Mayorkas in El Paso: U.S. Immigration System Is Broken

2022/12/16 Leave a comment

Noteworthy reference at the end to Canada being a model:

As El Paso struggled Tuesday to cope with a growing migrant influx, the U.S. Homeland Security secretary visited the city and said the nation’s immigration and asylum systems were “broken.”

Alejandro Mayorkas met with Border Patrol agents, local government officials and nongovernmental organizations providing services to migrants. He spoke for about 15 minutes with reporters for KTEP public radio, El Paso Matters and the El Paso Times to talk about the ongoing challenges and the end of Title 42, a public health law that has been used since early 2020 to expel many migrants without giving them an opportunity to apply for asylum. A federal judge has ruled the program must end Dec. 21.

Mayorkas gave few specifics of how the Biden administration planned to address the soaring number of migrants arriving at the border. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Question: We’re already seeing huge numbers of people crossing and some of the stress and strain on local resources. So what would you want to say about the preparations for the end of Title 42?

Mayorkas: So we’ve been preparing since late last year for the end of Title 42. I think it was in April of this year that we published an outline of all of our planning to give confidence to the American public that we indeed will be prepared for the end of Title 42. That’s what we do in the Department of Homeland Security. We are operational, we prepare for different scenarios and execute accordingly. (Sunday), of course, El Paso experienced a very significant influx by essentially a caravan of buses and we’ve been working immediately thereafter with our partners to the south with Mexico to ensure that doesn’t happen again.

Q: Do you expect there to be any new limits on asylum for migrants whether that’s by nationality or a different process in place other than arriving at the border?

Mayorkas: So we believe in the asylum system, we’ve worked very, very hard to reconstruct it after it was dismantled by the prior administration. There are a lot of discussions about different ideas and how to address the number of encounters that we’re experiencing at the border. No decisions have been made. But one of the things that we’re very devoted to and we’ve been devoted to since the very outset of this administration is not only rebuilding our asylum system, rebuilding our refugee processes, rebuilding much of legal immigration, but also building lawful, safe, orderly humane pathways. So individuals who are desperate do not feel that they must place their lives, their life savings, in the hands of smugglers who only exploit them for profit.

Q:  Can you elaborate on discussions with Mexico or other programs that you’re considering to manage that?

Mayorkas: So the reality is that the challenge that we’re experiencing at the border is not exclusive to our border. I was just in Ecuador and Colombia this past week, and they were speaking of the challenges that they themselves face. In Colombia, for example, they cited the fact that they have 2.5 million Venezuelans in the country. And so what we’re experiencing is a challenge of migration throughout the hemisphere, throughout the region, and it requires a regional solution. And we really kicked that off most forcefully, I think, at the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles. Subsequent to that, we’ve been speaking with our partners in a bilateral and multilateral context. Because a regional challenge requires partnership and a regional solution.

Q: Any specifics?

Mayorkas: I think it’d be premature because no specific plans have been determined.

Q: Do you have a date for announcing those specific plans for ending Title 42 that would expand upon the six-point plan from April based on new developments?

Mayorkas: So we’re mindful of the fact that Title 42 is going to end early next week. We’re also mindful of the fact that we have to coordinate with our partners, not just the nonprofit organizations with which we work very closely, not just cities along the border, like El Paso, but also our international partners. So we’re moving as quickly as we can. These are very important decisions. They’re very complex. The migration challenge is very, very complex. So we’re moving as quickly as we can.

Q: Any thoughts of standing up something like for the Afghan refugees to manage huge numbers of other migrants or asylum seekers here, maybe at Fort Bliss?

Mayorkas: So no decision has been made. We’re looking at a whole host of things. One of the options that of course we’re taking a look at is the success with our program for Venezuelans that we’ve built on our success for Ukrainians. How can we build a lawful pathway for individuals so that they don’t have to traverse dangerous terrain in the hands of smugglers, but rather, we can prequalify them if you will. We can vet and screen them beforehand, assess their eligibility, and then have them travel safely to the United States to ports of entry in the interior by plane, which is what we’ve seen in a tremendously successful program for Venezuelans.

Q: What would you want to tell people away from the border who see these images of people just walking across wading across the river and say “it’s out of control”?

Mayorkas: Well, remember, what we are seeing is people who are claiming asylum. And we see them surrendering themselves to Border Patrol to assert their claims for humanitarian relief, as our laws provide. And what I would say is, so be mindful of that, number one, but quite frankly, it’s an extraordinarily powerful picture of why we need our immigration system reformed through legislation. Our asylum system is broken. Our immigration system as a whole is broken. It hasn’t been updated or reformed in more than 40 years. We look to our partner to the north that has a much more nimble immigration system that can be retooled to the needs at the moment. For example, Canada is in need of 1 million workers and they have agreed that in 2023, they will admit 1.4 million … immigrants to fill that labor need that Canadians themselves cannot. We are stuck in antiquated laws that do not meet our current needs. And they haven’t been working for many, many years.

