With COVID-19 clampdown, number of asylum seekers at Canada-U.S. border slows to a trickle

2020/04/08 Leave a comment

As expected. Full March numbers not out yet so these interim numbers highlight the impact from March 21:

Sweeping changes at Canada’s borders under emergency pandemic restrictions have slowed cross-border traffic to an unparalleled trickle, including people claiming persecution abroad.

Six asylum seekers were turned back at Canada’s border with the United States under recent COVID-19 restrictions, four of them irregular border crossers, from March 21 to April 2, according to data from Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).

March 21 was the day the highly unusual emergency order under the Quarantine Act prohibited entry into Canada by people claiming refugee protection.

Only one asylum seeker has been allowed to proceed into Canada under exemptions to the closed border rule, which could mean the person was an American citizen.

Of the four irregular crossers, which are sometimes referred to as illegal border crossers, two were stopped after crossing into Quebec and two into British Columbia.

The remaining two asylum seekers arrived from the United States at a border entry point in southern Ontario and were also turned back, CBSA said. The agency refused to say what country any of these people were seeking protection from.

“Failure to comply with a direct back order could result in the foreign national to become inadmissible to Canada,” said Jacqueline Callin, a spokeswoman for CBSA. “This regulation will be applied to all foreign nationals seeking to enter Canada if their entry is prohibited — regardless if they enter irregularly or at a designated land port of entry.

“Asylum claimants will be asked to provide basic identifying information and requested to return to make their asylum claim after the temporary prohibition has been lifted.”

That stands in sharp contrast to what is typical border activity.

CBSA would not provide the numbers of asylum claims for the same period last year. However, as a point of contrast, in all of March 2019, the RCMP made 1,001 interceptions of asylum seekers who did not cross at a formal border checkpoint: 967 in Quebec, 22 in B.C., and 13 in Manitoba.

That same month there were a total of 1,870 asylum claims made at formal border crossing points, which was itself one of the lowest monthly totals for the year.

There are far fewer new cases of refugee claimants at the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB).

The Refugee Protection Division of the IRB received 304 refugee protection claims nationally from March 21 and April 5, according to IRB data. While a specific comparison to the same period last year was not available, in 2019, the IRB had an overall average of 2,245 referrals in a two-week period.

This does not mean all 304 claimants crossed the border since the COVID-19 travel restrictions, however. There may be delays between a claimant’s arrival in Canada and a referral to the IRB, said Anna Pape, a spokeswoman for the IRB.

The steep drop in asylum seekers in Canada mirrors the unparalleled drop in all border traffic under COVID-19.

From March 23 to March 29, there were almost 82 per cent fewer land crossings into Canada compared with the same period last year, and an almost 85 per cent drop in people arriving by air.

On March 16, in an abrupt about-face, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said foreign travellers were prevented from entering Canada, except for U.S. citizens, to curtail the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Despite that, the next day, Minister of Public Safety Bill Blair said irregular border crossers would undergo medical screening but still be allowed to proceed for assessment of their immigration claims in Canada.

The following day,  borders were clamped down even tighter with the Canada-U.S. border closed to all non-essential travel, regardless of citizenship.

On March 20, in a further change, the government announced that asylum seekers will also be rejected at the border for the time being.

All travellers arriving in Canada — including Canadian citizens — are being met with increased intervention and screening in light of COVID-19.

Temperatures, however, are not taken by CBSA at borders or airports.

During a similar but less severe pandemic, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003, temperature testing was found to be an ineffective control, CBSA said. During SARS, 2.3 million travellers had temperatures taken at Canada’s airports.

“Despite this intensive screening effort, no cases of SARS were detected using these methods,” said Callin.

Source: With COVID-19 clampdown, number of asylum seekers at Canada-U.S. border slows to a trickle

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For some Canadians, this is the second half of the coronavirus battle. With family overseas, they’ve lived it for months

2020/04/07 Leave a comment

For so many of us, whether first, second or subsequent generations, connections to countries of origin or family members in other countries, this is very much or our reality. In our case, family members and friend in countries in Europe, the USA and the Mid-East mean we follow those statistics and situations as we do the situation in Canada:

Although it may have seemed an eternity, Canada has been on a travel lockdown for only two weeks due to the coronavirus pandemic, and many Canadians didn’t see major disruptions to their ordinary lives until mid-March.

For Canadians like Shahien Alipour, however, who have family in global epicentres of the pandemic, the coronavirus has been a cause of distress for months.

Alipour was born and raised in the Greater Toronto Area, but feels closely connected with his Iranian culture.

The York University student speaks fluent Farsi and together with his parents, he would visit Tehran once or sometimes twice a year to take in the historical sites and spend time with extended family.

“Just today, I got off the phone with my cousin. He told me he got it,” he said in an interview with the Star on Wednesday.

His cousin, who is 32, is expecting to make a full recovery from COVID-19, but several of their older relatives in Iran weren’t as lucky.

“Three of my dad’s cousins died from coronavirus. I hadn’t met them personally, but just …wow,” Alipour said with a tone of disbelief.

He is worried about his surviving relatives, because Iran was already in a precarious state with serious economic and political problems. Now, the country has been devastated by coronavirus, with more than 53,000 confirmed cases and at least 3,294 confirmed deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

While Alipour has been reading the news from Iran and around the world since early February, he felt that many of his friends and acquaintances in Toronto weren’t taking the highly infectious disease seriously at first.

