Chouinard: L’indolence d’Ottawa

2022/05/16 Leave a comment

Fairly representative of Quebec commentary. Challenge of course is likely USA disinterest in closing loophole given their immigration debates:

Le premier ministre François Legault a raison de s’impatienter face à l’indolence du gouvernement fédéral dans le dossier du chemin Roxham. Ce poste d’entrée terrestre est devenu une véritable voie de contournement pour des dizaines de milliers de demandeurs d’asile refoulés aux frontières en raison d’un accord désuet liant le Canada aux États-Unis. Cette situation doit changer.

Faut-il fermer le chemin Roxham ? Si Québec en arrive à cette demande un brin draconienne, à laquelle Ottawa a d’ailleurs immédiatement opposé une fin de non-recevoir, c’est que la voie de la raison n’aboutit pas. En effet, la renégociation de l’Entente sur les tiers pays sûrs (ETPS) traîne en longueur, ce qui a pour résultat de créer un refoulement de demandeurs d’asile aux portes du Canada. L’ETPS, en vigueur depuis 2004, permet au Canada de refuser les demandes formulées à un poste frontalier canado-américain officiel, et de retourner les réfugiés vers les États-Unis, considéré comme un pays « sûr ».

Conséquence ? Au poste frontalier non officiel situé non loin du passage de Lacolle, une centaine d’entrées irrégulières par jour se font au Québec, selon les données avancées par le ministre québécois de l’Immigration, Jean Boulet. Si le ministre plaide pour la fermeture des vannes, c’est qu’il a sous les yeux des données qui annoncent une flambée des passages. Depuis la réouverture du chemin Roxham, le 21 novembre dernier, 13 600 personnes ont traversé au Québec pour échapper aux États-Unis et à la crainte d’être retournées dans leur pays d’origine. Sur ce nombre, 10 800 ont formulé une aide financière de dernier recours, selon les données de Québec.

Le Québec déploie donc énergie et ressources financières pour assurer aux réfugiés toutes les bases de la survivance — un toit, de la nourriture, un revenu minimum, des soins médicaux. Si au moins le processus de régularisation du statut de ces arrivants était fluide et efficace ! Mais non, Québec affirme devoir attendre en moyenne 11 mois chaque fois qu’un permis de travail est demandé. En pleine pénurie de travailleurs, il ne peut même pas bénéficier immédiatement d’une main-d’œuvre pourtant disponible. La situation est doublement absurde.

En 2018, 18 500 personnes sont passées par le chemin Roxham. L’année suivante, quelque 16 000. Après deux ans de fermeture du chemin pour cause de pandémie, la réouverture de l’automne a déjà permis le passage de plus de 7000 personnes. Québec extrapole qu’il pourrait devoir ouvrir sa porte à 35 000 personnes cette année, bien qu’on n’en soit pas certains.

Dans le dossier délicat et complexe de l’immigration, où le Québec et le Canada ne cohabitent pas sur un terrain d’harmonie parfaite, il est facile d’opposer les vertus humanitaires aux arguments de nature économique : pas assez de soutien financier, pas suffisamment de logements, pas de permis de travail ne pèseront pas lourd dans la balance à côté d’une menace de mort planant sur certains demandeurs d’asile dans leur pays natal. Le sort incertain de ces personnes, si d’aventure elles étaient retournées là d’où elles viennent, est préoccupant, tel que l’a démontré la juge Ann Marie McDonald dans un jugement de la Cour fédérale de juillet 2020.

En demandant la fermeture de cette route non officielle, devenue par défaut un poste-frontière bidon, le Québec milite dans les faits pour le retour aux règles de l’art. Ça n’annonce pas la fermeture des portes, mais plutôt un encadrement qui pourra éviter qu’il se retrouve avec un flux incontrôlable de citoyens dont il doit prendre soin, le temps que leur demande soit analysée en bonne et due forme. C’est là aussi que le bât blesse, car les processus d’immigration encadrés par le gouvernement fédéral sont ralentis par un manque de ressources et d’inadmissibles lourdeurs administratives.

Bien que la réputation du Canada soit enviable dans le monde quant au processus équitable de traitement des demandes d’asile, ces manquements concrets ont fini par créer un corridor d’attente aux conséquences lourdes tant pour les individus que pour les autorités responsables, comme le Québec. Cela fait des années que la crise migratoire mondiale a créé un peu partout des zones de réfugiés positionnés aux frontières du pays d’accueil en attente d’un statut, d’une réponse, d’un avenir. La voie parallèle créée sur le chemin Roxham, en réaction à un accord bilatéral qui n’a plus raison d’être, n’est pas si différente.

Reste en trame de fond une querelle historique entre le Québec et le Canada autour du dossier de l’immigration, qui est de compétences partagées, n’en déplaise à François Legault. Son espoir de posséder en cette matière les « pleins pouvoirs » a essuyé une récente rebuffade, mais sa préoccupation d’être plus en contrôle, ne serait-ce qu’en vertu d’un désir de sauvegarde du français, est justifiée. Tout comme son souhait de voir se régler le dossier du chemin Roxham.

Source: L’indolence d’Ottawa

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MPI: France Reckons with Immigration Amid Reality of Rising Far Right

2022/05/16 Leave a comment

A few of the excerpts that I found of interest:

A Significant Increase in Immigrants’ Educational Attainment

Perhaps in part due to the efforts of successive French administrations, immigrants’ level of education has risen sharply in recent decades. In 1975, just 3 percent of immigrants had a higher education degree (which includes a postsecondary diploma or a certificate from a professionally oriented program), compared to 28 percent in 2018.