Source: Mayorkas in El Paso: U.S. Immigration System Is Broken

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Douglas Todd: Chinese interest in emigrating to Canada jumps 28 times

2022/12/15 Leave a comment

Kurland has it right that there is a big difference in interest, based upon web stats, and acting on those interests in terms of applications, as the US interest after Trump’s election demonstrated. 
IRCC web stats “immigrate to Canada” show a comparable increase in Chinese interest in Canada, but only about 21 percent (January-November 2019 compared to 2021). However, applications from China were essentially flat from 2019,  January-October for the same period in 2021 (2022 numbers have a time lag due to data entry delays). Admissions have also remained flat for the same period.
And of course, the share of China as a source of immigrants has fallen over past years for a variety of factors:
I have been following IRCC web stats for four years now and am not finding any significant correlation with applications and admissions:
China’s most popular internet search engine experienced a 28-times surge in residents looking up the terms “conditions to immigrate to Canada” during the populous country’s severe COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.
According to an internal Canadian immigration department report obtained under access to information requests by a Vancouver immigration lawyer, the search engine Baidu saw soaring interest in “immigration to Canada” and “immigration” before it suspended use of the terms in April.

Source: Douglas Todd: Chinese interest in emigrating to Canada jumps 28 times

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Wernick’s Letter from Ottawa: an exhausting year shows the limits of foresight and the comfort of hindsight

2022/12/15 Leave a comment

Valid points on foresight, imperfect, and hindsight, which is always 20/20, as well as the environment under which decisions are taken. I always try to ask myself when being critical of the government’s action or inaction about whether I would have done better than the officials involved. Not necessarily.

But, as we have seen over the past few years, government does appear to have a systemic issue with foresight and, when there is foresight, it is often not taken seriously or acted upon (insert your favourite example!).

My favourite example is the decision by PHAC to cut the pandemic warning system shortly before COVID, one of the more irresponsible decisions based on very small savings, particularly compared to the costs of COVID:

The end of the calendar year typically brings with it occasions to take stock and look back. Across Canada, this is the season for holiday receptions and gatherings. It is also a season for year-end shows that recap the major events and for pundits to issue report cards on who among the politicians has had a good or bad year. Some will indulge in speculation about the year ahead.

What is striking about 2022 is how many of its highlights would have been missed in any crystal ball gazing last December. Many of the strategic plans and forecasts generated within governments and private sector firms would now be shredded or filed away. It was a bad year for the foresight community.

I will set aside the year of three prime ministers in the UK. 

The start of year saw Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and, for Canadians, the ‘trucker convoy’ protests. Over the year inflation surged from the 3-4% range in 2021 to between 6-8% and the notable changes to the price of food, gasoline and home mortgages have made inflation the hot economic and political concern it hasn’t been since the 1980s. Our national politics have slumped into a somewhat dreary stalemate between an incumbent government starting to show signs of burnout at the seven year mark, and a new opposition leader betting on populism to create a mood for change in 2025. A central part of his strategy is to promote at every opportunity a sense that “everything seems broken”.

‘The extensive formal infrastructure of hindsight’

This effort to catastrophise has been given some inadvertent lift by the extensive formal infrastructure of hindsight that is a vital supply chain for media opinion writers and opposition politicians. There is no small irony in this because an array of institutions have been created with an overall purpose to increase confidence and trust in government – both the institutions of the state and the system of democratic decision-making – by correcting its behaviour and showing that it is accountable and responsive.

Here in Canada, the last month has brought a bountiful harvest of after action reviews. As provided for in the legislation, an enquiry is underway to review the federal government’s decision back in February to invoke the Emergencies Act to bring an end to the disruption caused by the escalating trucker convoy protests. The preeminent federal feedback institution – the auditor general – has just released two reports on the government’s efforts back in 2021 to cope with the pandemic. In Ontario, the provincial auditor has annoyed the premier with an aggressive investigation into money laundering through casinos. And in my home city of Ottawa, a commission has just reported on a particularly messy light rail infrastructure project.