“I feel that Canadians do tend to live in a bubble where we assume bad things happen elsewhere,” Alipour said.

“Now that the bubble has burst, we’ve been re-examining our lives and I hope that leads to a breakdown of barriers between people and nations.”

As Yue Qian, a Vancouver-based native of Wuhan put it: “If we think of coronavirus as a global battle, there were first and second halves.

“For people with transnational ties, we’ve had to experience the whole battle. This adds more stress because we’ve been worrying about the situation since January,” she said.

Then there was the dynamic where Asians who quickly began to social distance and wear masks at the outset of the pandemic were being mocked for “overreacting.”

Qian is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia. Her current research focuses on a cross-cultural analysis of human experiences of the coronavirus pandemic.

“The effectiveness of quarantine and social distancing measures seems to differ between countries,” she said, speculating that cultural norms might have something to do with it, but there isn’t data to prove it.

For Laurel Chor, a Canadian-born multimedia journalist from Hong Kong who recently reported on coronavirus in Italy, the relatively relaxed response she’s seen from some Westerners has been baffling.

Chor lives in Hong Kong, where there has been intensive handwashing, social distancing and a near-universal wearing of masks in public. Despite its proximity to mainland China, there have only been four coronavirus-related deaths in the city.

“In Milan, I was really shocked. I didn’t understand what was going on,” she told the Star, adding she was very surprised by how people were reacting.

“I was there one week after the region had gone into lockdown, and at that point people were getting bored of it and already coming back out and saying the government was taking it too seriously and it was just the flu.

“I was at a café scripting, and on the other side, there was a man coughing uncontrollably at the faces of his three companions, and they didn’t care,” Chor said. “If this happened in Hong Kong, he would be kicked out by an angry mob. I just didn’t understand how everyone was being nonchalant.”

She thinks peer pressure and self-consciousness might have something to do with the different reactions.

“When people around you aren’t reacting, you don’t want to react. You don’t want to be the odd one out. And in Hong Kong, everyone was reacting, so you want to react.

“It’s interesting how the prevailing attitude indicates how everyone acts, because no one wants to be the odd one out.”

Alipour thinks that differing levels of trust in a society are a factor, too.

In Iran, many people have been disillusioned and angered by the government for so long, that even if officials there had responded more quickly, he doesn’t think that would’ve galvanized much public action.

“People in Iran seemed to start taking it seriously mostly after they saw that it was spreading and people were dying, so people started staying home and shutting down businesses … out of concern for their communities,” Alipour said.

“I would say to Canadians, don’t think this will happen only to other people. It can happen to anyone. But there are ways to protect ourselves, so keep your heads up and have hope.”

Source: For some Canadians, this is the second half of the coronavirus battle. With family overseas, they’ve lived it for months

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Australian citizenship ceremonies to go ahead via video link during coronavirus crisis

2020/04/07 Leave a comment

Further to my earlier post (Thousands now face indefinite wait for Australian citizenship as ceremonies cancelled), an initiative that Canada would do well to consider:

Australian citizenship ceremonies will be conducted online via video secure video link, with the prospect of up to 750 people conferred each day, acting Immigration Minister Alan Tudge announced Monday.

The Department of Home Affairs has commenced trialling the one-on-one ceremonies for those already approved, with alternative arrangements to be made for those who can not access the internet.

“Australian citizenship is an immense privilege, and fundamental to our national identity,” Mr Tudge said in a statement.

There had been fears that tens of thousands of migrants waiting to become citizens were going to face an indefinite wait for the process to be finalised, after ceremonies across the country were cancelled because of social distancing measures brought on by the coronavirus.

After an application for citizenship is approved, migrants are required under the Australian Citizenship Act to make a pledge of commitment to Australia before a presiding officer, which normally occurs at a ceremony organised by their local council.

Current restrictions on public gatherings forced these to be put on hold.

“The Morrison Government recognises the importance of Australian citizenship for migrants and for the wider Australia community,” Mr Tudge said.

The Federal Government said there are currently 85,000 people awaiting a ceremony and those already scheduled for a citizenship event will be notified.

The Chambers family, who arrived in Perth from Wales ten years ago, are seen after becoming citizens during an Australia Day citizenship ceremony
AAP

While future applications are still being accepted, the Federal Government has put a halt on interviews and testing.

More resources will be deployed to work through the backlog once social distancing measures ease.

Source: Australian citizenship ceremonies to go ahead via video link during coronavirus crisis

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China needs more, not fewer, immigrants holders

2020/04/07 Leave a comment

An interesting opinion piece. Like so many calls for increased immigration, primarily based on addressing the aging demographicsd along with attracting talent to support innovation:

China’s latest draft law on granting permanent residency to foreigners has touched a nerve among the public. It has been met with overwhelming disapproval, fanning fears that a “lowered threshold” will lead to an influx of immigrants who will put a strain on resources.

A closer look at the proposed regulation, however, finds the bar for obtaining a Chinese “green card” remains extremely high. For instance, a skilled applicant is required to hold a doctoral degree or a diploma from “an internationally renowned university”, to have at least three years of work experience and have lived in China for a year minimum.

