‘We didn’t talk about the bombs’: How the 1st cohort of Syrian refugees made it through high school in Canada

2019/06/24 Leave a comment

Encouraging story on how schools helped these refugees integrate and succeed:

Marwa Nakhleh’s voice barely registers above a whisper as she recounts the horrors she witnessed on the streets of Damascus.

“It was terrible,” she says of seeing a car bomb go off in her neighbourhood, vividly recalling the darkness that followed. “There’s no electricity, and it’s dark, and people looking for their family and their friends.” Her mother, she says, ran out of the house in a panic, trying to find her.

Guns, bombs and people dying are the scenes she registered as an 11-year-old growing up in Syria’s capital.

Nakhleh is among the first wave of Syrian refugees Canada admitted in 2015-2016 — and she’s among the first students from that group who are now graduating from a Canadian high school.

When the Arab Spring became a nightmare for Syria’s civilians in 2011, and what would become one of the deadliest wars in history broke out, Nakhleh’s parents gathered their four children and headed for the nearest safe place — Lebanon, which was already teeming with refugees.

Nakhleh, 19, says she was unable to continue school in Lebanon, where her family spent four years awaiting resettlement.

Families on the run

As the war in Syria raged and spread, Ammar Jouma’s family cautiously watched and waited at their home in the coastal city of Latakia. In 2012, they too were forced to flee, leaving everything behind.

Their search for safety took them to Turkey, where Jouma’s father was able to find a job. But the days were long and the pay meagre, so Jouma, 12 years old at the time, went to work to help support his family.

“We faced a lot of problems there. We faced a lot of tragedies until we came to Canada — and that was three years ago.”

School plays a pivotal role

As the humanitarian crisis deepened in Syria, Canada agreed to resettle an unprecedented 25,000 refugees, most of them families with children.

At Edmonton’s Queen Elizabeth High School, principal Sue Bell assembled the staff and prepared for the influx. The school already had a large population of immigrant students and was set to accept as many of the Syrians as it could handle.

“I know that whoever walks through our door, we’re going to be welcoming and we’re going to have a place for them to be, and they’re going to love it here,” Bell told CBC News in 2015.

Among the 33 students who walked in the door the following autumn were Nakhleh and Jouma. Both were exhausted from their four-year ordeals as refugees. Neither of them spoke any English.

It fell to the director of the school’s English as a Second Language program, Sherri Ritchie, to help them integrate.

“Learning English, sure,” she says of the challenges facing the students. “But I think the biggest thing is a sense of wellness, a sense of safety, relationship, trust. That’s been the biggest thing.”

Many of the students who came to Canada had missed years of school. Some who arrived in their teens had only an elementary school education. Ritchie says the school had to toss out the rule book when it came to dealing with the students.

Their fears had to be accommodated, and remedial classes were offered. As well, Arabic-speaking students who were already in the system served as mentors, helping to bridge language and cultural barriers.

“We didn’t talk about the bombs, we didn’t talk about the gunshots. We just provided safety and relationships, humour and lots of time and understanding,” Ritchie said.

Some students dropped out, but many others have risen to the challenge.

Nakhleh couldn’t wait to begin school when her family arrived in Edmonton in February 2016. “That’s when I got hope back,” she says.

Dropped into a strange culture with a new language, she pushed forward with her academic studies while also volunteering in the community and working part-time.

Jouma says he struggled at first. Even though he was unhappy in Turkey, he didn’t relish the thought of another move, learning a new language and leaving his friends behind.

“If you saw me the first day I came to school you will say this guy will never, never, never get out of here or get his diploma. When I took ESL Level 1, English Level 1, I was really confused about what’s going on.”

Of the 33 Syrian refugee children who began at Queen Elizabeth High School in 2015-16, Nakhleh and Jouma are among the 11 who crossed the stage Thursday to receive their Grade 12 diplomas.

Big hopes for the future

Now that she has graduated, Nakhleh intends to use her refugee experience to help others facing a similar fate.