To be clear, people who care about better government support having strong feedback loops that strengthen accountability. They inoculate against complacency and inertia. At their best they contribute to ‘learning software’ by which the public sector detects errors and problems and governments are forced to pay attention and strive to do better in the future. In my experience, it is far easier to mobilise the will to change laws and programmes or secure investments in the noisy aftermath of negative feedback than it is to secure support for preventive measures when things are quiet. Mechanisms like ombudspersons and review panels and tribunals are valuable outlets that often shed light on more systemic problems.

The uncomfortable truth is that all of the feedback loops have their problems – they are like a distorted mirror. The core software in a Westminster system is answerability of the executive to parliament but parliamentary committees never fail to disappoint. In Canada they often lapse into clumsy attempts to score partisan points or create clips to be shared on social media. Formal enquiries have a more rigorous methodology, and are seen to be impartial, but they are often driven by judges and lawyers, their idiosyncrasies and adversarial approach. Some have been truly impactful (the Krever Royal Commission into the tainted blood scandal) and some have proven to be useless (the Gomery commission into the use of a programme to raise awareness of the Government of Canada’s contributions to industries in Quebec). Arguably the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for those directly or indirectly affected by the legacy of the Indian Residential Schools system, which reported in 2015, has been the most important exercise of its kind in modern times.

The key feature of these reviews, and of the dozen or so institutions that make up the infrastructure of accountability, is hindsight, and the risk of hindsight bias. They cannot ever really capture the original context in which advice was given and decisions were made. They strain out all of the myriad other events and issues that were going on at the time, when the reality of governing is multitasking with limited time and imperfect information. They all use a version of what auditors call residual risk assessment that strains out the baseline to focus on the anomaly. Then the journalists and opposition only pay attention to the juiciest products among the many that are generated each year. The things that work aren’t newsworthy.

Reviews cannot capture the crisis

This hindsight effect is particularly true of efforts to look back at the response to the pandemic. I have yet to read any acknowledgement that the people involved, whether politicians or public servants, were themselves coping with the risk of falling ill, had children or elderly parents to worry about, and were adjusting to lockdown measures and disruption of workplaces. Whatever general appreciation there was in 2020 or 2021 of public sector workers has rapidly dissipated in 2022.

The fundamental limitation of ‘after action’ reviews is they cannot capture the alternative scenarios or timelines that would have unfolded if different decisions had been made. This is particularly true of the current enquiry into the Emergencies Act. As useful as it may prove to be in establishing the timeline right up to the point of the decision to invoke the act, we cannot ever know what would have happened in the days that followed had the government not acted. And yet that assessment of the trendline and the future scenarios would have been the core of the discussion at the time.

These reviews never quite recreate a typical problem set in public administration – the age old adage that one can prioritise speed, costs, or rigour but not all three at the same time. That isn’t quite true as many initiatives do find a way to achieve an acceptable outcome in all three – the stimulus package of 2008-09 comes to mind. But in a way, when you choose the priority you choose to be criticised later on something else. Choose rigour and the reviews will focus on slow delivery. Choose speed and the reviews will focus on execution. Order too much vaccine and be criticised for wastage – order too little and be criticised for not protecting the vulnerable.

That comes with the territory and isn’t about to change. But I have a growing unease that the very mechanisms created to bolster confidence and trust in democratic governance may be inadvertently contributing to a climate of demoralisation and defeatism that sows the seeds of future trouble.

As this turbulent year draws to a close it is easy to see the limitations of foresight, but feedback and hindsight are a necessary part of achieving better government. Flying blind is not a better way, and each time review should be an opportunity to focus on lessons learned and summon the will to make necessary changes and investments.

But we also should pay attention to the limitations and uses of hindsight, and rise above a short term partisan blame game and making risk averse politicians and public servants even more risk averse. In the 2020s the key quality the public sector will need is not clairvoyance, but resilience and the capacity to learn and adapt.

Source: Letter from Ottawa: an exhausting year shows the limits of foresight and the comfort of hindsight

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The Danger of America’s Woefully Incomplete Hate Crimes Data

2022/12/15 Leave a comment

Of note. Canada’s reporting is more comprehensive of police forces although there is underreporting by the public:

The FBI’s annual report on hate crime in America, released Monday,shows that about 7,300 hate-crime incidents were reported in the United States in 2021. That number represents a drop of nearly 1,000 incidents from 2020—but experts say it’s a woefully incomplete picture of hate crimes in America.

That’s because nearly 7,000 of the country’s more than 18,000 law-enforcement agencies—including the New York Police Department and Los Angeles Police Department—failed to submit any hate crime data to the federal report. Only 15 of the 750 agencies in the state of California participated, and the state of Florida only reported a single hate crime for 2021. For the 2020 report, more than 80% of jurisdictions participated.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

“Hate crimes tear at the fabric of our society and traumatize entire communities,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, in a statement. “The failure by major states and cities across the country to report hate crime data essentially—and inexcusably—erases the lived experience of marginalized communities across the country.”