Immigrants tend to be at one end or the other of the education spectrum: Compared to the overall population, a greater share of immigrants had only a primary-level education (33 percent of the foreign born and 14 percent of the total population in 2018) or a university degree (19 percent and 22 percent respectively; see Figure 3). At the same time, the proportion of immigrants with some postsecondary education (which may include certificates from professionally oriented programs) but not a bachelor’s degree are lower than in the resident population. However, recent immigrants who have been in France for less than five years tend to be better educated.

Immigrants Who Enter as Students Increasingly Stay on to Work

In recent years, France has had one of Europe’s largest populations of international students, with 283,700 at the start of the 2018 academic year (including EU nationals), second only to the United Kingdom and representing 11 percent of France’s students in tertiary education. Between 2000 and 2018, an average of 47,400 third-country students entered France each year, with steadily increasing numbers after 2012 and as many as 65,800 in 2018, when students represented around one-quarter of all immigrants.

Many of these students stay in France for multiple years. Between 42 percent and 50 percent of international students who arrived from 2000 to 2014 continued to hold a valid residence permit five years later, a range that has remains remarkably stable over time (see Figure 5). Most were still students, although since 2006 an increasing share has obtained work permits (notably for highly qualified individuals), reflecting greater labor market integration of immigrants arriving as students. The figures decreased slightly for the cohorts that arrived in 2007 and 2008, reflecting actions by the interior and labor ministries in 2011 asking prefectures to “rigorously” examine students’ applications for change of status, although these provisions were repealed the following May, after François Hollande became president.

Conclusion: Outsized Focus at Odds with Reality

Despite these political pressures, immigration trends in France are comparable to other countries and not, as some of the far right have claimed, a reflection that the government has lost control. Immigrants represent just about 10 percent of France’s total population and the numbers have not increased dramatically in recent years, yet issues of migration were prominent during the 2022 election and appear likely to persist.

In particular, government efforts today are focused on encouraging immigration of highly educated people deemed to be good for the French economy, and limiting arrivals of everyone else. In many ways, this is simply an updated version of France’s decades-old focus on welcoming immigrants whose characteristics and skills are considered useful to the economy, as it did in the years after World War II. Yet the distinction between beneficial and detrimental migration is misplaced, both because it can be deeply hurtful to those who are deemed unwanted, but also because economic analysis by the author and others shows that family migration has led to an increase in France’s per capita gross domestic product and that asylum seekers do not burden European economies.

Political figures on France’s far right have advanced an apocalyptic and radical vision of how immigration is changing their country, which is out of step with current realities. During her campaign, Le Pen promised to stop family reunification, make it harder for children of immigrants born in France to be citizens, and limit welfare benefits to French citizens. Even in defeat, her performance in 2022 underscores how willing many French voters are to embrace these kinds of approaches.

Source: MPI: France Reckons with Immigration Amid Reality of Rising Far Right

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Essential Politics: Conspiracy theories and fear of immigrants — a toxic mix

2022/05/16 Leave a comment

Of interest:

Long before Donald Trump descended the escalator to the Trump Tower lobby, where he launched his presidential campaign while labelling Mexican immigrants as “rapists,” immigration was playing a powerful role in motivating voters on the right. 

Along with opposition to the Affordable Care Act, the effort to stop immigration reform played a key role in mobilizing conservatives during President Obama‘s two terms in office. Trump’s candidacy further ramped up the political focus on immigration. It also allowed the spread of toxic falsehoods that had been largely relegated to the fringe. 

One of the most pernicious is “replacement theory” — the belief that elites (big business, Democratic politicians, major cultural figures and so on) have conspired to bring large numbers of immigrants to the U.S. in a deliberate effort to replace the native-born population with more subservient people who will work for less and vote for whom they’re told. 

The conspiracy theory, which gained traction on the far right in Europe before being popularized in the U.S., has become a staple of some prominent cable television figures, like the Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who said last year that President Biden wanted to increase immigration “to reduce the political power of people whose ancestors lived here and dramatically increase the proportion of Americans newly arrived from the Third World.” 

Nearly 1 in 5 American adults believe at least a couple of major tenets of that theory, according to a new study by the National Opinion Research Center and the Associated Press.

Conspiracy theories shape debate

Overall, the American public remains largely supportive of immigration, the new AP-NORC study found. Almost 40% of Americans say that the number of immigrants to the U.S. should remain at about its current level, while 25% think the number of immigrants should be larger.

On the opposite side, 36% say the number of immigrants should be reduced, with 19% saying the number should be cut “a lot.”

Support for immigration restriction continues as a major rallying cry for the Republican base. A lot of the rhetorical ire is aimed at illegal border crossing, but proposals to dramatically reduce legal immigration became official White House policy under Trump and remain important to a large segment of his core supporters.

The AP-NORC study asked a number of questions about immigration, including two aimed specifically at gauging how many Americans believe key parts of the replacement theory.

One question asked whether “there is a group of people in this country who are trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants who agree with their political views.” About 1 in 7 Americans said they “strongly agree” with that. A similar share said they were “very concerned” that “native-born Americans are losing economic, political, and cultural influence in this country because of the growing population of immigrants.”

About 1 in 5 Americans agreed with both of those tenets of replacement theory to at least some extent.

That finding was “the primary thing that got our attention” when analyzing the study results, said Jennifer Benz of NORC. The researchers were struck by “how widespread the belief in these core arguments of replacement theory are,” Benz said. “It’s a larger segment of the population than we may have expected going into this who have this fairly extreme view.”