“When you’ve been in a war and you’ve seen a lot of bad stuff, you have lots of feelings and you don’t know what to do, especially when you go to another country way different from yours,” she says.

Jouma plans to follow in his family’s maritime tradition. Recalling his grandfather’s stories of adventures on the seas, he plans want to attend a marine school in Vancouver.

“I love oceans, even though we don’t have oceans in Edmonton. But one day I will work there. This is my dream — to become a captain for a big ship. A really big ship.”

He will also get his Canadian citizenship in a few months.

Both students say they still love and miss Syria. But they say it is not safe to go back. Canada is now their home.

Source: ‘We didn’t talk about the bombs’: How the 1st cohort of Syrian refugees made it through high school in Canada

Filed under Refugees Tagged with , ,

Laïcité: Kenney a fait part de son opposition à Legault

2019/06/24 Leave a comment

Not surprising and consistent during debates over the PQ’s value charter:

Le premier ministre albertain, Jason Kenney, ne s’est pas gêné pour manifester son opposition à la loi sur la laïcité lors de son tête-à-tête avec François Legault.

C’est ce qu’il a répondu à une question du Nouveau Parti démocratique (NPD), mercredi, à l’Assemblée législative de l’Alberta.

Le porte-parole néo-démocrate en matière de multiculturalisme, Jasvir Deol, s’était levé pour lui demander s’il avait fait part de ses préoccupations à « son nouvel ami » québécois lors de leur rencontre du 12 juin dernier.

Les deux hommes ont tenu une rencontre de travail à Québec, puis soupé ensemble à la résidence officielle de M. Legault.

« Considérant que le premier ministre dit être en train de bâtir une nouvelle amitié avec le premier ministre du Québec, et considérant que les deux ont soupé ensemble mercredi dernier, avant que le premier ministre du Québec ne passe sa fin de semaine à se battre pour forcer l’adoption de sa loi raciste, M. le premier ministre, avez-vous exprimé des préoccupations à votre nouvel ami, le premier ministre du Québec, et lui avez-vous demandé d’abandonner immédiatement ce projet de loi ? » lui a demandé M. Deol.

À cela, M. Kenney a répondu : « Je lui ai fait part de mon opposition, et je pense parler pour la vaste majorité des Albertains quand je dis que nous croyons en la liberté de conscience, et que cette liberté doit être protégée, par exemple, pour les employés de l’État qui portent des signes religieux ostentatoires. »

Loi « haineuse »

M. Deol faisait écho au gazouillis de sa chef, Rachel Notley, diffusé lundi dernier, dans lequel elle dénonce « un jour triste pour le Canada quand le racisme devient loi ».

En Chambre, il a qualifié la loi québécoise de « haineuse », et a exhorté le premier ministre Kenney à la dénoncer sur les réseaux sociaux, ce que M. Kenney n’a finalement pas fait.

Or, Jason Kenney a tenu à rappeler lors de cet échange qu’il a déjà siégé comme ministre de la Citoyenneté, de l’Immigration et du Multiculturalisme sous Stephen Harper, à l’époque de la Charte des valeurs du Parti québécois, et qu’à ce titre, il était prêt à la contester devant les tribunaux.

« Je me suis toujours clairement opposé au projet de loi (du gouvernement Legault sur la laïcité), à cette approche, a-t-il déclaré mercredi. Même que quand j’étais ministre du Multiculturalisme, j’ai menacé publiquement de contester devant les tribunaux la Charte des valeurs du Parti québécois, qui comprenait des dispositions semblables. »

Il a également rappelé à l’opposition néo-démocrate qu’il avait soutenu la cause Multani en 2006, pour que les enfants de religion sikhe puissent porter un kirpan à l’école publique au Québec, et qu’il avait changé les règles pour que le kirpan puisse être porté dans les consulats canadiens, ainsi que dans les hauts-commissariats, partout à travers le pays.

En outre, a-t-il poursuivi, « j’ai appuyé le droit des filles à Montréal de porter le hidjab pour jouer au soccer. […] Mon bilan en cette matière est très clair », a-t-il indiqué.

