Nova Scotia’s immigration picture uncertain amid pandemic

2020/05/15 Leave a comment

Realistic acknowledgement of uncertainty by the minister:

Nova Scotia welcomed a record number of immigrants in 2019, setting high expectations for immigration numbers in 2020.

But with travel restrictions in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19, it’s uncertain whether the province will be able to welcome as many or more immigrants this year than it did last year.

In 2019, the province welcomed 7,580 new permanent residents, surpassing the previous record of 5,970 in 2018.

And Nova Scotia was off to a good start and “certainly on track” to setting a new record in 2020, according to Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab. In the first quarter, the province admitted 1,185 permanent residents, compared to 1,270 in the first quarter of 2019.

Diab said it’s too soon to tell how COVID-19 will affect immigration numbers in Nova Scotia for the remainder of the year.

“Going on eight weeks now, and immigration is a long-term process, it obviously takes months for people, once they’re approved and so on to actually land in the country, so at the moment we don’t see that as an issue,” she said.

“Premature what will happen if this (pandemic) continues months and months, but at the moment we’re continuing to process applications and our staff is all working remotely.”

She added the province is prioritizing the immigration of essential workers including health-care professionals and truck drivers to address a “shortage of workers in those areas.”

Immigration predictions

Seeing how Nova Scotia has planted “very significant immigration roots” in the last five years, Halifax immigration lawyer Lee Cohen said he thinks it’s “likely” that the province will enjoy the immigration numbers that it did last year, if not exceed them in 2020.

“I think the appetite out there in the world for people wanting to immigrate to Canada and wanting to immigrate to Nova Scotia specifically remains high and active,” said Cohen.

“The COVID-19 event of course slows down the movement of paper and certainly the movement of people. … How long the restrictions will remain in place will determine the outcome here, but I think that Halifax specifically and Nova Scotia generally have become immigration destination locations.”

Jennifer Watts, CEO of the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia, said the number of immigrants coming to the province has “definitely slowed down quite a bit” since the start of the pandemic, following “a fantastic uptick” of immigrants and refugees arriving over the past couple of years.

She said her association will be waiting to see how immigration programs move forward.

“Obviously there’s a lot of interest and there’d be a big benefit to Nova Scotia, where we really benefit so much from immigration, to be able to have those opportunities again, to really help drive, even more so now, the economic development of our province,” said Watts, adding immigration helps further “social and cultural diversity” in the province as well.

Watts said the contributions of immigrants in the province have been “quite significant” during the pandemic, as many are working in frontline services, noting the arrival of more immigrants will help the province in its “recovery” stage once the pandemic is over as well.

“What we really gain from immigrants coming in is the innovation, the new ideas and the global competitiveness that they bring, so that will be also very key, as we’re really trying to reimagine what our new way of life is going to be, and the more broad-based experiences, the new ideas, the new ways of looking at things that immigrants have always brought into our community, will be very valuable,” she said.

ISANS is also waiting to see when the federal government will resume refugee settlement in Canada, said Watts.

“We will be waiting to see as the government once again establishes their offices overseas and the flights begin to run … so it may be that we see not many (refugees) arriving over the next couple of months, but we’re not quite sure what will happen in the fall.”

Source: Nova Scotia’s immigration picture uncertain amid pandemic

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Canada immigration visas fell by 26% in March 2020

2020/05/15 Leave a comment

Not surprising, with further declines expected over the next few months (March was just partially affected by the travel restrictions and lockdowns. Not as confident on full rebound as the medium-term economic impacts work through the economy:

Permanent resident (PR) visas issued by the Canadian government fell by 26 per cent in March 2020 compared with the previous month.

This new data released by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) shows the immediate impact that the coronavirus pandemic has had on Canada’s immigration system.

While Canada’s provinces and territories and federal government employees did not begin to go into lockdown until the second half of March, this two-week disruption was enough to contribute to a steep decline in new PR visas issued.

Last year, Canada’s PR intake increased by 33 per cent in March 2019 compared with February 2019.

March changes by province

Nearly every province saw their immigration levels fall by 30 per cent between February and March 2020. The two major exceptions were New Brunswick (0 per cent change) and Alberta (an 8 per cent decline).

Economic class immigration suffered across the board. Family reunification and refugee class immigration fluctuated by province, seeing some losses but also some gains.

Alberta saw the smallest change in immigration across the board, with a 9 per cent loss of new economic class immigrants, an 8 per cent loss in family class, and a 5 per cent loss in refugee class immigration.

New Brunswick only saw a loss in its economic class immigration of 9 per cent. The family and refugee classes saw 40 per cent and 43 per cent gains, respectively.

The largest gain in family class immigration for March was felt in Newfoundland and Labrador, which saw a 67 per cent increase over February. There was no change in refugee class immigration, however, the province saw a 53 per cent loss in economic class immigration, the biggest hit in Canada.

The largest gain in the refugee class was seen in Saskatchewan at 67 per cent. The province lost 35 per cent of economic class immigration and 36 per cent of family class immigration.

Why PR numbers should increase later in 2020

Despite its coronavirus special measures, Canada is continuing to process new applications for permanent and temporary residence.

IRCC is still holding Express Entry draws. Even after travel restrictions were implemented at the Canadian border, there have been more Invitations to Apply (ITAs) for PR issued to Express Entry candidates so far in 2020 than there were at the same time last year.

In addition, the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) remains in operations with Nova Scotia, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia all holding PNP draws since March.

Family class immigration has been the least affected by the restrictions. Family members of Canadian citizens and permanent residents may come to Canada for essential reasons.

Refugee class immigration has been most impacted as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has stopped resettlement amid the pandemic.

Following the recent disruptions, there are reasons to believe Canada’s immigration system will begin to stabilize.

Canada’s immigration minister Marco Mendicino has said that the federal government remains committed to welcoming newcomers to support the country’s economy.

Canada has increased its Express Entry ITAs since the start of the pandemic. In April, Canada issued ITAs to 11,700 Express Entry candidates compared with about 8,000 per month prior to the pandemic.

Hence, Canada should see some recovery in PR levels in the second half of the year due to more Express Entry ITAs being issued, family reunification continuing, as federal government processing normalizes, and as lockdowns and travel restrictions ease in Canada and around the world.

Source: Canada immigration visas fell by 26% in March 2020

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A COVID-19 surge has exposed Singapore’s migrant-worker blind spot

2020/05/15 Leave a comment

More on Singapore, migrant workers and COVID-19:

As a former journalist working in the thick of things in Asia, my favourite assignment was an annual interview with the founder of modern Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, for Forbes magazine.

A man with an unparalleled grasp of history, a steely gaze and incredible discipline, Mr. Lee knew that in a country such as Singapore – home to a multiracial society, and sitting on an island with almost no natural resources – incredible stamina would be needed to survive. He set in motion a series of policies that catapulted the former British colony into one of the world’s wealthiest enclaves in the span of a few decades. The country is now home to one of the globe’s busiest shipping-container ports and the tenth-largest foreign reserves.

Against all odds, Singapore has survived racial riots, several disease outbreaks, economic downturns and seasonal bouts of debilitating pollution haze from neighbouring countries. Its ability to respond quickly to external threats is credited to its small size, compliant citizenry and place among the world’s most wired nations.

So it came as little surprise that when COVID-19 began to take off, Singapore quickly set the gold standard in its public health response, with early and aggressive testing, meticulous contact tracing, quarantines and travel restrictions. Until recently, it managed to keep the number of positive cases to fewer than 200.