China’s existing green card system, which began in 2004, is more of an obstacle than a channel for foreigners looking to settle in the country. In the past 15 years, only about 10,000 foreigners have obtained permanent residency.

Except for a handful of non-natives like Tesla founder Elon Musk, obtaining the right to reside in China for most professionals is mission impossible. The latest official data shows that China issued 1,500 green cards in 2016. The United States government by comparison provided about a million that same year, including more than 77,000 to people born in China.

As a result, the foreign community in the world’s second largest economy is tiny. It is estimated that China, a country of 1.4 billion people, has just one million foreigners working and living here. The coronavirus may shrink that number further.

Japan has a foreign-born population of 2.2 million, including 320,000 permanent residents, out of a total population of more than 127 million. The US has more than 44 million foreigners, including 13.2 million permanent residency holders, out of a total of over 327 million.

China’s green card system is too protective and turns away overseas talent. Without permanent residence, life can get very frustrating – from schooling to buying a high speed railway ticket.

If it wants to become an innovative country, China has to be more open to foreign talent. Immigrants are often more willing to take risks, work harder and innovate. Skilled migrants have an important role to play in scientific research, education and industrial upgrading. It is no accident that China’s best cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, have the highest presence of foreign residents in the country.

The US, which has the highest proportion of immigrants among developed nations, has had commendable success in this regard. Immigrants are one reason for America’s tech power; in Silicon Valley, the heart of the US technology industry, more than a third of the population are foreign-born.

Although China has temporarily closed its borders to foreigners due to concerns over imported coronavirus cases, it cannot afford to allow these restrictions to impede its long-term growth and prosperity.

The proposed permanent residency threshold should be lowered further. For instance, the investment migration threshold of 10 million yuan (US$1.4 million) proposed in the draft can be lowered to one million yuan, while the education threshold can be lowered from a doctorate to a bachelor’s degree.

At the same time, the Chinese public has a reason to be sceptical about allowing foreigners to settle permanently in China as the government still discriminates against its own citizens in terms of residency.

Where Beijing’s ‘bottom of society’ live

A migrant worker from a rural province is unable to get permanent residency in a big city like Beijing even if he has been working and living in the city for decades. Try persuading him that foreign passport holders can settle permanently while he can’t.

The migration debate, in a nutshell, comes down to whether a nation’s population is viewed as a burden or a resource.

Given that China’s population is ageing rapidly after four decades of rigid birth controls, it has come to a point where it must rethink both its population and immigration policies. China cannot pin its hopes on foreigners to solve labour force shrinkage, but a larger flow of immigrants is desirable, along with encouraging new births.

If China remains unfriendly to new births and immigrants, the country will face an ageing population and its innovative capacity will be crippled – a threat to the country’s aspirations. Therefore, it is in China’s fundamental interest to issue more, instead of fewer, green cards.

Source: China needs more, not fewer, immigrants holders

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ICYMI: Dole out funding for COVID-19 ads soon, say experts, as ethnic media outlets face cash crunch

2020/04/07 Leave a comment

Of note as there is a percentage of the visible minority and immigrant population that ethnic media has greater reach than mainstream media:

As Ottawa looks to reach communities that do not speak English or French during the COVID-19 pandemic by buying ad space in some ethnic and Indigenous media outlets, one expert fears these news organizations could come “under the gun” in the next few weeks if ads are not rolled out soon.

“The viability and sustainability of ethnic media is under the gun,” said Madeline Ziniak, chair of the Canadian Ethnic Media Association. “We’ve been hearing from our membership [who say] that, ‘I don’t know if we can sustain another month, another month and a half, and things are getting very difficult.’ ”

Like many other mainstream and independent news outlets, ad revenues for ethnic media have begun to evaporate, with the mass closure of restaurants and other businesses that place ads.

On March 11, as part of its $1-billion COVID-19 aid package, the government said it would dedicate $50-million to the Public Health Agency of Canada’s  national public education campaign. Health Canada spokesperson Eric Morrissette said in an email on April 1 the goal was“to encourage the adoption of personal protective behaviours.”

About $30-million of that funding is set aside for advertising in 15 different languages: French, English, Italian, Farsi, Mandarin, Tagalog, Punjabi, Spanish, Arabic, Tamil, Urdu, Korean, Hindi, Inuktitut, and Cree.

According to the 2016 census, 7.6 million Canadians speak a language other than French and English at home, amounting to 14.5 per cent of the population. The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages listed Mandarin, Cantonese, and Punjabi among the top five languages in the country, along with French and English.

Mr. Morrissette wrote that French and English ads have already begun airing, along with some radio ads in Farsi, Italian, and Mandarin.

Those three languages were chosen “based on the need to urgently share information in communities with links to countries where travel health notices were in place at the time of production,” but did not specify when those ads were produced, and which outlets had begun running them.

He also did not specify which newspapers will be running the ads in the remaining languages. The government’s list, he said, “is evolving because some publishers of content in languages other than English or French have suspended or closed operations because of COVID-19.”

Ms. Ziniak said the association has a database of 1,300 media entities “in languages other than English and French across Canada,” which could be useful for the government in its efforts.