La loi québécoise sur la laïcité, adoptée le 16 juin dernier, interdit le port de signes religieux aux employés de l’État en position d’autorité. Une enseignante au Québec qui tient à porter le hidjab, par exemple, ne pourra être embauchée par une commission scolaire.

D’ailleurs, le premier ministre François Legault a annoncé dans une entrevue à La Presse vendredi qu’il pourrait mettre une commission scolaire récalcitrante sous tutelle, après que la Commission scolaire de Montréal (CSDM) eut déclaré qu’elle allait reporter l’application de la loi à 2020.

Ombre sur le Conseil de la fédération ?

L’enjeu de la laïcité pourrait jeter une ombre sur la rencontre annuelle du Conseil de la fédération, qui se tiendra à Saskatoon du 9 au 11 juillet.

En entrevue à La Presse canadienne, M. Deol a dit s’attendre à ce que tous les premiers ministres du Canada dénoncent d’une seule voix la loi votée par le gouvernement Legault.

Traditionnellement, les premiers ministres s’abstiennent de commenter les affaires internes des autres provinces. La situation est d’autant plus délicate que MM. Kenney et Legault sont à discuter d’autres enjeux, tels que le transport de pétrole et la sélection des immigrants.

« C’est discriminatoire […] ce n’est pas ça la laïcité, a plaidé le député d’Edmonton-Meadows. La laïcité rassemble les gens, respecte les religions de façon égale, et non seulement ça, mais elle permet aux gens de […] contribuer à la société », a-t-il dit.

« Clairement, cette loi divise les communautés en criminalisant les choix faits par les minorités », a-t-il ajouté.

Source: Laïcité: Kenney a fait part de son opposition à Legault

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

In Quebec’s secularism law, an Ontario police force sees a source of recruits

2019/06/24 Leave a comment

Reminds me of Ontario hospitals doing the same thing during the 2013 PQ charter of values debates:

An Ontario police force will launch a recruiting campaign targeting Quebec residents affected by the province’s new law on religious symbols.

The Peel Regional Police, which covers territory including the cities of Mississauga and Brampton, will conduct a campaign in Quebec after a motion was passed unanimously by the region’s police services board on Friday.

The police force “believes in the values of diversity and inclusion, including the accommodation of religious symbols,” the motion states. It goes on to say that the police board “invites all affected individuals either pursuing or training for a career in policing in Quebec to apply for a career with the Peel Regional Police.”

The motion calls for the police force to place advertising “within Quebec.”

Quebec’s religious symbols law, which was passed last Sunday, will bar public school teachers, government lawyers, judges and police officers from wearing religious symbols while at work.

The Peel Regional Police have just over 2,000 uniformed officers and 800 civilian staff, said Constable Danny Marttini, a spokesperson for the force. They hire approximately 100 new recruits every year, she said.

The police board motion was seconded by Patrick Brown, Brampton’s mayor and the former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, who declared his opposition to Quebec’s law in a statement released Friday.

“We need to send a strong message to proponents of [the secularism law] in Quebec,” the statement says. “This law is an affront to freedom of religion and an infringement of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

Brown has also introduced a similar motion with Brampton’s city council for recruiting for the city’s fire and emergency service.

Another motion calls for the city to join a legal challenge to Quebec’s law initiated by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the National Council of Canadian Muslims.

In his motion advocating for Brampton to join the legal challenge, Brown writes that the city “is ground zero for diversity and Canadian multiculturalism, and [Brampton’s] Council bears a responsibility to stand up in defence of the Canadian multicultural mosaic.”

Those motions will be considered at a council meeting on June 26.

Brown’s statement says the law on religious symbols will prohibit Jews, Muslims, Sikhs and others who wear religious symbols from pursuing careers in many public sector jobs.

The Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec thanked the Peel police force for its action.

“Thanks to the Peel Regional Police for applying the values of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” the organization said on Facebook.