Viewers of right-wing media especially shared those ideas: Among people who said they most often watch OANN or Newsmax, 45% agreed with both of the replacement theory statements. So did 31% of Fox viewers, compared with 13% of CNN viewers. 

That reflects the partisan nature of America’s immigration debate, but something else as well: The most widespread support for ideas central to replacement theory came from Americans who believe generally in conspiracy theories. 

The AP-NORC study used a four-question scale to measure a person’s belief in conspiracies. The questions ask if people believe that major events are the result of plots executed in secret, whether events are directed by a small group of powerful people, whether those people are unknown to voters and whether that group controls the outcome of elections, wars, economic recessions and other major developments. 

People who scored high on the conspiracy scale were, in most respects, very similar to the general population. Comparing the 25% who scored highest on the conspiracy scale with the rest of America, the researchers found no significant difference by education, for example — people who believe events are controlled by a small, secret cabal are as likely to have graduated from college as people who don’t hold that view, Benz noted. There’s no gap by income either.

There is a partisan gap — people who score high on the conspiracy scale tend more often to be Republicans and also tend to identify as evangelical Christians. That’s especially true of white conspiracy thinkers, who are heavily Republican and voted for Trump in 2020.

By contrast, people of color who scored high on the conspiracy scale were more likely to identify as Democrats. They were as likely to have not voted as to have cast a ballot for Biden.

Conspiratorial thinkers also are more likely to believe they have been discriminated against, the study found. That’s especially notable among white conspiracy thinkers: On a series of questions about whether people believe they have been discriminated against because of their race in seeking jobs, getting a house, obtaining healthcare or applying for a loan, about 30% of white conspiracy thinkers said yes, compared with about 10% of whites who aren’t conspiracy thinkers.

That reflects a basic fact about people who believe in conspiracies, said political science professor Joe Uscinski of the University of Miami, who for the past decade has studied conspiracy theories and who developed the scale the AP-NORC study used to measure conspiratorial thinking.

A certain set of personality traits seems to lead some people to believe in conspiracies, and belief that they belong to an oppressed group is a part of that, Uscinski said.

The fact that belief in conspiracy grows out of personality types helps explain “why we find so much stability” in the share of the population that’s conspiracy minded, he said. A decade of work has produced no evidence for the widespread belief that conspiracy theories are on the rise, he noted.

“A lot of people worry that people see these ideas on cable TV or on the internet and start believing in conspiracies, but that’s not really how this works,” Uscinski said. “People are either disposed to those particular kinds of ideas or they’re not.” 

The problem for American democracy is not so much the share of Americans who believe in conspiracies, but the political system’s weakened ability to keep those ideas at bay.

Through most of U.S. history, “we’ve generally counted on our elites” not to exploit conspiratorial thinking among their followers, Uscinski noted. Some presidents “would dabble in conspiracy theories now and then,” but mostly, they steered clear of them. Trump changed all that.

“The way that Trump used it was at a level and volume we haven’t seen,” he said. And other ambitious political figures have taken note. “They’ve seen the prototype,” he said. “It works.” 

Source: Essential Politics: Conspiracy theories and fear of immigrants — a toxic mix

 

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Settlement services need to improve their online offerings for tech-savvy newcomers

2022/05/14 Leave a comment

Interestingly, the number of those from outside Canada accessing IRCC’s “Find immigrant services near you” is comparatively small: about 10,000 per month in 2021, a small decline from pre-pandemic 13,000 per month in 2019.

Given the diversity among immigrants, clearly more segmentation of services, more digital for the digital savvy and more high touch in person for those less so.

Will see what Ryerson’s Virtual Bridge comes up with in terms of recommendations:

Welcoming and including newcomers is increasingly becoming an important part of creating vibrant cities. 

Settlement agencies don’t just deliver services to newcomers. They also identify the best possible channels to reach them and provide them with the necessary information to make settlement in Canada a seamless process. 

But a 2021 study found that although newcomers were using the internet for many things, few were using it to look for settlement services. There’s still a gap when it comes to helping newcomers with better targeted online services. 

The federal government is investing in pre-arrival settlement service delivery so that newcomers are prepared for life in Canada. 

There are currently 147 active settlement program initiativesbeing funded by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. These projects are valued at over $250 million, with a goal of finding new ways of delivering services to newcomers. 

About 45 per cent of these funds went towards 17 pre-arrival settlement service initiatives that virtually prepare newcomers for life in Canada. The initiatives provide employment-related services, orientation services, needs assessment and referral services. 

Pre-arrival initiatives have seen success in digital learning, counselling and community-building, including tackling xenophobia and misinformation, skills training and starting an online business.

The initiative taken by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and local governments are in step with the embrace of digital technologies and the internet among newcomer communities and the demand for more pre-arrival information.

But more must be done to increase awareness among newcomers about the services provided by settlement agencies. 

This is an area of focus for the project Virtual Bridge, which aims to provide research and tools for settlement service agencies to improve their online communications and service delivery. Given the technological aptitude of so many newcomers to Canada, online outreach and services are critical to ensuring their successful resettlement.

Canadian municipalities like Toronto, London, Winnipeg and Halton Region open their doors to a large number of newcomers.

These communities recognize the importance of digital initiatives like welcome portals, pre-arrival services, web/mobile phone applications and online newcomer guides in creating a welcoming environment. The mobility restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the need for these online services and has even spurred digital adoption among migrants themselves.

Settlement agencies, however, still have work to do to ensure they’re offering enough online services to newcomers, including using online channels to communicate with them before they arrive in Canada.

Digital divide

Make no mistake — some newcomers may be excluded because of pre-existing inequalities in access to internet services or devices in their home countries. Demographics will determine whether they have access to digital services. 