“We’ve lobbied for a long time that there should be a relevant and updated database list of who’s out there,” she added. “And now, we’re in a situation where people are scrambling, and we’re offering our services as a nonprofit, free, volunteer organization.”

Mr. Morissette wrote that the languages for print ads were chosen based on the “top ethnic languages spoken in Canada,” and that consideration was given to the “availability and reach of the outlets in these languages.”

He did not provide a timeline for when the newspaper ads will begin appearing, nor specify the metrics for what the reach needs to be for such outlets.

He noted that the government is sharing fact sheets and infographics “in a variety of languages” online. One resource listing preventative measures that can be taken in the workplace, for example, is available for download in Bengali, Dutch, Gujrati, Vietnamese, and Somali.

According to Andrew Griffith, a former senior director in the government’s immigration department, there is an urgency with which the government should begin rolling out ads to target non-English and French speakers.

“I think you have to work on the assumption that not everybody is receiving the messages,” Mr. Griffith said in a phone interview this week. “The ethnic media, by and large, does not aim at second-generation Canadians. It basically is for the immigrant ones, and there are some that have limited knowledge of English or French.”

While he said the messaging around social distancing measures from ministers, the prime minister, and public health authorities has been “pretty  clear and consistent for the last week or 10 days,” thanks to daily press briefings, he added that “getting [ads in] ethnic media out in another 10 days, means you’ve probably missed the boat.”

In an effort to reach some of their constituents, some MPs like Liberals Omar Alghabra (Mississauga Centre, Ont.) and Salma Zahid (Scarborough Centre, Ont.) have shared their own online messages in Arabic and Urdu, respectively.

“It’s important that we get the message across to everyone. Sometimes there are language barriers, sometimes our seniors don’t understand English or French,” said Ms. Zahid in a phone interview.

Ms. Zahid, who herself was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer in 2018, said she is encouraging “community leaders” to similarly put out messages on COVID-19 in Tagalog, Tamil, Bengali, and Gujarati, which are spoken prominently in her riding.

Former MP Olivia Chow suggested that if the government is running broadcast ads, it should consider featuring prominent voices within Chinese-speaking communities, for instance.

“If they want the ads to be amplified, having community partners of each of those language groups would be useful,” said Ms. Chow in a phone interview, listing Dr. Joseph Wong as an example. A physician and philanthropist, Dr. Wong founded the Toronto-based Yee Hong Centre for Geriatric Care in 1987 and was chair for the United Way of Greater Toronto from 1990 and 1992.

“Different people [who speak] different languages from different communities have different spokespersons, that could know their media market and social media very well,” said Ms. Chow.

Daniel Ahadi, a Simon Fraser University professor in B.C. who studies ethnicity and media, suggested that funding could also be shared with community organizations like settlement agencies.

That would allow groups “to do outreach on their own terms, because I think most ethnic community organizations, they’re quite well-established within ethnic communities, and they have a broad network and can navigate those using email lists, newsletters, and other formats they’ve been using over the years,” he said in a phone interview this week.

But Andrés Machalski, president of media-monitoring firm MIREMS, which has worked with the Canadian Blood Services, Canada Post, and other federal departments in the past, cautioned against such an approach. The firm translates reports from a range of ethnic media outlets.

“I respect what agencies are doing, but you’re looking at an information distribution and communications program, not a help program,” he said in a phone interview.  “This is a journalistic job, a propaganda job, an advertising job, not a social service organization. And the people who are working there, are devoted to hands-on attention, [finding] solutions to problems. They don’t have people to go out and hand out flyers.”

Mr. Machalski later added that some shows, including  one hosted in Punjabi by B.C.-based Harjinder Singh Thind, explore multiple angles of the outbreak, such as details around wage subsidies and repatriation efforts. The show also has “a Punjabi speaking doctor come in almost daily to talk about COVID-19 and clarify any misinformation,” he wrote.

Mr. Machalski said that as of March 31, MIREMS tracked 650 stories under its health stream alone since the outbreak began, and noted that some outlets depend on taking existing stories from mainstream outlets and translate them for their own audiences, a pattern Ms. Ziniak said she too noted in her membership.

Ms. Ziniak also pointed to reports that noted some religious institutions, including some mosques, remained open last week, despite calls from public health officials to limit gatherings to contain the spread of the virus.

Over the past few weeks, officials from multiple levels of government have told Canadians to limit gatherings to under 50 people, a number that has since dropped to five, in the case of Ontario. According to CBC, one imam said some people may believe that “50 is a loophole in the law,” as some mosques tried to limit the number of worshippers to below 50 at the time.

“The seriousness of the situation has to be conveyed to a trusted source,” Ms. Ziniak said.

Source:  already under financial strain

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ICYMI: The number of detainees held in Canada’s immigration holding centres is declining amid COVID-19 fears

2020/04/07 Leave a comment

Of note, and addressing some of the concerns:

Dozens of people who were held in Canada’s immigration detention facilities have been released over the last week as advocates and lawyers have called for their release amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to data obtained from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) by Global News, the total number of immigration detainees held in all three of Canada’s immigration holding centres dropped to 64 as of April 1 from 98 on March 25.

There are three immigration holding centres in Canada: one in Laval, Que., one in Toronto, and one in Surrey, B.C. However, hundreds of immigration detainees are held in provincial jails across the country — sometimes indefinitely.