Source: In Quebec’s secularism law, an Ontario police force sees a source of recruits

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

‘Ground zero for multiculturalism’: Brampton mayor blasts Quebec’s ‘religious symbols’ bill

2019/06/24 Leave a comment

Not surprising, given the demographics of Brampton:

Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown [former Ontario PC leader] is speaking out against the Quebec provincial government’s Bill 21, which prohibits government employees from wearing religious symbols, and is tabling a motion at council’s next meeting to make the position official.

On Friday (June 21), Brown issued a statement strongly condemning Quebec Premier Francois Legault’s provincial government for passing the controversial Bill 21 into law on June 16.

“Bill 21, of course, is the law that will ban Jews, Muslims, Sikhs and others who wear symbols of their faith from pursuing careers in numerous public sector jobs,” said Brown in his statement.

Brown, once leader of the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party on Ontario before winning the mayor’s chain last October, also sits on the Peel Police Services Board. He seconded a motion at Friday’s board meeting approving a campaign to recruit Quebec residents interested in a career in policing affected by the new law in that province.

The police board motion also directs Peel police to “place select advertising within Quebec promoting a career at the Peel Regional Police.”

“I was pleased to second the motion at today’s Peel Police Services Board encouraging those Quebec residents interested in a career in policing to apply to Peel Regional Police. We are ground zero for multiculturalism,” added Brown in his statement.

The mayor’s statement included a pair of council motions he said he intends to table at Brampton council’s June 26 special meeting. The first would add the City of Brampton to an ongoing legal challenge.

The second follows the Peel police board motion’s lead inviting those affected by the new laws in Quebec interested in a career in firefighting to apply in Brampton, while also placing select advertising in that province to that end.

Council will debate both motions at its June 26 meeting at city hall from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

“We need to join the legal challenge initiated by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the National Council of Canadian Muslims to protect religious freedom. If we don’t stand up for religious freedom in Brampton which is the most culturally and religiously diverse city in Canada than who will?” said Brown.

Source: ‘Ground zero for multiculturalism’: Brampton mayor blasts Quebec’s ‘religious symbols’ bill

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Federal riding profiles: A visible minority view

2019/06/22 2 Comments

How does Canada’s political map of 338 ridings look in terms of the percentage of visible minorities? How do visible minority rich ridings compare to ridings with fewer visible minorities in terms of demographic, economic and social characteristics, and electoral results? 

Their electoral importance is clear, with 41 ridings in which visible minorities form the majority and an additional 93 ridings in which visible minorities form between 20 to 50 percent of the population.

By looking at ridings grouped by their percentage of visible minorities, the changing nature of Canada’s political landscape can be seen. As party electoral strategies focus on defining a winning approach given the needs and make-up of each riding’s population, having a comprehensive look at the demographic, economic and social characteristics helps one understand the various factors at play in electoral strategies. Political parties, of course, have their own more detailed data at the polling station level; this analysis aims to level the playing field, so to speak, for the rest of us.

This analysis provides a visible minority lens to ridings and their relation to demographic, economic, social and political characteristics. Given the ongoing trend of increasing immigration levels, that close to 80 percent of immigrants are visible minority, and the increased number of Canadian-born visible minorities, this approach provides a future-centred perspective to the political map.

While political parties collect some of this and other data at a much more granular level (postal code and polling station), the riding level provides a good sense of the diversity between ridings, and helps explain some of the political strategies employed to reach voters.

The higher unemployment rates, lower median incomes and greater prevalence of low income, suggest that economic issues are as significant as immigration-related issues such as family reunification in visible minority majority ridings. With their younger age profile and larger number of families, family-friendly policies are also important but childcare may be seen more though a family reunification perspective (parents and grandparents) than through government programs.

Identity politics play out differently depending on the percentage of visible minorities as the experience of the last election shows. Efforts by the Conservatives with respect to the “barbaric cultural practices” tip line and the effective distinction between Canadian-only and dual citizens in their citizenship revocation provisions, while appealing to many, created unease among visible minorities and provided an opening for the Liberal “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian” language.