Those include age (young people use the internet more often than older generations), gender, location (including whether they come from places in their home country with poor internet service or expensive or absent broadband services), household wealth, education levels and migration status (some refugees and asylum-seekers depend on internet service and social media platforms to navigate the journey between home and host country). 

This is known as the digital divide. For host countries like Canada, unequal access to digital services means another layer of inequality that must also be addressed by settlement services. Failure to do so could further exacerbate what’s known as digital poverty.

Newcomers who do go online must be skilled enough to navigate various platforms, persistent misinformation and hate speech on social media. 

This requires them to obtain vital and accurate information. They can and do. Refugee youth from the Middle East and East Africa, for example, use various platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat and Viber before and after coming to Canada to communicate and get information. 

Similar examples are found among immigrants from Bangladesh, refugees from Syria and the Tamil diaspora.

A 2018 report found that newcomers who used pre-arrival settlement services were more informed about where to go to find more information after they arrive, they knew how to get their professional credentials evaluated and they had an overall better understanding of Canadian workplace culture.

They also actively looked for work, while some enrolled in further education to upgrade their skills.

New tech transformation

Before coming to Canada, migrants often have limited sources of information about life here, relying mostly on their social networks. 

Technology allows potential newcomers — with the assistance of friends and family on social media — to make informed migration decisions and improve their search for job market information.

Even before the pandemic, 67 per cent of newcomers to Canada were using social media, similar to Canadian-born usage rates (68 per cent). 

Newcomers were mainly using it to learn English, get local news, learn about the Canadian culture, connect with family and friends, find job market information and for further education opportunities.

Nonetheless there can be some negative impacts on newcomer integration due to social media, meaning there’s a role for newcomer settlement service agencies to build greater trust into virtual spaces.

Some platforms can potentially inhibit integration if they limit interactions with local citizens. Chinese immigrants using WeChat, for example, interact a lot more with other Chinese immigrants and much less with Canadian-born citizens. This can delay how newcomers learn about Canadian social practices. 

Social media can also create privacy and security challenges for newcomers that leave them vulnerable to fraud, identity theft and misinformation. 

Searching for settlement services

Settlement agencies don’t just deliver services to newcomers. They also identify the best possible channels to reach them and provide them with the necessary information to make settlement in Canada a seamless process. 

But a 2021 study found that although newcomers were using the internet for many things, few were using it to look for settlement services. There’s still a gap when it comes to helping newcomers with better targeted online services. 

The federal government is investing in pre-arrival settlement service delivery so that newcomers are prepared for life in Canada. 

There are currently 147 active settlement program initiativesbeing funded by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. These projects are valued at over $250 million, with a goal of finding new ways of delivering services to newcomers. 

About 45 per cent of these funds went towards 17 pre-arrival settlement service initiatives that virtually prepare newcomers for life in Canada. The initiatives provide employment-related services, orientation services, needs assessment and referral services. 

Pre-arrival initiatives have seen success in digital learning, counselling and community-building, including tackling xenophobia and misinformation, skills training and starting an online business.

The initiative taken by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and local governments are in step with the embrace of digital technologies and the internet among newcomer communities and the demand for more pre-arrival information.

But more must be done to increase awareness among newcomers about the services provided by settlement agencies. 

This is an area of focus for the project Virtual Bridge, which aims to provide research and tools for settlement service agencies to improve their online communications and service delivery. Given the technological aptitude of so many newcomers to Canada, online outreach and services are critical to ensuring their successful resettlement.

Source: Settlement services need to improve their online offerings for tech-savvy newcomers

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Closing Roxham Road border crossing will not stop arrival of asylum seekers: Trudeau 

2022/05/14 Leave a comment

For the record:

Closing an unofficial border crossing in southern Quebec will not slow the arrival of asylum seekers, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday.

“If we close Roxham Road, people will cross elsewhere,” he told reporters in Ottawa. “We have an enormous border, and we’re not going to start arming or putting fences on it.”

On Wednesday, Quebec Premier Francois Legault called for Trudeau to close the makeshift crossing south of Montreal, saying that the province doesn’t have the capacity to care for migrants as they wait for their refugee claims to be processed.

Trudeau said intercepting irregular migrants at Roxham Road, where an RCMP post has been set up, allows Canadian authorities to conduct security verifications and to ensure that migrants are not “lost and illegal inside Canada.”

Negotiations are ongoing with the United States, Trudeau said, to change the Safe Third Country Agreement, which has led to the irregular crossings.

Under that agreement, which has been in place since 2004, asylum seekers who enter the U.S. must claim refugee status there and can be turned back if they attempt to enter Canada through an official border crossing to make a refugee claim. However, asylum seekers who cross the border irregularly can make a refugee claim once they are in Canada.

Discussions with the U.S. to change the agreement are “advancing well,” Trudeau said, but he added that the subject is delicate for the Americans, because they are worried about the impact any changes could have on the country’s border with Mexico.

The RCMP have intercepted 7,013 asylum seekers who have crossed irregularly into Quebec from the United States since the beginning of the year, according to data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. In 2019, more than 16,000 asylum seekers were intercepted by the RCMP after crossing irregularly into Quebec.

Source: Closing Roxham Road border crossing will not stop arrival of asylum seekers: Trudeau 

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CPC leadership debate: immigration levels consensus

2022/05/13 Leave a comment

Current high levels not an issue with no substantive differences between the candidates and little substantive discussion given debate format:

Asked about “the right number” of immigrants to bring into Canada in light of about 400,000 landing in the country in 2021, Aitchison, Brown and Poilievre framed the question as a workforce issue and called for more immigration. [Charest noted issue was integration more than levels]

Brown said Canada has a skilled labour shortage and it is not meeting the need.