Mr. Lee would have been proud.

But a major blind spot threw the country off-course: it failed to consider the congested dormitories that house 180,000 migrant workers across the island, which became perfect vectors for disease transmission. That oversight has cost the city-state dearly. The number of positive coronavirus cases in the country has surpassed 24,000 – up from 16,000 cases just a week ago – representing, by far, the largest caseload in all of Southeast Asia.

These workers now account for almost 90 per cent of coronavirus cases in Singapore. All are now under quarantine, at a high cost to the country’s economy.

For a government that never leaves even the smallest detail to chance, the blind spot has been a political embarrassment. Singapore’s traditional rival and much larger neighbour, Malaysia, has many more migrant workers and has managed to keep its number of positive COVID-19 cases to fewer than 7,000. Malaysia also started implementing lockdowns earlier than Singapore did.

Strangely, precautions were not put into place even though Singapore’s migrant-worker dormitories have previously suffered outbreaks of measles, dengue fever, tuberculosis and the Zika virus.

The situation has also generated significant foreign-media coverage, exposing the workers’ low pay, congested and often unhygienic living conditions, hazardous working environments, and abuse by employers.

In fairness, many Western countries, including Canada, have also had their weak spots for viral transmission exposed in the fight against COVID-19, including long-term care homes, penitentiaries and meat-processing facilities.

Singapore’s Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, who is the elder Mr. Lee’s son, has introduced measures that will make the dormitories much more secure in the future. Unlike many other world leaders, he has been open in his communication with Singaporeans, stating that normalcy could be months away until a vaccine is developed.

In a memorable televised speech on April 21, Mr. Lee struck a compassionate tone in addressing the country’s migrant workers: “We will care for you, just like we care for Singaporeans.”

The good news is that the government, supported by “Singapore, Inc.” (a term coined to describe the country’s economic expansion strategy in the 20th century), is throwing all it can into the fight against this pandemic, including money, technology and targeted public health messaging. Even robots have been deployed to help maintain physical distancing in parks. Policies known as “circuit-breaker measures,” including stay-at-home orders, will remain in place until at least June.

In my countless interviews with Singapore, Inc.’s leaders in the past, I cannot recall one word ever uttered about the contribution of migrant workers, who come mainly from Bangladesh, India, Malaysia and China.

But as has happened in North America and elsewhere, ordinary citizens have developed a newfound appreciation for front-line labourers – charitablesupport funds for Singapore’s dormitory workers have been heavily supported.

In the longer term, Singapore will have to work hard to deal with a huge plunge in tourism, business travel, shipping and oil refining – all linchpins of its economy.

The country’s post-COVID-19 reset will need to include a look at its weaknesses, starting with the conditions experienced by migrant workers. These workers need to be recognized for who they are – as critical contributors to Singapore’s success story.

Source: A COVID-19 surge has exposed Singapore’s migrant-worker blind spot: Michael Bociurkiw

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Report: Trump Policies Delay Citizenship For Immigrants Before Election

2020/05/15 Leave a comment

As Canada has also suspended citizenship interviews and ceremonies, not sure that this falls into the same category as the Trump administration’s anti-immigration and anti-immigrant policies:

Naturalization ceremonies and interviews have stopped due to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office closures and administration policies. At least tens of thousands of immigrants have been prevented from becoming American citizens. Given that solutions to the problem are obvious, the USCIS actions raise questions about whether the Trump administration’s objective is to slow down the pace of naturalization before the 2020 election.

A new report provides a perspective on the current naturalization picture for immigrants. “On March 18, 2020 – due to the coronavirus pandemic – USCIS stopped doing these interviews and ceremonies,” according to a study by Boundless Immigration, a technology company that helps immigrants obtain green cards and citizenship. “This delay has already left well over 100,000 future Americans in limbo. These would-be citizens have already made it through most of the naturalization process. Now they must wait, perhaps indefinitely, before they can become full citizens and gain the right to vote in the 2020 election. If USCIS does not resume interviews and oath ceremonies using remote methods appropriate for the present emergency, the number of disenfranchised citizens-in-waiting will continue to pile up.”

The numbers are adding up. “Boundless did the math, and estimated that 2,100 immigrants will run out of time to vote each day that USCIS offices remain closed,” according to the study. “The number increases for each month the COVID-19 shutdown remains in effect.”

There appears to be no reason why USCIS is not conducting naturalization ceremonies using video conferencing technology, as so much business is being conducted these days. “People who need to complete their citizenship oath ceremony are no different from people who need to complete their oath of office for a position in the current administration – the latter is happening via video conference right now but the former is not,” said Doug Rand, co-founder and president of Boundless, in an interview.

“People who need to complete their naturalization interviews are no different from people who take online proctored exams, which was already happening millions of times long before COVID-19,” said Rand. “The entire country is making do with video conferencing right now, why can’t USCIS?”

Is the absence of an interview the final obstacle preventing many people from becoming citizens? “If USCIS were serious about getting people naturalized, they would schedule a single video conference interview, and if the applicant passes, they would immediately take the oath and become a citizen in that same session,” according to Rand. “This used to happen routinely at field offices before they all closed down. There’s no rule that says the interview and the oath have to be two months apart.”

Rand notes everything came to a halt when USCIS closed its offices. “Both interviews and oath ceremonies shut down on March 18,” he said. “We’re just about to hit the two-month mark, which means that pretty much all the people who have nothing left but an oath ceremony would have been citizens by now, and going forward there will be more and more people who weren’t interviewed by March 18 and also would be citizens if USCIS had been doing remote interviews.”

Immigration attorney Greg Siskind points out the two relevant parts of the Immigration and Nationality Act are 332(a) [1443(a)] on “Rules and regulations governing examination of applicants” and 332(d) [1443(d)] on “Administration of oaths and depositions.” Siskind said, “There is nothing that says the interviews or the oath ceremonies need to happen in person.”

There are currently over 649,000 pending applications for naturalization, according to the latest USCIS data. At the end of FY 2015, there were 363,270 pending naturalization applications. The denial rate for non-military naturalization cases rose from 9.4% in FY 2015 to 10.5% in FY 2019, according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis.

In his final speech as president, Ronald Reagan spoke about the value of American citizenship. “Since this is the last speech that I will give as president, I think it’s fitting to leave one final thought, an observation about a country which I love,” said Reagan. “It was stated best in a letter I received not long ago. A man wrote me and said: ‘You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.’”

As we think about people who want to become Americans and are now blocked, we might consider Ronald Reagan’s additional remarks about immigrants and citizens in that last speech, remarks that sound so different from the rhetoric we hear today.

“Yes, the torch of Lady Liberty symbolizes our freedom and represents our heritage, the compact with our parents, our grandparents, and our ancestors,” said Reagan. “It is that lady who gives us our great and special place in the world. For it’s the great life force of each generation of new Americans that guarantees that America’s triumph shall continue unsurpassed into the next century and beyond. Other countries may seek to compete with us; but in one vital area, as a beacon of freedom and opportunity that draws the people of the world, no country on Earth comes close.

“This, I believe, is one of the most important sources of America’s greatness. We lead the world because, unique among nations, we draw our people — our strength — from every country and every corner of the world. And by doing so we continuously renew and enrich our nation. While other countries cling to the stale past, here in America we breathe life into dreams. We create the future, and the world follows us into tomorrow. Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we’re a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world to the next frontier. This quality is vital to our future as a nation. If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.”