The Toronto immigration holding centre, which has 198 beds, had the biggest drop in detainees, dropping to 21 detainees on April 1 from 41 on March 25. The Laval centre, which has 109 beds, went from 48 detainees to 35. And the Surrey centre went from having nine to eight in that timespan. CBSA said that no minors were in the facilities on those dates.

Earlier this week, TVO reported that an employee at the Toronto centre tested positive for COVID-19 and has been in isolation since March 18. So far, no detainees are confirmed to have contracted COVID-19.

A number of legal and advocacy groups have been calling for the release of people in immigration detention “unless they pose a danger to the public.” Canada’s immigration law allows CBSA officers to detain foreign nationals if they believe the person is unlikely to appear for an immigration proceeding like a hearing, if the person is deemed a threat to public safety, or if the person’s identity is under question.

Jenny Jeanes, the detention coordinator with Action Refugies, an NGO that works with people detained in the Laval immigration holding centre, said that she’s pleased that people are being released, and that the COVID-19 pandemic makes the situation even more urgent. She said that even more detainees at Laval have been released since April 1.

“Releases are picking up. And we were so relieved that after asking for a few weeks, finally some of the [detained] fathers who were separated from their families were released this week on an expedited basis,” Jeanes said in a phone interview.

“If people are released, it’s either because whatever issues there were that were leading them to be detained are resolved. So that’s been the case for some people. Some people were released in the past days because their identity was confirmed, (and) they were able to get the information that the CBSA needed to confirm their identity.”

Last month, detainees at the Laval centre started a hunger strike after sending a petition to the federal ministers of public safety and immigration, asking to be released from the centre over fears of contracting the virus in the facility.

Jeanes said that the hunger strike there was suspended earlier this week “but the distress of those inside has not ended.” Though her group previously conducted visits and work inside the centre multiple times a week, she and her colleagues recently moved to conducting their work remotely because of COVID-19, and have been communicating with Laval detainees over the phone.

“I’ve had people hang up in tears, sobbing with me on the phone this week because they see other people getting released. But they know that that doesn’t mean that they’re going to be released and they’re scared,” Jeanes said.

“At the best of times, detention can create anxiety, depression and other negative mental health effects. And I think right now, everybody, we’re all under strain. And so imagine that you’re in detention. It’s that much worse.”

“As this situation is fluid and evolving rapidly, the CBSA is continuing to closely monitor and assess the state of those in detention. All options are being considered at this time,” a CBSA spokesperson said in an email. “As always, should a detainee in CBSA care be seriously ill and in need of immediate medical attention, they would be referred to the appropriate local or emergency health authority for medical assessment without delay.”

Last week, Legal Aid Ontario said on its website that it was expanding its detention review hearing representation services for immigration detainees.

“We are pleased that in many cases CBSA is cooperating with detainees and their counsel to develop viable safe release plans; we think all involved recognize the personal and public health issues raised by detention during a pandemic,” Alyssa Manning, manager of Legal Aid Ontario’s immigration detention duty counsel project, said in a statement to Global News.

According to CBSA data, around 7,706 people were held in immigration holding centres in Canada last year, and around 2,249 people were detained by CBSA and held in provincial jails. The average time spent in detention was around 12 days.

Coronavirus outbreak: UN launches global appeal for $2 billion in aid to fight COVID-19

On Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was asked why civil servants are still going into work at places like immigration detention facilities when that could increase the risk of spreading COVID-19 to those held in the facilities and among employees and their families.

“We’re going to continue to ensure that essential services get done. Wherever possible, civil servants are encouraged to work remotely from home. We know there are significant things that need to be worked on to deliver for Canadians, to keep Canadians safe at this particular time,” Trudeau said.

When asked whether the federal government would be releasing non-violent offenders in general, Trudeau said that “action has been taken” and that the government has been working with Corrections Canada and “detention facilities of all types” to reduce the vulnerability to the spread of COVID-19.

“We continue to look at other measures that can be taken and we will take those measures in due course.”

Source: The number of detainees held in Canada’s immigration holding centres is declining amid COVID-19 fears

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Ai Weiwei: The virus in the body politic: We have lost our ability to cherish each other

2020/04/06 Leave a comment

Worth reading and reflecting upon:

I was living in Beijing in 2003 when SARS struck, and I can remember how that felt. It descended as an entirely new thing – a new concept, an unwelcome intruder, an ominous threat. It galvanized a new mindset in society and led the government to impose unprecedented defences. Some of those defences have been used again to combat the coronavirus, but to citizens, the two campaigns have felt different. SARS felt like a battle; coronavirus feels like a war.

With SARS, the government’s first response was to seal off all reports and to deny that a problem existed. The truth only emerged when an elderly military doctor, who had seen the government’s Minister of Public Health lie broadly to the Chinese people on television, wrote a letter to Chinese media that was leaked to the foreign press.

The government then drew on techniques used in the military and in prisons to suppress the outbreak. Ordinary folk, lacking better medical advice, resorted to herbal medicines, antibiotics, or hormones, which were either useless or harmful, and when they were harmful, they added to the death toll.

Sadly, the same thing has happened again. When the coronavirus first appeared in Wuhan last November, doctors who noticed it began passing along the news in text messages – only to be summoned by police, reprimanded and ordered to remain silent.