“We need to unleash the Canadian economic potential through immigration,” he added.

Aitchison, while also calling for more, said whether the number of immigrants Canada settles is 400,000 or more, the country needs a targeted approach.

Source: https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/cpc-leadership-candidates-play-tight-game-in-edmonton-debate

There were roughly three issues on which all six candidates agreed:

  • Oil and gas development (and pipelines) is good
  • Canada’s historically high rate of immigration (roughly 400,000 new Canadians per year) is good.
  • Boosting defence spending to two per cent of GDP is good

Source: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/one-of-them-really-likes-amy-winehouse-the-parts-you-may-have-missed-at-the-conservative-leadership-debate

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New research finds that preference for remaining is key to successful immigration: Turkish immigration in Germany study

2022/05/13 Leave a comment

Of interest:

New research finds that policies granting permanent residency to immigrants conditional on acquiring host country skills—like language—are most likely to generate higher fiscal contributions to the host country through income taxes. In fact, immigrants with a preference for remaining in the host country develop social contacts and other specific skills that allow them to find better paid jobs and stay for a longer time.

As immigration worldwide increases, host countries are faced with crucial policy decisions aimed at maximizing immigrants’ economic contributions. Designing the right policies requires understanding exactly how immigrants make their decision to migrate and return to their country of origin. Bocconi University, Milan, professors Jérôme Adda and Joseph-Simon Goerlach, with co-author Christian Dustmann (University College London), in a forthcoming article in The Review of Economic Studies, develop and estimate a that provides key insights into the decision-making process of immigrants. They find that immigrants’ expectations for the length of their stay and their location preferences can explain their decisions to invest in career improving skills, their acceptance of lower-paying jobs compared to natives, and how they respond to immigration policies on the duration and possibility of permanent residence.

While previous research focused only on productivity differences between immigrants to explain their career profiles, the authors argue that location preferences could be crucial in determining how much immigrants invest in acquiring skills that consequently impact their career profiles. For instance, an who prefers the host country and intends to stay permanently may invest more in learning the local language, familiarizing themselves with the local labor market, and developing social contacts and other host country-specific skills. Alternatively, a migrant with a location for their original country may not invest in these skills as they are likely undervalued back there. The authors model this preference and estimate the impact of location preferences and planned migration duration using data from surveys of Turkish immigrants in Germany over three decades, starting from 1961.

Indeed they find that immigrants who remain are higher-skilled due to their conscious investment in host-country skills. Their model is also able to explain why immigrants may be more willing to accept low-paid jobs compared to natives. They argue that immigrants from countries that have a lower price level and who want to return home would face higher effective wages since their wage allows them to consume more at home over their lifetime. Knowing this may encourage temporary migrants to accept lower-paid jobs.

The authors also use their model to compare three different types of prevalent today that grant permanent residency after 5 years either conditional on:

  1. An earning threshold (like the UK);
  2. Acquiring host-specific skills such as language (like in some countries of the EU);
  3. Granted randomly with 30% probability.

The authors find that scheme 1 selects for high productivity migrants and scheme 2 for those with a high preference for the host country.

Assuming a population of 25-year-olds migrating to Germany in 1970 as an example to estimate on, the earning threshold rule would generate an annual per capita increase in tax payments by €782 compared to if the policy wasn’t there. The host-specific skills rule would generate an average annual tax gain of €789 and fewer tax losses due to fewer individuals leaving the host country. The random lottery instead leads to a decrease in average annual taxes by €633 since the expected returns to investing in host country skills are reduced due to the scheme’s reliance on random chance. Furthermore, schemes 1 and 3, due to the barriers they pose to seeking permanent residency, reduce total immigration by about 26% whereas the host-specific skills rule does so by around 3%.

Thus, the authors show how these schemes could have differential impacts when one accounts for not only immigrants’ productivities but also their location preference / expected duration of stay. As the recent Ukrainian refugee crisis shows, such considerations are crucial for both the host countries’ goals as well as the lives and decisions of the arriving immigrants and their integration and acceptance in societies.

Source: New research finds that preference for remaining is key to successful immigration

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Le conflit Québec-Ottawa au sujet du chemin Roxham se poursuit

2022/05/13 Leave a comment

Not surprising. More comprehensive article than in English press:

Justin Trudeau n’a pas mordu, mercredi, aux demandes renouvelées de Québec, qui réclame la fermeture du passage frontalier du chemin Roxham. La situation est pourtant insoutenable, selon le gouvernement de François Legault.

Québec prévoit qu’au rythme actuel, plus de 35 000 demandeurs d’asile se présenteront à ce point de la frontière canado-américaine cette année. C’est beaucoup trop, soutient le gouvernement Legault, qui a appelé mercredi le fédéral, pour une deuxième fois en moins de cinq mois, à « arrêter ce flux quotidien ».

« On veut que [les passages] se fassent de manière ordonnée, régulière et légale. On est rendus à un stade où on excède nos capacités », a indiqué le ministre québécois de l’Immigration, Jean Boulet, à l’Assemblée nationale.

L’élu de la CAQ évalue la capacité d’hébergement du Québec à 1150 demandeurs. « On y est, ou à peu près », a-t-il dit en mêlée de presse. Et, avec l’été, le gouvernement Legault ne s’attend pas à voir le flux de migrants diminuer. « Il y a une augmentation actuellement », a souligné le premier ministre mercredi.