Huge gaps in hate crime stats

The FBI defines a hate crime as a “criminal offense which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias(es) against” a victim’s race, religion, disability, gender—or other characteristic. A 1990 law requires the government to track hate crimes, but it remains up to individual law-enforcement agencies whether they tell the FBI how many and what kind of hate crimes they encountered during a given year. This year fewer than two-thirds of police departments provided their hate crime data—a problem that was also seen months ago when the FBI released its 2021 overall crime report.

The biggest problem this year is down to a change in the way that the FBI is collecting crime data from local agencies. The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), a new software that seeks to “improve the overall quality of crime data collected by law enforcement” is the big culprit. The FBI announced several years ago that it would transition to the NIBRS by 2021, and about $120 million was distributed to agencies to help phase out the previous Summary Reporting System.

Despite having ample time to make the transition, many jurisdictions waited too long and were unable to make the deadline to submit hate-crime numbers, says Richard Rosenfeld, the Curators’ Distinguished Professor Emeritus of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Missouri–St. Louis.

“The FBI had a choice,” he says. “It could either permit those agencies to submit data they had compiled under the old system so we’d have at least bottom-line measures for major crimes, or the FBI could have done what it did and insist that if you don’t meet the deadline, that your data will not be included.”

Rising hate crimes

Despite the FBI reporting a drop in total reported hate crimes in 2021, the previous year saw the highest number of hate-crime incidents recorded since 2001. The agency itself has issued guidance discouraging comparisons between the 2021 report and those of recent years, and noted in releasing the data that, in the jurisdictions that did participate, hate-crime incidents did not seem to fall.

“Although the hate crime statistics reported to us are lower in 2021, hate crime statistics overall are not decreasing, meaning of the agencies that are reporting to us, they are reporting an increase in hate crime,” the FBI said in a press call before the report’s release, according to VOA News. And states like New Jersey that previously released state-level hate-crime data found that 2021 saw record highs for reported bias incidents locally. California’s state count saw reported hate crime events increase by nearly a third from 2020 to 2021.

The missing data won’t just affect statisticians. It could also have an important impact on vulnerable communities across America.

Susan Corke, Director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors the radical right in the U.S., warns that the lack of data is especially devastating in the context of armed white-nationalist groups backing candidates for election and winning positions of power. The FBI itself recognizes that these statistics are necessary to help provide lawmakers with “justification for certain legislation” and “help law enforcement address issues for their communities.”

“We want our political debates about crime and hate crime to be based on complete and accurate data,” Rosenfeld tells TIME. “When the data is subject to such uncertainties, then political leaders, advocacy groups, and others are simply able to concoct their own narrative.”

Rosenfeld and Corke both say that making it mandatory for local law enforcement to provide hate-crime statistics to the FBI would be a huge step in helping adjust the numbers in coming years. That decision could only be made by Congress.

President Biden previously signed a law that helped make the reporting of hate crimes more accessible in 2021, and created hotlines for hate crime reporting for non-English speakers.

For now, the Justice Department—which oversees the FBI—maintains that it will be committed to prioritizing the “prevention, investigation and prosecution of hate crimes.”

“No one in this country should be forced to live their life in fear of being attacked because of what they look like, whom they love, or where they worship,” said Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta in a statement on Monday. “The department will continue to use all of the tools and resources at our disposal to stand up to bias-motivated violence in our communities.”

Source: The Danger of America’s Woefully Incomplete Hate Crimes Data

Filed under Hate crimes, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Canada reverses immigration decision to make it easier for families to reunite

2022/12/15 Leave a comment

Of note. While invariably some stories will emerge of some failing to maintain payments, suspect minimal risk of most doing so:

Thousands of foreign nationals hoping to live in Canada are elated after Immigration Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) announced changes to how people coming to the country on a super visa can pay for their medical insurance.

Launched in 2011, the super visa program allows permanent residents (PR) and citizens to invite their non-resident parents and grandparents to stay with them in Canada for up to five years at a time.

But to do so, they have been required to pay for medical insurance up-front annually — a sometimes prohibitive price tag which varies depending on age and coverage but is an average of $1,500 for a 65-year-old and potentially higher as applicants get older.

While applicants could previously pay in monthly instalments, that changed in August when the department announced it would require annual up-front payments.

That prompted a backlash, including an online petition arguing the new payment system was punitive toward families seeking to be reunited and was resulting in fewer applications being granted.