Source: Report: Trump Policies Delay Citizenship For Immigrants Before Election

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China ramping up bullying and intimidation of activists in Canada, report says

2020/05/14 Leave a comment

Ongoing concern:

Chinese government officials and supporters of the Communist Party of China are increasingly resorting to “threats, bullying and harassment” to intimidate and silence activists in Canada, including those raising concerns about democracy and civil rights in Hong Kong and Beijing’s mistreatment of Uyghurs, Tibetans and Falun Gong practitioners, a new report says.

A coalition of human-rights groups led by Amnesty International Canada says a timid response by Ottawa to this foreign interference is exacerbating the problem. “Chinese state actors have almost certainly become emboldened by the inadequate responses of Canadian officials,” the coalition writes.

The report, Harassment & Intimidation of Individuals in Canada Working on China-related Human Rights Concerns, also sounds the alarm over what it calls escalating intimidation and interference at Canadian schools and universities. “Consequently, academic freedom and freedom of expression of university students in Canada speaking out on China has been increasingly stifled, as many individuals fear that Chinese government or consular agents are monitoring their speech or their activities.”

The Canadian Coalition on Human Rights in China is calling for a public inquiry into threats at Canadian educational institutions and recommends that Ottawa set up a monitoring office to collect complaints of harassment and refer incidents to police.

“It takes place on social media, through surveillance, monitoring and hacking of phones, computers and websites … on university and college campuses, at public rallies and cultural events,” Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada, said. “Individuals responsible for the threats often remain anonymous or invisible, but make it clear that they are strong backers of the Chinese government, often leaving no doubt that they are directed, supported or encouraged by the Chinese government.”

He said the threats are “bullying, racist, bigoted and frequently involve direct threats of violence, including sexual violence and even death.”

The coalition is asking the federal government to expel Chinese diplomats where necessary or enact sanctions on them if the evidence warrants.

The coalition’s report documents incidents of Chinese harassment between July, 2019, and March, 2020, aimed at “suppressing dissidents and mobilizing overseas Chinese communities to act as agents of China’s political interests.

“The Canadian government must treat this issue with increased urgency, as it has resulted in insecurity and fear for human-rights defenders in Canada working on Chinese human-rights issues.”

Gloria Fung, president of Canada-Hong Kong Link, speaking Tuesday, recalled an Aug. 17 protest in Toronto last year in support of civil rights in Hong Kong, where more than 100 counterprotesters showed up, blocking the activists and chanting “One China.” They began insulting the demonstrators and taking photos in an apparent attempt to intimidate. When Ms. Fung and the activists sang O Canada, the counterprotesters booed them and sang China’s national anthem in return. “Our protesters needed a police escort to leave safely,” she said.

In a statement, Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne said the government welcomed the report and would study its recommendations closely.

“Reports of harassment and intimidation of individuals in Canada are deeply troubling and allegations of such acts being carried out by foreign agents are taken very seriously,” Mr. Champagne said.

“Chinese government representatives in Canada, like all foreign government representatives in Canada, have a duty under international law to respect the laws and regulations of Canada,” the minister said.

“Canada will continue to use every opportunity to call on China to uphold its international human-rights obligations, including in the areas of freedom of expression, freedom of association, and freedom of religion or belief.”

The Chinese embassy in Ottawa did not have an immediate response to the report.

Uyghur-Canadian activist Mehmet Tohti, speaking Tuesday, said telephone calls are another means of intimidation to stop people in Canada from raising concern about the hundreds of thousands of predominantly Muslim people locked up by China as part of a deradicalization campaign. “Chinese public-security officials are making direct phone calls to Uyghur-Canadians here and asking us to be silent or accept the danger our loved ones [in China] could face.”

Chemi Lhamo, a member of the Canada Tibet Committee and Students for a Free Tibet Canada, said Tuesday that mainland Chinese students studying in Canada face pressure, too.

“Imagine being a Chinese international student, paying four to five times more than a domestic student, only to be bullied here in Canada by the Chinese embassy to follow their party line and go protest against pro-Tibet and pro-human-rights events.”

Beijing’s attempts to dampen criticism in Canada of its authoritarian regime has been taking place amid a historic chill in bilateral relations that began in late 2018, after China jailed Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor in apparent retaliation for the arrest at the Vancouver International Airport of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. extradition warrant.

The report also urges Ottawa to consider passing legislation that would require the registration of Canadian citizens acting as agents for foreign governments, similar to what Australia has enacted.

The coalition says Chinese authorities “cannot be directly implicated” in many of the incidents highlighted in the report, but it “considers the scale and consistency of rights violations, over a prolonged period, to be consistent with a co-ordinated Chinese state-sponsored campaign to target political, ethnic, religious and spiritual groups and individual activists who raise concerns about China’s human-rights record.”

Source: China ramping up bullying and intimidation of activists in Canada, report says

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Immigrants with work visas, suddenly jobless, must leave the US if they aren’t rehired

2020/05/14 Leave a comment

Trump administration continues its anti-immigration push:

Like millions of American workers, an Indian software engineer, a British market researcher and an Iranian architect lost their jobs amid the coronavirus pandemic. Unlike Americans, they are not entitled to unemployment benefits, despite paying taxes, because they are on foreign work visas. And, if they fail to find similar jobs soon, they must leave the country.

Rejish Ravindran analyzed data for a national footwear retailer, helping make sales projections and investment decisions. After hiring him on an H-1B skilled-worker visa nearly two years ago, the company recently sponsored his application for legal permanent residency, a process that takes several years to complete.

“It was going good. I thought I would be in Michigan forever. We were going to buy a house and settle down here,” said Ravindran, 35, who lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His wife, Amrutha, a nurse, was finishing a course and hoped to put her training to use soon.

But battered by the coronavirus outbreak, the retailer furloughed Ravindran last month, which is not allowed under the terms of his visa. So two days later, the company terminated him.

“Everything came crashing down,” said Ravindran, who arrived in the United States in 2012.

Now, he is scrambling to find another job before the 60-day grace period for transferring his visa to another employer expires early next month. He is not optimistic.

The lives of tens of thousands of foreign workers on skilled-worker visas, such as H-1Bs, have been upended by the economic fallout from the COVID-19 crisis. Many have been waiting in a backlog for several years to obtain permanent legal residency through their employer, and now face the prospect of deportation.

The Trump administration is also expected within the next few weeks to halt the issuance of new work visas such as the H-1B, for high skilled foreigners, and the H-2B, for seasonal employment. The new measures under review, according to two current and two former government immigration officials, would also eliminate a program that enables foreign graduates of American universities to remain in the country and work.

The tightening work rules come as unemployment in the U.S. soared last month to 14.7%, the highest level on record, and as calls escalated in Congress for Americans to be given priority for jobs.

“Given the extreme lack of available jobs for American job-seekers as portions of our economy begin to reopen, it defies common sense to admit additional foreign guest workers to compete for such limited employment,” a group of Republican senators said in a letter last week calling for a suspension of new visas to guest workers who have not yet entered the country.

For those already rooted in the U.S., the consequences of canceling the existing visas are “life-altering,” said Shev Dalal-Dheini, director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

“They have been thrown into limbo. It’s not like they can go and just find any job, like at a pizza place,” said Dalal-Dheini. A new job must meet specific criteria for the visa, such as by paying a certain salary and requiring at least a bachelor’s degree.