« [Roxham], c’est une passoire ; c’est reconnu à l’échelle internationale, a déploré le ministre Boulet. Ça ne peut pas continuer comme ça. »

Nouvel accord en immigration ?

À Ottawa, le gouvernement de Justin Trudeau n’a pas voulu s’engager, mercredi, à barrer la route aux migrants qui se présentent au sud de la Montérégie.

Il assure que les négociations avec les États-Unis en vue de la signature d’une nouvelle entente en immigration vont bon train. « Je sais qu’il y a des progrès avec les ressources qu’on a mises sur ce point [de passage] particulier à la frontière », a précisé en point de presse le ministre fédéral de la Sécurité publique et ex-ministre de l’Immigration, Marco Mendicino. Il assure que le chemin Roxham est « un dossier qui est très important » pour son gouvernement, et dit qu’il « collabore toujours avec le gouvernement Legault ».

Son collègue de l’Immigration, Sean Fraser, a répété que le gouvernement devait « respecter les droits des demandeurs d’asile » et suivre « des normes légales » quant à leur accueil.

En chœur, les quatre principaux partis à l’Assemblée nationale ont exigé qu’Ottawa revoie l’Entente sur les tiers pays sûrs, l’accord qui régit la traversée des demandeurs d’asile au Canada.

Entré en vigueur en 2004, le pacte autorise le Canada, dans les faits, à refuser toute demande d’asile effectuée à un poste officiel à la frontière canado-américaine sous prétexte que les États-Unis sont un pays « sûr ». Ne pouvant donc pas passer par les postes douaniers qui parsèment la plus longue frontière terrestre du monde, les migrants ont historiquement été refoulés vers des points de passage irrégulier comme celui du chemin Roxham, ce qui concentre donc leur arrivée au Québec.

Jean Boulet veut voir le gouvernement fédéral à la table de négociation avec les États-Unis au plus vite afin qu’ils revoient cette entente. Or, jusqu’ici, Ottawa s’est traîné les pieds, a-t-il avancé mercredi. « Cette entente-là, ou on la met de côté, ou on la redéfinit, ou on la modernise. Et à cet égard-là, Ottawa a énormément de travail à faire », a-t-il affirmé.

Des appuis à la position caquiste

En exigeant la fin des demandes d’asile au chemin Roxham, la CAQ rejoint les arguments du Parti québécois (PQ), qui insiste depuis le début de la semaine pour que soit réglée la situation dans ce coin de la Montérégie. « Qu’on encourage les passages illégaux seulement au Québec et que ça atteigne des dizaines et des dizaines de milliers d’entrées par année, c’est de faire porter au Québec un fardeau administratif […] qui n’a aucune logique », a clamé le chef péquiste, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, en matinée.

Le Bloc québécois a entrepris de transposer les demandes du gouvernement québécois à Ottawa. Le parti d’Yves-François Blanchet a déposé une motion devant le Parlement, mercredi, pour demander au gouvernement qu’il suspende cette entente avec les États-Unis « et qu’elle réclame le passage des migrants par les voies régulières partout au Canada et, conséquemment, la fermeture du chemin Roxham ».

La motion a été battue, faute d’obtenir l’unanimité.

« La capacité d’accueil responsable de l’État québécois a des limites dont il faut tenir compte — sauf si on veut, en effet, faire déborder la capacité québécoise en [matière] d’accueil, d’intégration et de francisation », a expliqué le chef bloquiste, Yves-François Blanchet.

Le Parti conservateur du Canada a aussicritiqué l’approche du gouvernement libéral, jugée trop laxiste. « Si nous voulons limiter l’arrivée de toutes ces drogues et armes illégales, nous avons besoin d’investir plus dans nos points d’entrée et de sécuriser le chemin Roxham », a déclaré la députée conservatrice manitobaine Raquel Dancho.

Des bémols

Pour le Parti libéral du Québec, la position défendue par le gouvernement caquiste, le PQ et le Bloc a quelque chose d’« inhumain ». « La moindre des choses, ici, c’est à mon avis de démontrer une certaine humanité face à des personnes qui sont démunies », a soutenu le député libéral Carlos Leitão.

Québec solidaire craint pour sa part qu’une fermeture unilatérale du chemin Roxham ne fasse que mettre en danger les quelques dizaines de milliers de demandeurs d’asile qui se présenteront à la frontière québécoise cette année. « Ça [déplace] le problème vers des endroits inconnus, ça [fera] encore davantage de demandeurs d’asile qui vont traverser n’importe où, sans aucun contrôle », a signalé le porte-parole du parti en matière d’immigration, Andrés Fontecilla.

Québec n’en est pas à sa première sortie pour demander la fermeture de ce passage frontalier. En décembre, le ministre Boulet était passé par Twitter pour dénoncer la menace que poseraient les arrivées par ce point sur le système de santé québécois. L’élu s’était partiellement rétracté dans les jours suivants, et avait admis que « la qualité humaine » de son message n’était « pas optimale ».

Plus de 10 600 demandeurs d’asile se sont présentés au chemin Roxham depuis le début de l’année, selon les données du ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration.

Source: Le conflit Québec-Ottawa au sujet du chemin Roxham se poursuit

Globe article:

Quebec is asking the federal government to close a popular, unofficial border crossing south of Montreal because the province can’t handle the number of asylum seekers entering the country, but refugee advocates are rejecting Quebec’s claims.

More than 100 refugee claimants are entering Quebec every day from the United States through a rural path called Roxham Road, Premier François Legault told reporters Wednesday.

“It’s unacceptable,” Legault said at the legislature. “It’s impossible because we don’t have the capacity.”