But this week, the department confirmed its decision has been reversed, and families can once again make monthly payments. The move has been welcomed by applicants, as well as insurance and immigration experts, as a way to make it easier for families to reunite.

An important tool for multigenerational families

That’s a relief for Amritpal Singh, who lives in Surrey, B.C. and is hoping to invite his parents, who are in India, to come live with him next summer.

He says the prospect of paying for a full year of medical insurance for each of them was daunting, and he welcomes the chance to break it down into smaller payments.

“I am very excited to invite my parents to Canada. While they can get an opportunity to explore Canada with me, I will be emotionally benefited from their presence,” he said in an interview conducted in Punjabi.

Source: Canada reverses immigration decision to make it easier for families to reunite

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Trudeau says Quebec has the ‘tools’ to welcome 112,000 immigrants, more than double its goal, Trudeau forcé de clarifier ses propos sur les seuils d’immigration

2022/12/15 Leave a comment

Correct. Not a question of having or not having the tools but Quebec takes a more more critical look at immigration rathe than the “more the merrier” approach in the rest of Canada. Have included an article from Le Devoir on the false controversy his remarks caused, forcing him to clarify his remarks (even if I found them clear).

But the divergent approaches to immigration, and the resulting dilution of Quebec’s weight in the federation, are a cause for medium-and-longer concern:

Quebec’s immigration minister has responded to comments from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, saying his assertion that the province could welcome up to 112,000 immigrants every year instead of the planned 50,000 is “insensitive” to Quebec’s challenge of protecting the French language.

Trudeau told The Canadian Press Monday afternoon in a year-end interview that Quebec had the resources to host more than double the immigration threshold it has set for itself and that the province already has “all the tools” for those people to be francophones.

Earlier this year, the federal government set a goal of welcoming 500,000 new immigrants by 2025 — 112,000 represents 22.3 per cent of that number, which is the equivalent of Quebec’s population within Canada.

Source: Trudeau says Quebec has the ‘tools’ to welcome 112,000 immigrants, more than double its goal

Le premier ministre Justin Trudeau a tenu mardi à préciser ses propos voulant qu’il fasse le « constat » que le Québec « a la capacité », selon lui, d’accueillir jusqu’à 112 000 immigrants par année, face aux commentaires désapprobateurs de la ministre québécoise de l’Immigration et de certains partis d’opposition aux Communes.

En entrevue de fin d’année avec La Presse canadienne, M. Trudeau avait, dans sa réponse à une question dans laquelle ce chiffre lui était présenté, répété ce dernier.

« Le Québec a actuellement la pleine capacité d’accueillir 112 000 immigrants par année. […] C’est un constat », avait-il dit lundi.

Le premier ministre était interpellé sur le fait que les Québécois représentent 22,3 % de la population canadienne et que ce chiffre de 112 000 correspond donc à la proportion des 500 000 immigrants que son gouvernement a récemment annoncé vouloir accueillir annuellement d’ici 2025.

Mardi, M. Trudeau est revenu sur ses propos durant la période des questions, bloquistes et conservateurs l’accusant de s’immiscer dans la décision de Québec de fixer ses propres seuils d’immigration.

« Je n’ai pas proposé de chiffres pour le Québec, a-t-il soutenu. J’ai reconnu que le Québec avait la capacité d’augmenter ses seuils d’immigration s’il le voulait. Ils ont ces pouvoirs parce que nous reconnaissons l’importance que le Québec a dans la protection de la langue française et de la nation québécoise. »

Pourtant, au cours de l’entrevue de fin d’année, il a bel et bien mentionné nommément « 112 000 » en réponse à une question.

« Je ne suis pas en train de le recommander [les 112 000 immigrants] non plus », avait ensuite nuancé M. Trudeau.

Les journalistes de La Presse canadienne venaient alors de porter à son attention l’écart entre le chiffre de 112 000 immigrants et les seuils de 50 000 et 70 000 qui ont été évoqués respectivement, en campagne électorale provinciale, par le gouvernement de François Legault et le Parti libéral du Québec. Québec solidaire a pour sa part proposé que la province reçoive entre 60 000 à 80 000 nouveaux arrivants par année.

Le premier ministre fédéral a expliqué son « constat » en faisant référence à l’accord entre le Québec et Ottawa en matière d’immigration qui donne tous les outils nécessaires au Québec pour l’accueil de 112 000 immigrants.

Dans ses échanges aux Communes, M. Trudeau a insisté que « c’est une décision pour le Québec et nous respectons les compétences à ce niveau-là ».