However, a likely common thread among most Canadians, whatever their origins, is that immigration and citizenship need to be managed and that the fairness and integrity of the processes is maintained. Public concern regarding irregular arrivals (“queue jumping”) and increased numbers of birth tourists are but the obvious examples. While for some, expressing these concerns may be driven by xenophobia, for most it is more likely driven by concerns over fairness and people taking advantage of policies and processes. 

Tables and analysis

This article uses 2016 Census Profile federal electoral district along with Elections Canada voting results by electoral district to highlight similarities and differences. The three broad groups of ridings — 41 ridings in which visible minorities form the majority, 93 ridings in which visible minorities form between 20 to 50 percent of the population, and 169 ridings with less than 20 percent visible minority — are subdivided to provide greater granularity. The groupings with the smallest number of ridings have the lowest variation or range in any of the indicators.

The full analysis can be found: Federal riding profiles: A visible minority view

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Citizenship policy challenges the next government will face – My latest

2019/06/21 Leave a comment

Citizenship is the neglected child of immigration-related policies. It attracts less attention, and it has a lower profile and fewer resources than other areas. This is evidenced by wide swings in the number of new citizens, periodic funding shortfalls and the paucity of data, compared with that for immigration.

….

Full text: Citizenship policy challenges the next government will face

Filed under Citizenship, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Whatever happened to the ‘Australian values’ citizenship bill?

2019/06/21 Leave a comment

Spoiler – Identity politics and the election:

Nothing seemed as urgent as the protection of Australian values when journalists were called to the Prime Minister’s courtyard two years ago to hear of new laws that would make it harder for migrants to gain citizenship.

Malcolm Turnbull and Peter Dutton stood side by side in Parliament House to announce a bill that would require newcomers to pass stricter English tests and sign a “values statement” before they could become Australians.

This sounded absolutely imperative. The law would be put to Parliament “as soon as possible” to not only apply the new tests but also require permanent residents to wait at least four years, rather than just one, before they could apply for citizenship.

There would even be a change to the preamble in the citizenship law so that new citizens would accept the obligation to “pledge their allegiance” to Australia and its people.

But an election victory changes everything. The new law is no longer as urgent as it seemed in April 2017. The Australian Citizenship Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Requirements for Australian Citizenship and Other Measures) Bill 2017 has been dropped into a filing cabinet and may never be seen again.

The quiet demise of this proposal is a curious shift from years of government warnings about the need for citizens to speak better English and respect Australian laws.

“We want them to demonstrate that they’re adhering to Australian values and that is why it’s incredibly important on all of those levels to get this change through the Parliament,” Dutton told Ray Hadley on 2GB in the middle of 2017.

The proposal was the product of its time. Turnbull stood alongside Dutton at a point when Tony Abbott was mounting a conservative offensive from the backbench. One year into his tenure as Prime Minister, Turnbull was at risk of looking too “progressive” for his own side.

And the political objective of the bill was never in doubt.

“We’re standing up for Australian values and the Parliament should do so too,” said Turnbull in the courtyard.

“So if Labor doesn’t sign up they don’t respect Australian values?” asked a journalist. Turnbull did not have to answer the question directly for the implication to be obvious.

Bill Shorten and his shadow ministers, including citizenship spokesman Tony Burke, resisted the pressure to wave the bill through. Burke said the language test was “ridiculous” because it required university-level standards.

The uproar ran for months. The current citizenship test, put in place by the Howard government, is described as a de facto English test because it asks 20 questions about Australian history and culture. The new test would have required “competent” English to Level 6 of the general training stream of the International English Language Testing System.

Of course new citizens should be encouraged to speak English, but this was not the principle at stake in the government plan. At issue were the scale of the change and the difficulty of the test. The Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia called the proposed standard “punitive” and unnecessary.

The result, a political stand-off, raised the usual question when politicians thunder about values. What did they want more: an outcome or a fight? It was easy to see the bill as an example of conservative virtue signalling.