Dalal-Dheini’s association of 15,000 lawyers has asked U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to extend the grace period, giving H-1B holders at least 90 days after the public health emergency has ended to find employment.

An agency spokesman did not address whether an extension was under consideration. He said the agency would continue to monitor the coronavirus and “assess various options related to temporary worker programs.”

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has thrust immigration and job displacement onto center stage, introducing a series of policies to curtail both legal and illegal immigration. More recently, his administration has cited the pandemic to justify even stricter restrictions.

On April 22, Trump suspended the entry of new immigrants for 60 days. Less noticed in his proclamation was the order to the secretaries of labor and homeland security for a speedy review of nonimmigrant work visa programs.

As of Jan. 21, there were 421,276 people in the United States on H-1B visas, three-quarters of them Indians, and many of them technology workers. About 220,000 people were enrolled in the 2018-19 academic year in the Optional Practical Training program, which allows foreign students to work after completing their studies.

The strong economy had fueled brisk demand for foreign workers in recent years, with H-1B applications by private companies far outstripping the annual supply of 85,000, a situation that prompted the government to resort to a lottery to award them.

But proponents of limiting immigration say that if there was ever a time to prioritize American workers, it is now.

“If an H-1B visa holder is terminated from their job and is unable to find another employer willing to sponsor them, they should go back home,” said Kevin Lynn, executive director of Progressives for Immigration Reform, which advocates for American technology workers.

U.S. citizens with foreign partners on visas are also affected.

Andrew Jenkins and Krista York of Minnesota began more than a year ago to plan their wedding. The couple had settled on getting married Aug. 20 at the majestic Cathedral of St. Paul, where York’s grandparents were married decades ago and she was confirmed in the church as a teenager. Then the coronavirus struck.

York was furloughed. Jenkins, who is British, lost his job as a market research analyst. Because he is on an H-1B visa, Jenkins is not eligible for unemployment. “It’s far from ideal to not have any income when you’re planning your wedding,” said Jenkins, 27.

What’s worse, the couple said, is that Jenkins is in a race against time to find another job before his visa expires in July.

Unless he succeeds, they may have to hurriedly get married at a courthouse so that Jenkins can salvage his immigrant status — by filing an application for a green card through a spouse. If that happens, the couple will not be allowed to hold a religious ceremony at the cathedral.

“Everything is ready to go for the cathedral. But if we have to get married on paper, we’ll have to find another church,” said York, 27.

Bahar Shirkhanloo of Iran completed a master’s degree in architecture two years ago and used the Optional Practical Training program to get a job at a firm in Chicago, where she is part of a team that designs high-rise residential buildings.

Early this year, the firm decided to sponsor her for a green card. But she was abruptly terminated in early April when projects came to a standstill, leaving her with 60 days, under the terms of the program, to find a new job.

“I’m applying every day, everywhere in the U.S. you can think of,” said Shirkhanloo, 28. Most often, she hears the same thing: “They are interested, but, for now, there’s a hiring freeze.”

In Michigan, Ravindran is contemplating selling his 2013 Honda Accord to make the rent and pay outstanding bills, including $6,000 for a hospital visit by his wife last year.

The son of a tea stall owner and the first to attend college in his family, the software engineer said that if he ends up having to return to India, “I want to clear all my debts. I need to make a smooth exit from the U.S.”

But there is a wrinkle: Commercial flights to India have been suspended since that country went into lockdown in March. While the government recently started repatriating some Indians stranded abroad, it has stipulated that pregnant women, older people and those with medical conditions will have priority.

That could put someone like Ravindran at risk of overstaying his visa, which could jeopardize his ability to live in the United States in the future.

“If I don’t find a new job, I can’t stay here,” he said.

Source: Immigrants with work visas, suddenly jobless, must leave the US if they aren’t rehired

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Canada’s pandemic plans must guard against the rise of racism

2020/05/14 Leave a comment

Of course, public officials should consider all impacts of policies and programs on different segments of the population to reduce the incidence of disparities and discrimination. Equally, better and race-based data on COVID-19 is needed.

But government officials at all levels have taken pains to speak out against racist incidents against Asian Canadians and by and large, Canadian policies and programs have been relatively balanced with respect to their impact on citizens, permanent residents and even some groups of temporary residents such as international students.

It would appear that the issue lies more with temporary workers and some permanent residents, working or living in crowded condition, with many of these being visible minorities (e.g., meat packing plants, personal support workers etc). Clearly, better regulation and improved working conditions are needed for these groups.

As for the various and unacceptable attacks on Asian Canadians, people need to report them to the police, police need to follow-up on these attacks and lay charges as much as possible (and ensure more accurate data that would be captured in the annual hate crime statistics.

But having been involved in government support for anti-racism programming, I remain sceptical that these programs will ever reach those with strong racist or xenophobic views. Some people, unfortunately, are unreachable:

The COVID-19 pandemic has come with virulent anti-Asian racism. Fear has led to the use of the term “Chinese virus,” the revival of the slur “Chink,” the perpetuation of myths that Chinese people eat bats, an increase in violent attacks against Asians and unwarranted blame placed on Filipino workers for the spread of the virus. All these incidents of racism have happened in a span of eight weeks, leading to a public health concern: people who are feared and stigmatized may delay seeking care, increasing the vulnerability of that racialized population. And no one should have to fear violence when they step outside their door.

Canada’s pandemic plan needs to consider the fear that accompanies any new contagion. When a virus’s origin is traced to Asia, the plan must include not only an evaluation of whether its measures encourage anti-Asian sentiment but also strategies to mitigate racist perceptions that equate Asians with the virus.

Racism driven by fear of infectious disease is not new. During the SARS outbreak, the public became fearful of Asians. Earlier infectious disease epidemics were associated with specific ethnic groups, too: the bubonic plague was linked to the Chinese in 1900, and the 1993 hantavirus infection was dubbed the Navajo disease. Past episodes demonstrate that fear of foreigners can also spread beyond the context of disease to influence immigration policies. Historically, Canada has selectively admitted some racialized persons as cheap labour while excluding others to pacify or appease anxiety among the White population. Chinese workers were allowed in, in the 19th and 20th centuries, but had to pay a hefty tax; Sikhs on board the Komagata Maru were turned away with tragic results in 1914.

Border restrictions are among the many layers in Canada’s response to the current pandemic. Initially the border was closed to all foreign nationals except US citizens, but the government had to walk back this exception. Canada currently admits temporary foreign workers, international students and refugee claimants while barring entry to almost everyone else, including US citizens and even immediate family members of Canadian citizens and permanent residents, unless they are providing essential services.

It is too soon to tell whether border closures have been effective in stemming the spread of the disease. But early government data do not show Asian travellers at the top of the list of carriers. As of April 7, 42 percent of all non-resident travellers entering Canada who had COVID-19 were from Europe, and 35 percent were from Asia. As of April 17, 404 people travelling from the US had COVID-19, as opposed to 5 people from China.

The border is not completely shut, and the measures do not directly prohibit the entry of Asians, but that does not mean the restrictions affect everyone equally. As in the past, the inclusion and exclusion of persons is selective. The exclusion of non-essential persons may be aimed, in part, at reducing fear and anxiety in Canada, reinforcing the narrative that foreigners — Asians — are the primary vectors of the virus.

