immigrants need a prevailing wage determination for employers to sponsor them for permanent residence. Despite no change in the law, the Trump administration wrote a regulation that caused the salaries required to be paid to foreign-born scientists and engineers to skyrocket.

After the rule was published, immigration attorneys discovered Trump officials had directed DOL to “hijack” the mathematical formula used to determine prevailing wages. After changing the formula, the rule required employers to pay high-skilled foreign nationals far higher than the market wage. That became clear when private sector salary surveys were compared to federal government wage determinations under the Trump rule.

The prevailing wage is “the average wage paid to similarly employed workers in a specific occupation in the area of intended employment,” according to the DOL website. “That means statistics, not politics, should control the prevailing wage,” said Kevin Miner of Fragomen when the rule was published. “The new DOL regulation artificially pushes the prevailing wage well above what the data shows it to be.”

Close examination found many cases under the rule when hiring an H-1B visa holder or sponsoring a foreign national for permanent residence would likely become impossible….

Source: Trump H-1B Visa Wage Rule Gives Clue To Second-Term Immigration Policy

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

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