The federal government takes 14 months to study an asylum claim and in the meantime, Quebec has to house and care for would-be refugees and school their children, the premier said.

“We cannot afford to give services,” Legault said, adding that if the current pace continues, Quebec will not have adequate housing for 36,000 new arrivals.

Refugee advocates, however, say they don’t accept the premier’s claim.

“What is Quebec’s capacity for compassion? For justice? It’s maybe not unlimited, but the capacity is there,” Paul Clarke, interim executive director of Action Réfugiés Montréal, said Wednesday in an interview.

Clarke, whose group sponsors and offers services to refugees, said that while it can be difficult for asylum seekers to find shelter in Montreal, he doesn’t think the situation is any better in other Canadian cities.

Quebec needs people, advocate says

Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees, said that during the pandemic, many people who had crossed the border at Roxham Road found work in Quebec’s long-term care homes.

“We not only have the capacity, but we also have the need, in fact, for more people,” she said in an interview Wednesday.

Part of the problem, she said, is the length of time it takes the federal government to issue work permits to asylum seekers.

“The federal government could alleviate things tremendously simply by giving work permits shortly after people arrive, so that they can get to work, and there are many jobs that they could very usefully fill,” Dench said.

The irregular border crossing at Roxham Road reopened in November after it was closed during the pandemic. Since the beginning of the year, the RCMP have intercepted 7,013 asylum seekers who have crossed irregularly into Quebec from the U.S. That number is up from 4,246 last year.

In 2019, more than 16,000 asylum seekers were intercepted by the RCMP after crossing irregularly into Quebec.

Legault said many of those who cross irregularly are ultimately not able to stay in Canada.

“You have to understand, the problem is that many of these people are not really refugees,” the premier said. “A refugee is someone who is physically at risk in their country. But the majority are not refugees; eventually, when the file is analyzed, they are refused, returned back home.”

Clarke said it’s not possible to determine which refugee claimants will be successful. “To say half of these people aren’t going to make it, well, which half, Mr. Legault?

“If he’s saying that, then he is acknowledging that people are coming to Canada and they do need protection. So how do you figure out which half?”

Under the 2004 Canada–United States Safe Third Country Agreement, refugee claimants who enter Canada outside an official port of entry must be processed in Canada and cannot be immediately returned to the U.S. Claimants who come through official entry points of entry, however, are sent back to the U.S.

Dench said closing the Roxham Road entry point would merely push people to cross at other points of entry — which would make it more difficult for the federal government to process asylum seekers.

“The reason they’re concentrated in Quebec is simply a matter of geography, because there is a large land border between the U.S. and Canada that people can cross over,” Dench said.

Federal Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino told reporters Tuesday that a balance needs to be found.

“Resources have been provided for that particular issue at the border,” he said. “We are also in discussions with the U.S. to regulate the movements of any asylum seekers. This is part of the strategy in order to both defend the rights of refugees while at the same time protecting Quebec citizens.”

Source: Quebec asks feds to close Roxham Road, says province can’t handle influx of refugees

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with , ,

May: Speaking truth to power discouraged in public service

2022/05/12 Leave a comment

Good summary of the report. Reminds me of the issues I faced at the DG level during the previous Conservative government (Policy Arrogance or Innocent Bias: Resetting Citizenship and Multiculturalism).

The corrosive nature of much of social media makes today’s environment more difficult than even 10 years ago.

But one also has to recognize public servants have their own biases, that are harder to recognize when they align with those of the government, biases that can influence “fearless advice” and which temper how that advice is communicated:

Canada’s public service leaders have a problem telling the truth to their political bosses.

A new report, Top of Mind, says they feel ill-equipped to gather evidence for policy advice, especially in a world where facts are distorted and drowned out by disinformation, polarization and hyperpartisan politics.

To make matters worse, they appear afraid to tell their political masters the hard truths when they do find them.

Getting back to the basics in policy-making and execution are among the top worries that senior bureaucrats raised in the new study into the state of the public service In Canada. It was conducted by two think tanks, the Ottawa-based Institute on Governance (IOG), and the Brian Mulroney Institute of Government at St. Francis Xavier University.

The study, launched in the middle of the pandemic, was aimed at understanding the challenges these executives face when doing their jobs, which is to provide reliable, well-run services for Canadians as well as policy advice to ministers. It was based on interviews with 42 senior leaders from all levels of government and a survey of 2,355 public servants in the same departments and agencies.

The big worries – which many felt were accelerated by the pandemic – included falling trust in government; the decline in sharing “fearless advice”; a hollowing out of policy capacity; a post-pandemic economic reckoning; conflicts between different levels of government; and the need for public service reform.

The report didn’t dig into the root causes, but the responses raise enough red flags to justify a debate and development of a roadmap for reform, said Stephen Van Dine, IOG’s senior vice-president, public governance.

“We have enough from this report to say we better be looking into this,” he said.

An impartial public service is a cornerstone of Canada’s democracy. Bureaucrats are supposed to speak truth to power. The ethos of “fearless advice and loyal implementation” is its motto, and public servants take an oath to uphold it when hired.

“The participants felt rational thought and evidence-based decision-making are being circumvented by politicization, polarization and disinformation,” said Van Dine.

“Do public servants have access to enough truth to give fearless advice? If all their information is coming from above rather than from networks in and outside government, how much truth is there really? What happened to the role of public education in the policy development process?”

The responses paint a picture of a bureaucracy that’s too isolated from Canadians and not independent enough from politics, said Van Dine.