Temporary foreign workers and asylum seekers have filled labour needs in essential services, most notably in health care, agriculture and food processing, where they are risking their lives. Yet they are being blamed for outbreaks in their workplaces despite the fact that it is their working conditions that are responsible for the virus spreading. Reports of exploitation and abuse of temporary foreign workers are not new but still troubling. Cramped and crowded living and working conditions, low pay and lack of safety or protection gear, for example, are the direct result of their temporary immigration status. Outbreaks on farms and in meat packing plants have been blamed on persons of Filipino descent. These experiences should reignite efforts to create permanent pathways for immigration for those working in essential services, not only to reduce abuse and exploitation of workers but also to prevent the misunderstanding that it is foreign workers who are spreading disease.

Policy-makers have many factors to consider. It’s not easy to deal with a new, unknown and unpredictable harm. Still, public health officials should consider whether any restrictive measures used to protect the public may also promote racism, stigmatization and discrimination. Pandemic plans should also include strategies to shape an accurate public understanding of how the virus is transmitted and reduce unfounded fears that can stimulate racist assumptions and perceptions.

For Asian Canadians, until there is a more pointed effort to address racism in the official response to the pandemic, we know that no matter what we do, fear will permeate public reaction and manifest itself in harmful ways. We can put our lives at risk serving on the front lines in health care or in ensuring our food supply is stable, and one of us can even serve as Canada’s top doctor, but relying on racialized persons to be model immigrants should not be a strategy. The responsibility to address racism should be borne not by the people experiencing it but by those shaping law and policy.

Scientific data show racialized persons are more likely to die from COVID-19 than White people and that the difference may not be caused by pre-existing differences in wealth, health, education or living arrangements. It’s a good first step that some governments are collecting race-based data on the impact of the disease, but more action is required. All governments must acknowledge that how people perceive the spread of this virus can place a disproportionate burden on racialized persons, and that racialized people will experience the pandemic differently, whether they are Asian, Black, Indigenous or Latinx. Race-based analyses must be part of all public health measures in a pandemic.

Source: Canada’s pandemic plans must guard against the rise of racism

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

In Israel, Modern Medicine Grapples With Ghosts of the Third Reich

2020/05/14 Leave a comment

Interesting account of the ethnical and personal issues involved and their sensible resolution:

The explosion flung him skyward, legs first, before he crashed to the ground.

It was June 2002, at the height of the second Palestinian intifada. Dvir Musai, then a 13-year-old Israeli schoolboy from a religious Jewish settlement, was on a class cherry-picking trip in the southern West Bank. On his way back to the bus, he stepped on a mine laid by Palestinian militants and was gravely wounded, along with two other boys.

“There was a lot of smoke, clumps of earth falling, a smell of burning and gunpowder,” Mr. Musai, now 31, recalled.

Decades of agony followed. Mr. Musai’s right foot felt as if it were permanently afire. And then last year, a surgeon offered him hope — and a disquieting disclosure.

In pre-op at the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, Dr. Madi el-Haj told his patient that the anatomical atlas he would use to guide him through the intricate nerve pathways had been produced by Nazis. Its illustrations are believed to be based on the dissected victims of the Nazi court system under Hitler’s Third Reich.

If there were objections, Dr. el-Haj told the Musai family, he could operate without it — but it would be harder. He noted that there was rabbinical approval for the book’s use.

Mr. Musai’s mother, Chana, had lost relatives in the Holocaust.

“She said, ‘If it can help now, we’ll use it,’” Mr. Musai recalled.

That gut-wrenching decision went to the heart of a longstanding debate about the ethics of drawing on knowledge derived from the Nazis’ expansive medical and scientific experimentation — and in this case, the ethics of using the textbook, “Atlas of Topographical and Applied Human Anatomy.”

The book, by Eduard Pernkopf, stands out for its accuracy and detail, and even in an age of state-of-the-art imaging, some surgeons, among them those who perform peripheral nerve procedures, still find its drawings invaluable.

In a perverse twist, the more advanced the relatively new field of peripheral nerve surgery becomes, the more reliant on the atlas some of its practitioners say they find themselves. That is because even high-tech imaging is of limited use to the complex discipline, in which doctors treat problems like chronic pain caused by nerves that are damaged or trapped.

Pernkopf began work on the atlas at the University of Vienna, where he became chairman of anatomy in 1933, the year he joined the Nazi party. With Hitler’s 1938 annexation of Austria, he became dean of the medical faculty, then president of the university.

The illustrators to whom Pernkopf turned to produce the atlas were also Nazi enthusiasts. Three of the four illustrators incorporated swastikas, SS lightning bolts and other Nazi insignia into their signatures — hallmarks of evil airbrushed out of later editions.

Less is clear about the people whose bodies were dissected so that the illustrators could produce their work. Over the years, there have been questions about whether some had been killed in Hitler’s death camps. Those questions remain unresolved, but many experts believe that most of the prisoners were Austrians condemned in the courts.

After the war, Pernkopf spent three years in an Allied prison camp but was not charged with war crimes. He continued work on the atlas until his death in 1955.

A two-volume edition was published in five languages, with the first American edition coming out in 1963. Elsevier, a European scientific publisher that currently holds the copyright, stopped printing it on ethical grounds, but the volumes can be found in private collections and purchased on eBay and Amazon.

Scholars first raised questions about the origins of the atlas in the 1980s as the Cold War’s “Great Silence” about the Nazis’ medical legacy began to crack.

By the 1990s, the controversy was drawing wider public attention.

Dr. Howard Israel, an oral surgeon at Columbia University who had routinely used the atlas, exposed the Nazi symbols in the artists’ signatures included in early editions of the book.

Then Dr. Israel and Dr. William Seidelman, a Toronto physician, turned for help to Israel’s official Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, asking it to press the University of Vienna to investigate the background of the atlas — and of the dissected cadavers its authors used. After some initial reluctance, the university agreed.

“Things started to unravel,” recounted Dr. Seidelman, who now lives in Jerusalem.

From 1938 to 1945, the university’s anatomical institute received more than 1,370 bodies of prisoners executed by the Vienna court system, according to the findings of an investigative committee. More than half had been political prisoners — people targeted by the Nazi regime. At that time in Austria, joking about Hitler was enough to warrant execution, often by decapitation.

Dr. el-Haj, the Hadassah surgeon, said he was first introduced to the atlas while studying under Dr. Susan Mackinnon, a pioneer in peripheral nerve surgery, at Washington University in St. Louis.

“She knew I came from Israel — she thought I was a Jewish guy,” he recalled.

That he was, in fact, an Arab Muslim from the Galilee changed nothing.

“I was shocked,” he said. “It’s a matter of humanity.”

Dr. Mackinnon bought her first copy in the early 1980s as a young plastic surgeon in Baltimore, and used it to guide many of her surgical procedures.

But troubled by the provenance of the illustrations, Dr. Mackinnon photocopied the first scholarly articles about Pernkopf’s past a few years later and tucked them into the book as a constant reminder.

In 2015, Dr. Mackinnon and her longtime associate Andrew Yee wanted to share drawings from the atlas on an online teaching platform, and sought an opinion from Dr. Sabine Hildebrandt, a Boston physician who has studied the Third Reich.

An international effort was already underway to determine how to handle unearthed human remains and medical specimens from the Holocaust era.