It took until Jan. 11 for Wuhan’s health commission to report the city’s first known death from this new kind of coronavirus, along with dozens of cases. At the same time, the commission insisted that the virus could not spread from person to person, which we now know to be false. Its purported origin was from a live animal market, but not long after that announcement, alternative theories began to circulate, given oxygen by a lack of transparency on the part of a Chinese government that has a poor record around trust. And just this Wednesday, a U.S. intelligence report declared that Beijing has been intentionally under-reporting the total numbers of cases and deaths there.

With the virus racing and information suppressed, the government eventually decided to abruptly seal off Wuhan and place its more than 11 million citizens under mandatory quarantine. There were strict rules and police enforced them. People could not enter or exit quarantine zones at will, and some people were not allowed to leave home. Some doors were even welded shut. Between mid-January and mid-March, quarantine and detention tactics were deployed across China. The country was in shock.

By late March, the number of new cases in China had slowed. But in the meantime, the virus had spread to more than a hundred other countries, where the total numbers of confirmed cases and deaths have now exceeded China’s. And where once there was only criticism for China’s unique station and particular response, other countries – democratic or otherwise – are now panicking through their own preparations and plans.

What the world needs now – in China, and in the world at large – is sober reflection on what it means to cherish life.

What, exactly, is a virus? About one-thousandth the size of a bacterium, a virus cannot survive or reproduce on its own. To live, it must enter, attach to and parasitize a living cell. Viruses have been doing this for tens of thousands of years – entering living bodies and dying when the host body either kills them with its immune system, or when the body dies itself. This happens because the immune system’s battle with viruses also kills normal cells, and if too much of that happens, the host body can perish, taking the virus with it. In this fight to the death, both sides can lose.

It’s a useful metaphor when considering how various countries have responded to their given outbreaks. The Chinese government is authoritarian, but that gives it huge advantages in combating the virus; it can set aside considerations of human rights and individual freedom, to say nothing of “cherishing life.” Virus control in democratic countries such as Italy, Britain and the United States, where the freedom of individuals is respected, is clearly more difficult and complex.

But there, too, cherishing life can feel impossible. The U.S. does not have a public medical system or universal guarantees of health. Its hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies are private, and they operate on the principle of capitalism in the service of individual patients. And the full terror of such a health-care system has been put on display with this latest outbreak, exposing the fantasy of “the land of equal opportunity” for what it really is: a place where those with means are taken care of, while the rest are left to fend for themselves.

The only conclusion a reasonable person can derive from the semi-coherent ramblings of U.S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, when they answer questions about the coronavirus, is that neither man is focused on cherishing life, but only on how well bureaucratic capitalism is operating. One’s only source of cheer in observing the tiny coronavirus is to note its spirit of egalitarianism: You are a religious leader? A famous actor or high official? A politician who either does or does not think I am causing a crisis? Fine – I treat you all the same.

What are we learning from the disaster? Can we learn something about, as former Chinese Communist Party general secretary Hu Jintao once declared, a “community of shared destiny”? If such a phrase were to come from today’s Chinese leaders, who pursue crony capitalism while speaking of Marxism, it could seem like self-satire. In Karl Marx’s original vision, communism is the model of humanity’s ultimate ideals: a community of equals that accords with the basic characteristics of human life. China’s constitution and the charter of the Chinese Communist Party, however, both cite communism as the glorious endpoint of political “struggle.” Also by contrast, the Western capitalist world prioritizes commercial competition while taking democracy and human rights as its ethical base (even though, it must be said, that base has been regularly defiled and now is only a weak answer to the challenges of authoritarianism). With such divergent expressions of ideals in the world, how can we talk about a “community of shared destiny”?

The actual fate of the world today is a freakish amalgam of different systems. For Western capitalism to continue expanding, it has had no choice but to partner with exploitative, authoritarian states such as China, to profit in ways that the West cannot at home. By doing so, despite the seemingly deep ideological differences, Western capitalism has allowed Chinese communism into its structure, virus-like, and the two now share a fate. Indeed, just as how former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping’s guideline to “let some of the people get rich first” became the only fate that mattered to many Chinese people from the 1990s on, this viral hybrid system that resulted has continued to grow. It now threatens civilization’s immune system – just wait and see.

The insertion of an external element into an organism can demonstrate life’s uniformity, but also its fragility. The same key fits into all locks, be they black or white, Christian or Muslim, or a fearless atheist. Can humanity respond? Whether or not wisdom, science, medical expertise and the protection of various gods will be enough to see fragile humanity through this moment – we do not clearly know. At a minimum, a question will remain: If a similar disaster comes in five years, or two, or less, what will happen? Will humanity’s spiritual values and material wealth be able to hold up?

In the interim, we should be thinking about the true value of our fragile little bundle of life, and how it can live in harmony with nature at large. If we can do this, then no sort of political opinion, religion, war, or any other of the various concerns of mankind should be able to block our quest for survival. This is a question of philosophy that goes well beyond medical science or the arguments of politicians. A philosophy is realized only in the details of the joys and pains of human experience.

After death, a corpse cools and interment may follow, regardless of what has died – virus, human being, all of humanity, or all of life. Let’s hope that humanity begins understanding that there are no differences in the end.