Or, l’opposition officielle conservatrice a plutôt interprété les propos du premier ministre comme une « directive », a résumé en mêlée de presse son lieutenant politique pour le Québec, Pierre Paul-Hus.

« M. Trudeau dit : “On peut avoir jusqu’à 112 000 immigrants au Québec”. Le gouvernement du Québec dit : “Non. On a calculé que nous, pour bien accueillir des immigrants, c’est 50 000’’. Donc M. Trudeau fait de façon indirecte une forme d’efforts d’imposer un seuil d’immigration pour le Québec, ce qu’on considère qu’il ne devait pas se faire », a-t-il dit.

Le chef bloquiste Yves-François Blanchet estime aussi que M. Trudeau veut imposer sa vision.

« En 24 heures, le premier ministre dit qu’il faut que le Québec accueille 112 000 immigrants. “Oh ! Je ne l’impose pas”, mais toutes les autres fois il a dit qu’il voudrait bien l’imposer », a-t-il mentionné durant la période des questions.

Il a, de plus, suggéré que le fédéral était bien mal placé pour parler en raison des arriérés dans le traitement de dossiers d’immigration.

« Est-ce qu’il devrait refaire ses devoirs et laisser le Québec gérer tant l’immigration que le français ? », a tonné M. Blanchet.

Du côté du gouvernement de François Legault, la ministre de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration, Christine Fréchette, a déclaré par écrit que les propos de M. Trudeau lui paraissent « insensibles ».

« C’est au Québec, et au Québec seul, de déterminer ses seuils d’immigration », a-t-elle souligné. La ministre n’était pas disponible pour une entrevue mardi.

Selon elle, le Québec a « un double défi, qui est unique au Canada », soit de s’attaquer à la pénurie de main-d’oeuvre tout en arrêtant le déclin du français, « ce à quoi M. Trudeau semble rester insensible », a-t-elle ajouté.

Source: Trudeau forcé de clarifier ses propos sur les seuils d’immigration

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Michelle Rempel Garner: They’re really sorry, but your parents won’t be able to come to your wedding

2022/12/14 Leave a comment

Of interest by Conservative MP Rempel Garner. Most media coverage of backlogs has focussed on permanent residents, work permits and citizenship rather than visitor visas but this is as important given the impact on families and tourism. 74 percent as of this October.

Somewhat surprising in that visitor visas are a leading program in using AI and other tools to improve and streamline processing.

My take on this and related processing delays and backlogs is somewhat different from hers. I would place more blame on the political level for recklessly focussing on increasing numbers across all programs without sufficiently considering the ability to deliver (whatever happened to Deliverology?). The COVID excuse is past its best before date:

Two of my best friends got married in early October. It would have been a perfect day except for one thing — a glaring family absence.

Despite applying for something called a temporary resident visa (TRV) over four months before their wedding date, the parents of one of the grooms were unable to travel to Canada for the wedding. Their absence was due to a massive backlog in the Canadian government’s review process of this routine piece of paperwork.

For the uninitiated, a TRV is a document issued by the federal government that allows a person to enter Canada as a visitor, student or worker. If you hold a Canadian passport and have travelled to another country, you most likely never have had to apply for a visa, because many countries grant visa-free entry to Canadians.

The same isn’t true for many foreign nationals who want to enter Canada, including several countries that have large diaspora populations in Canada. The TRV application review process is supposed to be thorough, but fast. It’s designed to screen applicants for things like if they pose a security risk to the country, if they have sufficient financial resources to support themselves during their stay in Canada, and if they have enough permanent ties to their home country to ensure they return to it.

Years ago, this process would only take a few weeks, at most, to complete. Now, as with my friend’s parents, it’s taking months at best. As of the end of September 2022, there were nearly a million outstanding applications for a TRV in the processing backlog, with roughly 75 per cent of new applicationstaking longer than the service standard to process. 

The problems this backlog has created are big ones, and they have a far-reaching impact. 

TRV processing delays have had a critical negative impact on several industries, and create a drag on our economy. At a time when Canada is facing an enormous labour shortage, workers may forego coming to Canada due to the uncertainty the backlog has created. International students that could provide talent and expertise to Canada are choosing to go elsewhere. Families, even spouses, that want to be reunited with loved ones have lost a clear line of sight on if and when they’ll be able to do so. 

The backlog is also raising concerns about equity issues. Desperate applicants will attempt to get the Minister of Immigration to directly intervene. Immigration lawyers are sometimes retained in hopes of finding some way to speed up the process. This raises the question — why should application processing be determinant upon access to money and influence? 

When attempting to explain the cause of the backlog, the federal government points to global pandemic restrictions, an increase in the number of applications, limited resources, and the complexity of processing visas.