Dr. Hildebrandt took on Dr. Mackinnon’s query and consulted with other experts, giving rise to a special set of recommendations regarding the Pernkopf atlas in a document known as the “Vienna Protocol.” It was written by a prominent American rabbi and ethicist, Joseph A. Polak, and formally adopted by a 2017 symposium of experts at Yad Vashem. Under the protocol, the atlas can be used if there is full disclosure about its origins.

In a recent survey of an international group of nerve surgeons, Dr. Mackinnon and Mr. Yee found that 59 percent of the 182 respondents were aware of the Pernkopf atlas, 41 percent had used it at some point and 13 percent were currently using it.

But the debate is hardly settled.

Dr. Justin M. Sacks, chief of the division of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Washington University, said he had never come across the atlas until he arrived at the department this year. He argued that it was morally and ethically wrong to use it and that there were perfectly adequate substitutes available in print or online.

“I’m not looking to stir a controversy,” he said in an interview, “but I’m looking to put it where it belongs: in a museum.”

Dr. el-Haj said that while the alternatives might be good enough in other medical fields, when it came to peripheral nerve surgery, they were no match for Pernkopf.

One of eight siblings, Dr. el-Haj grew up in a farming village and aspired to become a nerve surgeon, he said, in the hope of helping his father, who as a young man was left with a paralyzed arm and leg by a work accident. After studying in the United States, Dr. el-Haj returned to Jerusalem with his own Pernkopf volumes in August 2018.

Around the same time, Mr. Musai, who had undergone dozens of operations since his injury, returned to his doctors. Now a married father of two, he could barely walk. His foot could not bear the weight of a sheet at night.

He was referred to Dr. el-Haj.

From his days as a medical student at Hadassah, Dr. el-Haj, 40, remembered Mr. Musai as an angry teenager in terrible pain who harbored a hatred of Arabs.

Mr. Musai acknowledges that was the case.

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12 New Immigration Ideas for the 21st Century

2020/05/14 Leave a comment

Compiled by the libertarian Cato Institute, a range of ideas ranging from the practical to the more ideological.

On the more practical side:

  • Chapter 1: Automatic Adjustment of the H-1B Visas and Employment‐ Based Green Cards Caps
  • Chapter 2: Reducing Long Wait Times for Family‐​Sponsored and Employment‐​Based Immigrants
  • Chapter 3: Shared Border, Shared Future: A US-Mexican Bilateral Worker Agreement
  • Chapter 5: State-Sponsored Visas (similar to the Provincial Nominee Program)

  • Chapter 6: The Community Visa: A Local Solution to America’s Immigration Deadlock

    Chapter 8: Immigration Moneyball (variant of points system/express entry)

On the more wish list and/or ideological side:

  • Chapter 3: Shared Border, Shared Future: A U.S.-Mexican Bilateral Worker Agreement
  • Chapter 4: Constructing a US-Canadian Bilateral Labor Agreement
  • Chapter 7: Building a Congressional Constituency for Immigration through “Earmarks”
  • Chapter 9: Immigration Designed to Enhance American Lives (IDEAL)
  • Chapter 10: Don’t Restrict Immigration, Tax It
  • Chapter 11: Choosing Immigrants through Prediction Markets
  • Chapter 12: Transferable Citizenship (citizenship as a traceable good)

Congress has repeatedly considered and rejected comprehensive immigration reform legislation over the past few decades. The most bitter debates were in 2006, 2007, and 2013 when comprehensive bills passed one house of Congress and not the other. Those reforms each failed for particular reasons—groundswells of populist opposition, Democratic senators working with Republicans to remove guest worker provisions, or Republican failure to bring it to the floor in the House of Representatives—but the bills were all basically identical.

Those failed immigration reforms all included three policies: legalize illegal immigrants currently living in the United States, increase border and interior enforcement of the immigration laws, and liberalize legal permanent immigration and temporary migration through an expanded guest worker visa program for lower‐​skilled workers. A domestic amnesty for illegal immigrants was supposed to clear the black market and allow those who have made a life here to settle permanently; extra enforcement was supposed to reduce the potential for illegal immigrants to come in the future; liberalized immigration was supposed to boost U.S. economic prosperity and drive future would‐​be illegal immigrants into the legal market.

In theory, this comprehensive approach was supposed to make future amnesties unnecessary by fixing the laws that encouraged illegal immigration in the first place. The bill Congress considered in 2013, the last attempt at comprehensive immigration reform, followed the same model, which is a major reason the bill failed. For instance, the guest worker provisions for lower‐​skilled workers were all clones and the result of negotiations between the same stakeholders.

Liberalizing legal immigration is the most important component of workable, long‐​term reform. The legal immigration system sets and regulates numbers, procedures, and the types of foreigners who can come to the United States from abroad to work, live, and in some cases eventually naturalize. Providing legal paths for more immigrants, either for temporary work or permanent citizenship, is the best way to secure the border and would help provide for the future prosperity of the United States. The government cannot regulate a black market of illegal immigrants, but it can regulate legal immigrants.

Expanding legal immigration is a worthy goal, but there are many ways to accomplish it. The mission of this collection of essays from policy analysts, economists, political scientists, journalists, and advocates from around the world is to provide new policy suggestions that future Congresses could use to liberalize the legal immigration system. We intentionally avoided seeking proposals from the usual stakeholders and included many original ideas that could increase legal immigration or improve the selection of legal immigrants. The essays fall into four broad categories based on how much they would transform the current legal immigration system. The first category includes proposed rule changes that would substantially improve the current system. In one essay, Daniel Griswold of the Mercatus Center proposes that Congress abolish the static numerical caps on certain visas and instead create a built‐​in numerical escalator that automatically grows the number of visas as employment grows. For example, the number of H‐​1Bs issued would increase as employment in certain hightechnology sectors increases. Similarly, Stuart Anderson of the National Foundation for American Policy recommends addressing the extreme wait times that skilled immigrants currently face by guaranteeing them legal permanent residence within five years, essentially replacing numerical quotas with a specific wait time.

The second category of essays includes discussions of adding visa categories to the current system. Many of the ideas in this category are based on older visa programs that have been discontinued, visa programs in other countries, logical extensions to the current U.S. system, or admissions policies in other public institutions, such as military academies.

Michael Clemens of the Center for Global Development proposes a jointly regulated migration system with Mexico based on lessons learned from the past and best practices from other bilateral migration programs enacted around the world. Michelangelo Landgrave, a political science doctoral candidate at the University of California, Riverside, proposes a similar policy for Canada based on the principles of reciprocity in work authorization and limited access to welfare, of which, according to survey data, Americans and Canadians alike approve.

David Bier of the Cato Institute proposes state‐​based visas that would allow state governments to accept immigrants based on their diverse economic conditions. In a similar vein, coauthors Jack Graham and Rebekah Smith propose a system whereby local governments would work with private sponsors to bring immigrants into their communities. Both essays highlight the importance of engaging state governments to implement important reforms.

Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform offers a proposal inspired by the acceptance policies of U.S. military academies. It would allow each member of Congress to sponsor 100 immigrants for legal permanent residence— similar to how they nominate recruits for U.S. military academies.

The third category includes proposed changes that would transform how the current U.S. immigration system works.

George Mason University professor Justin Gest envisions a major overhaul of the selection process for immigrants. Under his system, the government would collect much better data on various immigrant outcomes and track immigrants over time to see how they integrate. It would then assign points for immigrants with certain characteristics that the data show correlate with immigrant success.