Over the years, rules restricting travel and hospitality expenses put a damper on public servants’ ability to meet with provincial counterparts, industry representatives and civil society. They aren’t networking, developing contacts outside of government, or educating Canadians about the factors at play in policy-making.

“This has isolated the public service from the outside world and given the outside world the only door into government, which is through the Prime Minister’s Office or a minister’s office,” said Van Dine.

But public servants need new skills and modern technology. They need people who think digital, understand systems, analytics, data and can manage projects. That means attracting people to government and hiring them more quickly than the eight months it takes now.

All of this is having an impact on a long-strained relationship between public servants and ministers. Two-thirds of respondents said that relationship was “an important challenge that requires more effective management.”

Many respondents said the relationship is being eaten away by the “over-politicization of policy-making and choices, and the lack of opportunity to constructively challenge political direction.”

The report concluded that “speaking truth to power…seems less achievable to many participants.” Bureaucrats don’t have “safe spaces” among themselves to have all-out debates about analysis or options that “are unpopular“ or “not in tune with their government’s political position.”

Instead, they are expected to toe the party line and give politicians the advice they want to hear.

It’s unclear why. Is it because the deputy ministers aren’t encouraging dissent? Are bureaucrats holding back for fear of falling out of favour with their bosses or being seen as disrespectful?

“The strong undercurrent is that the public service has lost an element of independence and is now expected to deliver on platform commitments rather than offer objective policy advice on the feasibility of the commitment or alternative ways to achieve the objective of the platform commitment,” said the report.

This is an old problem.

Experts sounded the alarm more than 25 years ago about public servants’ hesitancy to speak to truth to power. It led to the 1996 Tait report, the foundation of the public service’s values and ethics code.

Donald Savoie, a leading public administration expert, has repeatedly warned that the concentration of power in the Prime Minister’s Office is politicizing the public service. He likened it to “court government” where senior officials act like courtiers trying to ingratiate themselves, rather than delivering hard truths.

The Gomery inquiry concluded that a grey zone between bureaucrats and politicians was at the heart of the sponsorship scandal and recommended ways to reset it.

The late auditor general Michael Ferguson famously linked the Phoenix pay system disaster to a risk-averse and “obedient public service.” He concluded that the “ability to convey hard truths has eroded, as has the willingness of senior levels—including ministers—to hear hard truths.”

Despite these warnings, little has been done to fix the problem. The Harper government introduced the Federal Accountability Actin response to the sponsorship scandal, but many experts argue its focus on rules, oversight and compliance made matters worse.

Today’s deputy ministers climbed the ranks over the 20 years since the sponsorship scandal and the Federal Accountability Act is the world they know. Many argue they got to the top because of their skills in dodging risks, following the rules and keeping government out of trouble.

In the new Top of Mind report, it is unclear how a lack of fearless advice is “cascading” down the ranks. Van Dine worries that assistant deputy ministers aren’t speaking up as they should now that Public Service Commission has turned over “talent management” to the deputy ministers who appoint them.

“Now the deputy minister is holding all the cards about promotion and appointment… To what extent are they becoming more deputy servants than public servants?” he asks.

The Harper era is also when public servants found themselves drawn into partisan communications with directives, events, activities and website designs to promote the Conservative Party brand.

Today, some respondents worry that a focus on communications is supplanting policy. The current focus is on how a policy will play out or how its “messaging” will be received by Canadians, rather than getting to the nub of the issues the government wants to address.

“Make stuff less about the announcements and actually make it about the issue,” said one leader, quoted in the report. “Communicate with Canadians on that front—what is the problem you are trying to fix here?… People have the basics wrong, and it leads to bad discord.”

The Top of Mind report makes a series of recommendations that could lead to a top-to-bottom overhaul of the federal public service.

At the top of the list is a proposal for a joint Senate-Commons committee to review the Accountability Act, zeroing in on whether its onerous compliance and reporting requirements stifle innovation and create an obedience culture.

The paper also recommended modernizing the ground rules for relationships between bureaucrats and politicians and examining what’s needed for public servants to create “safe spaces for fearless advice,” so they can provide facts, analysis and policy options that don’t toe the government’s party line.

Source: Speaking truth to power discouraged in public service

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USA: The Value of Foreign Degrees by Source Country

2022/05/12 Leave a comment

Interesting analysis, broken down by country of study. Not sure if anyone has done the same for Canada but would not be surprised to see a similar pattern:

Whether assessing the education level of recent arrivals or designing a “high-skill” system for selecting future immigrants, analysts should be careful not to treat foreign degrees as equivalent to U.S. degrees. Using data from the National Survey of College Graduates, this report shows not only that foreign degrees as a whole are less valuable in the U.S. than U.S. degrees, but also that their value varies substantially depending on the specific country or region where the degrees were earned.

The findings below refer to full-time U.S. workers with at least a bachelor’s degree:

  • After controlling for a traditional set of earnings-related characteristics, foreign-educated immigrants earn 17 percent less than natives who were educated in the U.S.
  • The foreign-degree penalty is driven primarily by immigrants educated in non-Western countries.
  • Immigrants educated in Latin America (24 percent salary penalty), Eastern Europe (27 percent), China (28 percent), the Philippines (35 percent), and Africa (39 percent) all experience penalties that exceed the foreign-degree average.
  • By contrast, immigrants educated in Western Europe, Australia, and India earn roughly the same salaries as comparable U.S. natives.
  • Canadian-educated immigrants earn 20 percent more than U.S. natives.
  • Controlling for the type of entry visa that each immigrant receives does not eliminate the variation in foreign-degree value.

Source: The Value of Foreign Degrees by Source Country

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

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