When information is hard to access and people are prevented from drawing informed conclusions, hatred, bias, prejudice and violence come rolling out. A shared understanding of life is nearly impossible. The most fundamental humanist understanding is that life and death co-exist, and the attitudes necessary to reach such an understanding are tolerance, empathy, recognition of suffering and willingness to help others. This is so because other people are a part of oneself; protection of oneself calls for protection of human society. To see this point is to identify with the value of common existence, which is the reliable basis for all of our pleasures and happiness. Otherwise we live with nothing but empty illusions that a whiff of breeze can blow away.

To stand in awe of life itself is the best way to see the connections between an individual body and the rest of life. We despise war, we despise the barriers that separate people and we despise the political schemes that divide people into irreconcilable groups. The compensation that the coronavirus affords us is that we can view the world with a bit more wisdom.

Filed under Government Tagged with , ,

Immigration Filings for H-1B Visas Up 25% from 2019

2020/04/06 Leave a comment

A rare easing of administration requirements by the Trump administration:

Between March 1 and March 20, 2020, 275,000 individuals were entered into USCIS’ new electronic pre-registration system to obtain an H-1B for the 2020-2021 fiscal year. This is a nearly 25% increase over last year’s filings.

While it is hard to judge what led to the apparent increase in demand, the change may be a reflection of the ease of entering into the lottery, and low unemployment during the first quarter. Employers no longer are required to complete and submit full H-1B filings, but rather simply enter the individuals they wish to sponsor into the system and pay a $10.00 fee per worker. This is an enormous benefit since filing full H petitions has become much more complex under the current Administration’s focus on enforcement. More documentation is needed to try to avoid the now ubiquitous Requests for Evidence (RFEs). Last year more than 60% of H-1B cases received RFEs.

USCIS required very little information about each applicant, but it collected such information as whether the individuals hold U.S. advanced degrees and the citizenship of each applicant. USCIS has announced that about 43% of this year’s pre-registrations were for individuals holding U.S. advanced degrees (Master’s Cap cases). Eighty-one percent of the pre-registrations were for Indian (68%) and Chinese (13%) nationals. The companion figures for the cases that “won” the lottery have not been released. But the lottery system generally favors those with advanced degrees. Last year, 63% of the selected petitions were for beneficiaries with U.S. Master’s degrees.

Many petitioners have been notified which of their cases were selected in the pre-registration lottery. Those cases must be filed over the next 90 days. USCIS explained that all submitted cases will remain in the system for possible selection until the end of the fiscal year (September 30, 2020). From now until then, more cases may be selected in the lottery. Whether or not this happens may depend upon the appetite of the employers whose cases have already been selected for filing. Will COVID-19 play a role in determining how many employers will move forward and file full Cap H-1B petitions?

Source: Immigration Filings for H-1B Visas Up 25% from 2019

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

German, French Officials Accuse U.S. Of Diverting Supplies

2020/04/06 Leave a comment

Failure on humanitarian, ethical and institutional levels.

The best comment, with respect to the US, came from Ontario Premier Doug Ford: “We’re the two largest trading partners anywhere in the world. It’s like one of your family members (says), ‘OK you go starve and we’ll go feast on the rest of the meal.’ I’m just so disappointed right now. We have a great relationship with the U.S. and they pull these shenanigans? Unacceptable.”

As the coronavirus rattles the globe, governments and aid organizations everywhere find themselves in a race to acquire scarce medical supplies and protective equipment — but some say the United States isn’t playing fair.

Earlier this week, officials in both Germany and France accused the U.S. of diverting medical supplies meant for their respective countries by outbidding the original buyers.

As of Saturday, there were more than 1 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide and more than 60,000 deaths from the virus, according to a tally by researchers at Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. has the most cases globally, with Germany and France at the fourth and fifth-highest case count, respectively.

On Friday, officials in Berlin alleged that the U.S. intercepted a shipment of medical equipment in Thailand from American medical supply company 3M and diverted it to the U.S., the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel reported. Berlin’s interior minister called the alleged interception “modern piracy.”

That same day, French officials accused the U.S. of redirecting a shipment of medical masks from Shanghai originally intended for a hard-hit French region to the U.S. by offering a much higher price for the supplies, The Guardian reported.

The accusations come as demand in the U.S. for facemasks surges, particularly after a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation that all Americans should wear cloth face coverings in public.

The U.S. has flatly denied allegations of diverting supplies from other countries. But President Trump has also tried to force American companies into prioritizing U.S. orders by invoking the Defense Production Act. On Thursday, the president used the DPA to order 3M to stop exporting hospital-grade N95 masks to Canada and Latin America, according to the company.

“We hit 3M hard today after seeing what they were doing with their Masks. ‘P Act’ all the way,” the president said in a tweet Thursday night.

On Friday morning, 3M warned of “significant humanitarian implications” of ending shipments to Canada and Latin America, saying the company is “a critical supplier of respirators.” 3M also said other countries would likely retaliate, reducing the overall number of respirators in the U.S.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau echoed warnings against halting American medical exports to Canada on Friday.

“It would be a mistake to create blockages or reduce the amount of back-and-forth trade of essential goods and services including medical goods,” the Canadian leader said.