Steve Kuhn of IDEAL Immigration proposes selling visas to employers, provided they’ve made job offers to foreign workers and paid the workers premiums that match the cost. Nathan Smith’s proposal would increase the number of immigrants admitted but charge them an extra 20 percent tax on their incomes so long as they reside and work in the United States.

The fourth category and the last two fundamental policy reform ideas come from Robin Hanson, associate professor of economics at George Mason University. His reforms would increase immigration, cause more Americans to profit directly from the immigration system, and provide a way to select immigrants that are more beneficial to the United States.

Hanson’s first essay is similar to Gest’s proposal but relies on a more decentralized decisionmaking process to select immigrants using prediction markets. Under this proposal, the public would place cash bets in an open market on which immigrants would succeed based on objectively measurable criteria such as net‐​fiscal impact. The immigration system would then select those priced the highest. In his second essay, Hanson suggests letting U.S. citizens sell or lease their citizenship to noncitizens abroad in exchange for leaving the country. This would monetize the value of American citizenship and create an asset held by every American.

These proposed reforms are just a few of the new and interesting ideas out there. Hopefully, some will be incorporated into future bills; others could spark new and more creative ways of how to change immigration laws. We don’t endorse every essay in this paper, but the stagnant state of the current debate shows the need for bold new ideas and out‐​of‐​the‐​box thinking that will better prepare us for the next immigration reform debate.

Chapter 1: Automatic Adjustment of the H-1B Visas and Employment‐ Based Green Cards Caps

By Daniel Griswold

Congress should tie the growth of employment‐ based visas to growth in the most relevant sectors of the U.S. labor force to assure that the annual number of visas available more closely matches the demands of the U.S. economy over time. Two of the most important visas for foreign‐​born workers are the H-1B visa and the employment‐​based green card, both for more‐​skilled and more‐​educated foreign born workers. Yet the number of such visas available has not changed significantly in almost three decades despite transformational growth in the U.S. labor market.

CONTINUE READING ⟶

Chapter 2: Reducing Long Wait Times for Family‐​Sponsored and Employment‐​Based Immigrants

By Stuart Anderson

Congress should tie the growth of employment‐ based visas to growth in the most relevant sectors of the U.S. labor force to assure that the annual number of visas available more closely matches the demands of the U.S. economy over time. Two of the most important visas for foreign‐​born workers are the H-1B visa and the employment‐​based green card, both for more‐​skilled and more‐​educated foreign born workers. Yet the number of such visas available has not changed significantly in almost three decades despite transformational growth in the U.S. labor market.

CONTINUE READING ⟶

Chapter 3: Shared Border, Shared Future: A U.S.-Mexican Bilateral Worker Agreement

By Michael Clemens

The U.S. government has mismanaged labor mobility and failed to cooperate meaningfully with migrant countries of origin for the past half‐​century. Foreign workers have come for fundamental jobs, which are those that are critical to the U.S. economy and that do not require formal higher education, such as personal care, construction, warehousing, and others. They have come almost exclusively via family‐​based green cards, “low‐​skill” temporary guest worker visas for seasonal jobs tied to a single employer, or through a vast black market in labor. Many of the ills associated with migration arise from this regulatory system, not from migration itself. The United States needs a bilateral system of labor mobility for fundamental jobs that should begin

CONTINUE READING ⟶

Chapter 4: Constructing a U.S.- Canadian Bilateral Labor Agreement

By Michelangelo Landgrave

The U.S. government has mismanaged labor mobility and failed to cooperate meaningfully with migrant countries of origin for the past half‐​century. Foreign workers have come for fundamental jobs, which are those that are critical to the U.S. economy and that do not require formal higher education, such as personal care, construction, warehousing, and others. They have come almost exclusively via family‐​based green cards, “low‐​skill” temporary guest worker visas for seasonal jobs tied to a single employer, or through a vast black market in labor. Many of the ills associated with migration arise from this regulatory system, not from migration itself. The United States needs a bilateral system of labor mobility for fundamental jobs that should begin

CONTINUE READING ⟶

Chapter 5: State‐​Sponsored Visas

By David J. Bier

The federal government has maintained a near monopoly on the criteria for the admission of foreigners to the United States since the late 19th century. This centralization makes little sense in such an economically diverse country. Every state and locality have specific social and economic circumstances that the current centralized immigration system ignores. This centralization has ultimately polarized and paralyzed the national immigration debate and directly led to a threedecades‐ long delay of major reforms to a system that most agree desperately needs it. For this reason, Congress should allow state governments to sponsor migrants based on their own criteria under federal supervision.50

CONTINUE READING ⟶

Chapter 6: The Community Visa: A Local Solution to America’s Immigration Deadlock

By Jack Graham and Rebekah Smith

Immigration is one of the most significant drivers of prosperity, but its potential is suppressed by restrictionist politics, centralized bureaucracies, and out‐​of‐​date policies. Furthermore, its benefits are concentrated in a few regions. Communities with the greatest need for immigrants, especially in rural areas and the Rust Belt, are receiving few immigrants as the majority move to big coastal cities. Rural areas also tend to have the highest levels of anti‐​immigrant sentiment, in part because they do not benefit from migration the same way that people in big coastal cities do.77 The United States needs a new approach to help businesses of all sizes get the workers they need, to renew communities threatened by demographic decline, and to build local support for more liberalized immigration.

CONTINUE READING ⟶

Chapter 7: Building a Congressional Constituency for Immigration through “Earmarks”

By Grover Norquist

For many years, U.S. presidents have had significant discretion to make immigration policy, liberalizing or restricting rules on entry and setting deportation priorities. Congress has enacted little legislation of its own because it lacks the overwhelming national consensus required to pass reforms on the issue. But giving individual members of Congress more authority to select immigrants for permanent residence could overcome this stalemate.

CONTINUE READING ⟶

Chapter 8: Immigration Moneyball

By Justin Gest

President Trump wants to overhaul the U.S. immigration system so that it stops favoring visa applicants with U.S. family ties and instead gives priority to highly skilled applicants and those with job offers.94 His proposal is based on the assumption that immigrants’ educational credentials—what the administration calls “merit”—will lead to increased U.S. wages and immigrants who better integrate into U.S. culture.

CONTINUE READING ⟶

Chapter 9: Immigration Designed to Enhance American Lives (IDEAL)

By Steve Kuhn

The immigration reform proposals most likely to succeed are those that create benefits for Americans and immigrants and that garner bipartisan support. The Immigration Designed to Enhance American Lives (IDEAL) proposal strikes a balance between competing interests by allowing more legal immigrants to work in the United States by paying the federal government for the opportunity. That revenue could then be used to reduce the tax burden or otherwise benefit native‐​born Americans. This essay and planks are based on the IDEAL Immigration Policy.100

CONTINUE READING ⟶

Chapter 10: Don’t Restrict Immigration, Tax It

By Nathan Smith

Many economists—including Nobel laureate Gary Becker—favor taxing immigration because charging a “price” can produce a more efficient result than restricting it with government‐​established caps or quotas. Good immigration policy ought to bring the greatest good to the greatest number, subject to the constraints of being compatible with human rights and incentives and of making many people better off without making others worse off. Consistent with those principles is a proposed policy called “Don’t Restrict Immigration, Tax It.”