Eager to hear the roar of the “values” debate, the government revved the engine so hard the parts glowed red and the radiator ran dry. Was it worth it? Turnbull certainly did not prosper from his appeal to the right. The bill was hardly front-and-centre in the election campaign. It is a footnote on the long list of reasons for Shorten’s defeat.

The Immigration Minister, David Coleman, now has carriage of the citizenship bill and some of the pressing issues around the settlement of new migrants, not least the way Australia looks after new refugees. One item on his agenda is a review of settlement services.

Coleman has no history of starting culture wars. He knows multicultural Australia better than many politicians, given his seat of Banks in southern Sydney is considered one of the country’s most diverse. His focus appears to be on the practical.

The final status of the plan is uncertain. The bill will not come back to Parliament but none of the proposals has been formally rejected – not the English standard, the four-year wait, the values statement, the “pledge of allegiance” or anything else.

Some sections of the bill gave the immigration minister more discretion to reject citizenship applications, a feature that troubled experts but did not gain as much attention as the language test. There may be a natural tendency in any government to bring these sorts of changes back to Parliament.

Yet the fact remains that the government chooses to let the bill fall by the wayside even when the new Parliament seems to give it a stronger chance of getting its way. The Coalition would only need the support of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, the Australian Conservatives’ Cory Bernardi and Tasmanian independent Jacqui Lambie to pass the bill.

A spokeswoman for Coleman says the government “continues to monitor” the citizenship requirements and the broader citizenship program.

Morrison has extraordinary authority from his election victory. How he uses his power remains to be seen. Perhaps his approach to the citizenship bill is a sign that he feels no obligation to pander to the right.

On population and migration, Morrison set out his goals in March in a 44-page statement that made no mention of citizenship tests and spoke about urban congestion far more than values.

In any case, the government would prefer to fight on the refugee medical transfer bill. All its firepower in this portfolio will be focused on the medevac debate when the new Parliament meets.

This means the citizenship bill has served its purpose. The government was able to flex its muscle, pick a fight with Labor and appeal to a group of conservative voters it feared losing during the Turnbull years.

The argument was entirely shaped by the weaknesses of the government, riven as it was by the divisions between left and right, and the result was years of hot air. No law was changed. No wonder Australians are so cynical about the empty posturing in Canberra.

Like an old car with a burnt-out engine, the “Australian values” bill may now be left to rust in a field.

Source: Whatever happened to the ‘Australian values’ citizenship bill?

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , ,

Higher Asylum Grant Rates Predict Higher Family Appearance Rates in Top Immigration Courts

2019/06/21 Leave a comment

Interesting study. Similar findings to those of Sean Rehaag, with high variance among judges (thestar.com/…/getting-refugee-decisions-appealed-in-court-the-luck-of-the-draw-study-shows):

TRAC Immigration, a project of Syracuse University, published a report this week, showing that 81 percent of recently released families apprehended at the border showed up for all of their hearings. Some immigration court locations did much better than others in obtaining compliance from immigrant families. San Francisco’s court had almost zero no-shows, while two and five skipped out in Atlanta.

TRAC’s report hypothesized that it was possible that “the lowered appearance rates in some courts arose from particular deficiencies in the recording, scheduling or notification systems there.” While this could be, there is no way to test for such variation. Another strong hypothesis, suggested by Aaron Reichlin-Melnik of American Immigration Council, is that immigrants are much more likely to fail to appear in courts where they have a lower probability of receiving asylum.

Fortunately, TRAC also reports asylum grant rates by immigration court, allowing us to test this.

Figure 1 shows the relationship between asylum grant rates in FY 2019 and family appearance rates in the ten immigration courts that received the most family docket cases (in order of the courts with most cases). These ten court were initially designated to track “family unit” cases in November 2018, and while this practice has expanded to several other courts, 87 percent of the family cases tracked by the government are still in these ten courts.

The five courts with the highest appearance rates had asylum grant rates on average 55 percent higher than the five courts with the lowest appearance rates (37 percent to 23 percent). The five most successful courts had 89 percent of their immigrant families appear at all hearings compared to 75 percent at the other five courts.