3M CEO Mike Roman also pushed back on the president’s threats to the company. “The idea that 3M is not doing all it can to fight price gouging and unauthorized retailing is absurd,” Roman said in a CNBC interview. “The narrative that we are not doing everything we can to maximize deliveries of respirators in our home country — nothing could be further from the truth.”

With no collective global effort to distribute supplies to countries that need them most, little stands in the way of global feuding and price-gouging. The Trump administration has come under criticism for the same issue in domestic markets.

The Washington Post reported earlier this week that states with governors who are allies to the president, including Florida’s Ron DeSantis, have had little trouble getting requests filled with supplies from the national stockpile. Meanwhile, some Democratic governors have struggled to get federal help.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo have repeatedly complained that trying to get federal supplies is like the “wild west”: states must compete against one another as well as other countries, with essential supplies going to the highest bidder.

Trump blamed New York’s shortage of ventilators on the state itself for not having more respirators before the pandemic broke out.

“They should’ve had more ventilators. They were totally under-serviced,” the president said Friday. “We have a lot of states that have to be taken care of, some much more than others.”

New York state has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the country, with more than 100,000 cases of COVID-19 as of Saturday. The next closest state is New Jersey with just under 30,000 cases.

Source: German, French Officials Accuse U.S. Of Diverting Supplies

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Thousands now face indefinite wait for Australian citizenship as ceremonies cancelled

2020/04/06 Leave a comment

Similar to Canada in terms of applications and ceremonies on hold, but overall demand has returned to more traditional levels following C-6:

Tens of thousands of migrants waiting to become Australian citizens are now facing an indefinite wait for the process to be finalised after ceremonies across the country were cancelled due to restrictions brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

Many are now calling on the government to follow New Zealand and temporarily waive the requirement of a public ceremony and oath-taking while national restrictions on mass gatherings remain in place.

Concerns have also been raised that pressing pause on citizenship ceremonies all together will create further unnecessary delays in the already overloaded citizenship process.

But despite meeting the residence, character, and other requirements to become a citizen, and passing the citizenship test, her hopes were shattered after the City of Sydney council announced their ceremonies would be cancelled until further notice.

While she understands the public health rationale for shutting down the ceremonies, she wants the government to find an alternative way to grant her citizenship.

“We have been left in limbo … we don’t know when it’s going to end,” the 32-year-old told SBS News. “To have the citizenship put on hold right at the end when all we need to do is attend the ceremony is a bit disappointing.”

Ms Parmentier said she was particularly worried as her home country has stopped issuing passports and she is currently unable to travel in an emergency.

After joining a forum with other people left waiting for their citizenship to be finalised, she decided to start a petition calling on the government to act.

“It’s a goal that has taken, for many of us at least, five years of hard work, taking tests, having our degrees assessed, saving money for visas and permanent residencies,” she said.

“The majority of people are looking forward to making the pledge of commitment, that’s part of the requirement and we’re more than happy to do it, either electronically or via statutory declaration.”

After an application for Australian citizenship is approved, migrants are required to attend an in-person ceremony and make the Australian Citizenship Pledge before becoming an official citizen. Incoming citizens are usually invited to a ceremony organised by their local council within six months of their application being approved.

In the 2018-19 financial year, 127,674 people became Australian citizens – almost 2,500 every week – but a backlog is now expected to pile up.

On 29 February 2020, the Department of Home Affairs had more than 120,000 applications on hand, with more than 16,000 new applications received in February alone.

The current waiting time from date of application to ceremony can be up to two years for 90 per cent of applicants in the main stream.

New Zealand national Carla Jones is among the thousands waiting for their citizenship process to come to an end after she said “ceremonies came to a grinding halt”.

The Brisbane resident, who came to Australian in 2011 following the Christchurch earthquakes, said there has been “no communication whatsoever” about the cancellation, leaving her and others who have had their applications approved to discover the news on social media.

“I want to be able to vote, there are state elections coming up in October, I want to be able to fully participate in Australian society and currently I’m hamstrung from doing so,” she said.

Ms Jones added that she was unable to finalise her divorce without proving her Australian citizenship.

Last month, New Zealand’s department of internal affairs announced that all citizenship ceremonies would be cancelled and prospective citizens would be allowed to sign a statutory declaration as a replacement for a public oath.

Professor Mary Crock, an expert in citizenship law at the University of Sydney, said there were alternative ways prospective citizens could take an oath without attending a mass gathering, but that developing a new process was likely low priority for the government.

“You’re dealing with a government that is just struggling to keep its head above water, and for that reason, citizenship has just slipped down the list of priorities,” she said.

Those waiting for their official ceremony are still able to access most of the same rights afforded to Australian citizens, including unemployment benefits for permanent residents, but they are not able to vote or apply for an Australian passport.

New Zealand nationals in Australia affected by the COVID-19 restrictions have also been included in the Government’s JobKeeper supplement, which allows employees of companies and not-for-profits that have lost at least 30 per cent of their revenue to be paid $1,500 a fortnight.

The Department of Home Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.

In September last year, Immigration Minister David Coleman said his department had been working to process citizenship applications as “efficiently as possible, while also maintaining the integrity of the program”.

Source: Thousands now face indefinite wait for Australian citizenship as ceremonies cancelled

Filed under C-6, Citizenship Tagged with , ,

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