CONTINUE READING ⟶

Chapter 11: Choosing Immigrants through Prediction Markets

By Robin Hanson

On immigration, the big political camps are in a tug of war. One side favors more immigrants; the other side wants fewer immigrants. But when faced with such a struggle, policymakers who care more about influence than about feeling solidarity should consider tugging the rope sideways, where fewer might oppose their efforts. To tug the rope sideways on immigration, policymakers should take a policy position that is perpendicular to the axis of more versus fewer immigrants. One sideways‐​pull policy would be to reform immigration laws to use prediction markets to admit different immigrants, without increasing the total number.

CONTINUE READING ⟶

Chapter 12: Transferable Citizenship

By Robin Hanson

Governments have long worked hard to create strong feelings of solidarity between citizens. National leaders often appeal to a common history of mutual aid, sacrifice, and even ethnic and cultural ties to garner support for government actions. All of this has helped create a relatively sacred and exclusive aura regarding citizenship that, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, is “the mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle‐​field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land.”112 According to long‐​standing human norms, such associations are not to be created lightly and are debased when they are mixed with material motives such as money or other expressions of self‐​interest.

CONTINUE READING ⟶

Source: 12 New Immigration Ideas for the 21st Century

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Immigration Policies Threaten American Competitiveness

2020/05/13 Leave a comment

Interesting Harvard Business School alumni survey regarding perceived undermining of US competitiveness by Trump administration policies:

It is no secret that immigration has reshaped American innovation. Immigrants are the backbone of America’s most innovative industries, provide a quarter of our patent applications, and are numerous among our science and engineering superstars.

Taken from World Intellectual Property Organization data (Miguelez and Fink, 2013), Figure 1 shows that America received more than half of migrating inventors from 2000-2010.

Figure 1: Migration of inventors, 2000-2010
Figure 1: Migration of inventors, 2000-2010

 

Immigrants can be found in times of success and times of crisis. Examples include:

  • Among the American companies leading the race toward a vaccine to end the COVID-19 pandemic is Moderna, a Cambridge company with an immigrant co-founder and an immigrant CEO.
  • Another firm already conducting vaccine trials is Inovio Pharmaceuticals of Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, led by cofounder J. Joseph Kim. Kim, who came to the United States from South Korea at age 11 without speaking English, was among the pharmaceutical leaders who briefed President Trump on vaccine development in March.

The flow of global talent responsible for bringing these innovators to American shores has been a substantial driver of business creation. As I discuss in my book The Gift of Global Talent, skilled immigration is the world’s most precious resource.

Talent flows to where it’s needed

But talent is movable, and the United States must cherish and protect its prized position at the center of the global talent flow. At a time of crisis when fear is used to shift blame onto outsiders, America is at risk of signaling to global innovators and entrepreneurs, and the promising students who will one day become them, that they cannot have a future here.

Talent flows to where it is most productively utilized and welcome, and while the destination of choice has long been the United States, other countries are increasingly challenging America’s dominance.

“TALENT IS MOVABLE, AND THE UNITED STATES MUST CHERISH AND PROTECT ITS PRIZED POSITION AT THE CENTER OF THE GLOBAL TALENT FLOW.”

By some metrics, their efforts are succeeding. Between 1990 and 2010, America’s share of college-educated migrants within the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development nations fell from about 50 percent to 40 percent.

Our recent research captures business leaders’ rising anxiety about America’s complacency in competing for this talent and the negative impact on America’s competitiveness that could result. We surveyed(pdf) thousands of Harvard Business School alumni for their views on immigration.

Our alumni were overwhelmingly supportive of skilled immigration. Over 90 percent said that foreign skilled workers have a positive effect on the US economy, and 87 percent believe that the United States should allow more highly skilled immigrants to move here to work and live (see Figures 2 and 3).

Figure 2: Net agreement for belief statements about immigration
Figure 2: Net agreement for belief statements about immigration

 

Figure 3: Alumni views of immigration system and politics
Figure 3: Alumni views of immigration system and politics

Alumni also confirmed the importance of foreign skilled workers to their companies’ ability to compete. Nearly one in four said that at least 15 percent of their companies’ US-based skilled workforce was foreign born. Alumni expressed that immigrants were critical for developing better products and services, increasing the quality of innovation, and reaching international customers.

Our alumni warned us, however, that this important competitive advantage is at risk. A majority believe the current political rhetoric around immigration is harming their organization’s ability to attract foreign skilled workers. Nearly 60 percent blamed the US immigration system for causing project delays. And over two-thirds reported that their companies’ operations would be harmed if denied access to foreign skilled workers.

Because immigration is often a political third rail, there are many reasons to be skeptical that the United States will soon find a broad solution. In fact, when it comes to skilled immigration, our research shows more support for minor changes to the current system than for more fundamental reforms. Over two-thirds of alumni supported increasing the number of new H-1B visas issued each year by at least 50 percent. For much of the past decade, H-1B visas have run out within a single week (see Figure 4). Despite even the COVID-19 pandemic, the government received 275,000 applications in March of this year for the 85,000 slots in fiscal year 2021.

Figure 4: Months to reach H-1B visa cap by fiscal year
Figure 4: Months to reach H-1B visa cap by fiscal year

Structural changes, such as adopting wage ranking for awarding H-1B visas in place of today’s lottery system, did not achieve much support among our alumni. The gap between alumni believing the existing immigration system is harming their businesses and alumni only supporting incremental change is surprising to us. It is unclear whether this reveals a lack of knowledge or actual uneasiness about the policies themselves.

American competitiveness at risk

Either way, the stakes get higher in times of crisis: the recent H-1B visa lottery would have given the same chances to a critical researcher being recruited by Moderna and Inovio (or J&J and GlaxoSmithKline) as it would have to a software code tester working at an outsourcing company.

“WHILE WE MAY TEMPORARILY CLOSE BORDERS AS WE FIGHT COVID-19, BUSINESS MUST ARTICULATE JUST HOW DISASTROUS CLOSING OUR BORDERS LONG-TERM WOULD BE.”

One striking finding was that our alumni were in broad agreement over increasing the allocation of employment-based immigrants within the overall US immigration pool. When asked what share of total immigration to the United States should be employment-based, alumni on average proposed to quadruple today’s 12 percent share. When we surveyed a representative sample of the general public on this same question, we found a similar result—they proposed to triple the share of employment-based immigrants. That result held across all political affiliations, with both Democrats and Republicans proposing to increase the employment-based allotment.

Implementing such a shift could be quite politically controversial depending upon technique, especially if policies shifted visas from family-based channels and diversity programs rather than creating new employment-based visas. But we believe there is a path forward. We can build momentum by getting started with simpler actions like wage ranking H-1B applicants and creating immigrant entrepreneur visas. These quick wins can be stepping-stones towards further reform by proving that we can change our system for the better, despite decades of intransigence.

Most importantly, business leaders should get involved and share the burden with policymakers and academics to educate voters and build support for these policies that ultimately benefit America’s business community.

While we may temporarily close borders as we fight COVID-19, business must articulate just how disastrous closing our borders long-term would be. Some of the recent political rhetoric to halt all immigration, even if later scaled back in practice, endangers the image of America as a welcoming beacon to the next generation of scientists and entrepreneurs. Other countries are creating innovative new programs to attract talent and threaten our competitive advantage, while our government issues executive orders and espouses rhetoric that undermine our promise to the world’s brightest.

Our position at the center of global talent flows is now at risk. Business has both the pressing need, and the capacity, to accept this responsibility. It should.

About the Author

William R. Kerr William Kerr is the D’Arbeloff Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Source: Immigration Policies Threaten American Competitiveness

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