For many, these reasons don’t hold water. The backlog was rapidly growing before the pandemic started. And in recent years the federal government has dramatically increased spending on the department in charge of processing TRVs. Despite this, processing wait times have grown and remained high. Other countries with similar economic profiles and demand for visas to Canada have managed to keep their backlogs comparatively low.

The real reasons for the backlog go deeper than resourcing.

Civil society groups have raised numerous valid inequities in the TRV processing system that may add to the backlog, including how applications from certain countries have longer wait times than others. Requirements for approval change often and are not well communicated to applicants, leaving many confused and uncertain about their eligibility. This increases the likelihood of submitting incomplete applications, which creates more administrative burden for the government. 

And the actual criteria used to approve or reject an applicant is pretty opaque. Many applicants are denied visas despite meeting all of the listed requirements, so they re-apply, putting more burden on the system.

From where I sit, a big part of the reason for the backlog lies in the Liberal government treating the immigration ministry like the armpit of their cabinet. Successive Liberal immigration ministers have been allowed to throw money at the problem without seeing meaningful results and without suffering demotion from their role. To get movement on the backlog, the minister must ensure that recalcitrant senior bureaucrats aren’t incentivized to find excuses for why the problem can’t be fixed. Their continued collective employment should be contingent upon doing the opposite. 

Nor should the government be tempted to sacrifice the integrity of the process to process more applications. Thorough diligence is still needed. Nor should standard service timelines be raised to manage expectations instead of application volume. For the hundreds of millions of dollars Canadian taxpayers have spent on this system, we should get a visa processing system that is fair, rigorous, and fast — not the debacle the federal government is currently presiding over.

My friend’s parents’ TRV was approved five months after they applied; one month after the wedding. Their frustrating journey to come to Canada has become the rule, not the exception. 

For the countless Canadians who, due to the backlog, will be separated from loved ones this holiday season, and for the thousands of businesses that are without workers, that rule has brought shame to our country. We ought to be embarrassed. 

Source: Michelle Rempel Garner: They’re really sorry, but your parents won’t be able to come to your wedding

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Canada overtakes U.K. as destination for Hong Kong students amid mounting exodus

2022/12/14 Leave a comment

Of note:

Thousands of Hong Kong students are choosing to come to Canada over countries like the U.K. and Australia, with more and more of its citizens applying for study permits abroad and contributing to a mounting exodus amid China’s growing control over the region.

This year, Canada has approved 7,920 study permits to students coming from Hong Kong, up from about 6,300 in 2021, according to Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) data. Historically, Canada issued less than 3,000 annually — numbers that were eclipsed in the month of August 2022 alone.

The Hong Kong government’s increasing hard line against mass protests and China’s growing control over the region has coincided with more than 100,000 people leaving the region in the past two years, mostly to the United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore and Canada.

U.K. data shows just over 5,000 study permits were issued to Hong Kong students between January and September this year, while Australia issued just over 2,000 by Oct. 31.

“One country, two systems definitely never delivered,” said Ken Tung, president of the B.C.-based Civic Education Society.

“Hong Kongers realized that, and you can see people started moving.”

Pathway to permanent residency through education

Protests erupted across Hong Kong in 2019, sparked by an extradition bill that many of the city’s residents vehemently opposed, saying it would give the government powers to arbitrarily extradite anyone in Hong Kong to China to face the legal system there.

The protests began peacefully but would escalate with demonstrators clashing with police who have been accused of unlawful use of force. In the ensuing months, authorities arrested more than 10,000 people related to the protests, more than 2,900 of whom were prosecuted, according to figures released up to February 2022.

“You can see the freedom of Hong Kong, the democracy, the justice system, collapsing,” said Tung. “You can see all the talented people, all the people with resources, leaving Hong Kong. And I think Canada understands the situation.”

In 2021, Canada opened an expedited pathway for Hong Kong residents to receive Canadian permanent residency if they graduate through a designated post-secondary program. It will last until 2026.

In a statement, IRCC said it expects “this increased opportunity to remain in Canada permanently has encouraged many Hong Kongers to study here.”

Tung says Metro Vancouver and the Greater Toronto Area are the main regions where students are settling, with the pathway attracting people of all ages pursuing varying degrees of education.

“But even professionals, they can actually come to study a masters degree and strengthen their knowledge, and many of them, with a professional job, they’d like to learn something else,” he said.

“If that helps them to stay in Canada to contribute, I think that strengthens both sides — for them, and also for Canada.”

Source: Canada overtakes U.K. as destination for Hong Kong students amid mounting exodus

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Germany’s Scholz says strong immigration may secure population boost to 90 million

2022/12/14 Leave a comment

Of note:

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Saturday Germany could increase its population strongly in the years ahead as the government seeks to boost immigration to help avert labour shortages and a crisis in its pension system.

The government is working on attracting foreign workers to “keep the show on the road” despite an ageing population, making an estimated 7% rise in population to 90 million by 2070 plausible, Scholz told a citizen forum in Potsdam, near Berlin.

The German government last month agreed plans to reform immigration law, as Berlin seeks to open up the job market in Europe’s biggest economy to much-needed workers from outside the European Union.

The government has said it wants to boost immigration and training to tackle a skills shortage weighing on the German economy at a time of weakening growth, with an aging population piling pressure on the public pension system.

Scholz said that current population growth due in part to rising immigration meant the government might not to raise pension contributions before the end of its mandate in 2025.

Germany’s statistics office said last week the population would likely rise by 1 million to 84 million this year due to migration from Ukraine. It could reach 90 million in coming decades, if immigration was high, it added.

Source: Germany’s Scholz says strong immigration may secure population boost to 90 million

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Improving record keeping crucial to open government, says former head of federal public service

2022/12/14 Leave a comment

Interesting comments by Wernick. Has been a long-time problem and I remember a number of initiatives and programs to address these problems during my time in government with limited success. Not an easy problem to solve given the vast amount of government information holdings:

The former head of the federal public service says neglect and underinvestment in recordkeeping is undermining the government’s “lofty language” about its commitment to open government, and making it harder to locate documents people ask for under access-to-information law.

Michael Wernick says the government’s archives resemble a scene out of an Indiana Jones movie, with boxes and boxes of records waiting to be scanned, sorted and organized.

In an interview with The Globe and Mail, he said “the language of open government” … is built on “a very shaky foundation” because of a lack of investment in organizing records so they can be easily located.

He said there was a disconnect “between rhetoric and delivery” when it came to Ottawa’s stated commitment to open government.

“As with many things with this government … there is a gap between the lofty language and the execution or delivery,” he said. “What you will find is it is very spotty.”

Ottawa’s National Action Plan on Open Government commits it to being more transparent and accountable.

The Access to Information Act also places a legal requirement on the government to keep organized records and to publish guides each year to help people find them.

The act requires it to publish a detailed description of the types of records held by government departments.

“Open Government is about making government more accessible to everyone. This means giving greater access to government data and information to the Canadian public and the businesses community,” the government’s website on open government says.

Mr. Wernick, who was the federal government’s top bureaucrat – the Clerk of the Privy Council – from 2016 to 2019, said there was overall a lack of dedication to recordkeeping in Ottawa and a great “mess of things.”

Records were scattered around different government departments on floppy discs, diskettes, paper record files and in boxes, as well as on servers and in the Cloud.

He told The Globe that some federal departments and institutions organized their records well and had put tools in place to make them easy to find, but others were chaotic.

“Like many things, you’ll find pockets of excellence and some really cool things that are happening, and then there are other areas which are … rusted and shambolic. There’s a lack of consistency of effort around,” he said.

He said the amount of information being generated by the government – including e-mails – was more than its “absorption capacity” to get it digitized and scanned.

The government’s archive, he said, has “an enormous warehouse, like something out of Indiana Jones movies” full of boxes of records waiting to be organized, but there are neither the people nor the money to do it.

He said there should be more investment in developing search tools so that government records can be easily located, including if someone requests them under freedom-of-information laws. Organizing records would also help the federal policy of proactive disclosure, he said.

“What is really important is the navigation and recordkeeping. It’s just so uneven,” he said.

Mr. Wernick said with some records dating back centuries, as well as stacks of paper and a plethora of e-mails, deciding what to keep for posterity was a skill.

Retrieval and information management should be an integral part of an open-government agenda, including how to tag, classify and sort records, he said, but it was far down the government’s priority list.

He said “investing in basic conservation” and protecting records from flood and fire was also crucial, to stop them from being degraded.

Mr. Wernick told a Commons committee last month that the offices of the prime minister and federal ministers should no longer be exempt from access-to-information law, and there should be a greater onus in Ottawa on pro-actively disclosing as much information to the public as possible.

Monica Granados, press secretary to Treasury Board president Mona Fortier, said the government has “enshrined pro-active publication in law, strengthening openness and transparency across government.”

“The open-government portal now holds 34,000 data/information records, 2 million pro-active disclosures from more than 160 institutions, as well as summaries of completed access-to-information requests,” she said.

Source: Improving record keeping crucial to open government, says former head of federal public service

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