The asylum grant rate in 2019 predicted a very significant portion of the variance in appearance rates between courts—42 percent to be precise—that year, and a 10 percentage point increase in the asylum grant rate in a court is associated with almost a 3 percentage point increase in the appearance rate for that court. There are other ways to measure the asylum grant rate. The immigration courts include asylum cases that were closed without a decision being made on the merits. But using that metric doesn’t change the association.

Higher failure to appear rates do not explain the higher denial rates, as just 1.4 percent of asylum denials are a result of a failure of the immigrant to appear. People who skip almost always do so before they officially file for asylum. It could be that immigrants who go to certain courts like Atlanta have worse asylum claims to begin with, but as TRAC notes, “there seems little reason for families with different strengths of asylum claims to migrate to some parts of the country and avoid others.”

Ultimately, the identity of the judge seems like the most important factor in winning asylum. The Government Accountability Office in 2016 found that even controlling for other relevant factors, “the defensive asylum grant would vary by 57 percentage points if different immigration judges heard the case of a representative applicant with the same average characteristics we measured.” It would be very useful if TRAC published data on the appearance rates by judge to determine if it’s the location or the judge that matters the most.

Obviously, because we only have data for a few courts in 1 year, it is impossible to nail down this relationship with certainty, but it appears that if every court had the same asylum grant rate as San Francisco (68 percent), the appearance rate for families would have increased to 90 percent. It may seem obvious that the likelihood of success in court makes people more likely to follow the legal process. But many people’s impression is that every asylum applicant has no case, so they have no reason to show up. That’s false, but unfortunately, some courts are turning this theory into a self-fulling prophecy.

Source: Higher Asylum Grant Rates Predict Higher Family Appearance Rates in Top Immigration Courts

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , ,

What Dropping 17,000 Wallets Around The Globe Can Teach Us About Honesty

2019/06/21 Leave a comment

Interesting:

So picture this: You’re a receptionist at, say, a hotel. Someone walks in and says they found a lost wallet but they’re in a hurry. They hand it to you. What would you do?

And would that answer be different if it was empty or full of cash?

Those are questions researchers have been exploring; Thursday, they published their findings in the journal Science.

The experiment started small, with a research assistant in Finland turning in a few wallets with different amounts of money. He would walk up to the counter of a big public place, like a bank or a post office.

“Acting as a tourist, he mentioned that he found the wallet outside around the corner, and then he asked the employees to take care of it,” says Alain Cohn from the University of Michigan, the study’s lead author.

The researchers assumed that putting money in the wallet would make people less likely to return it, because the payoff would be bigger. A poll of 279 “top-performing academic economists” agreed.

But researchers saw the opposite.

“People were more likely to return a wallet when it contained a higher amount of money,” Cohn says. “At first we almost couldn’t believe it and told him to triple the amount of money in the wallet. But yet again we found the same puzzling finding.”

The researchers decided to do the experiment on a much larger scale. They put together a team that dropped off more than 17,000 “lost” wallets in 40 countries over the course of more than two years.

All the wallets were about the same — a small clear case holding a few business cards, a grocery list in the local language, and a key. Some contained no money and some held the equivalent of about $13. Research assistants turned them in at the kinds of places people would typically bring a wallet they found on the ground — police stations, hotels, post offices and theaters.

Such a large operation came with a few headaches, Cohn says. One of the researchers was detained in Kenya for suspicious behavior. And researchers worried that a backpack full of wallets might raise eyebrows when crossing borders.

It’s also worth noting that for logistical reasons, most of the wallets were not literally returned to the researchers. After people reported a wallet to its supposed owner over email, they were told that the owner had left town and didn’t need the wallet anymore.

As results rolled in from around the world, the researchers kept finding the same result. In 38 out of 40 countries, people were more likely to report receiving wallets with money than those without. And in the other two, the decrease in reporting rates for the wallets with money were not statistically significant.

What if the wallets contained far more money? The researchers did a “big money” test in the U.S., the U.K. and Poland. In that phase of the experiment, the staff dropped wallets containing nearly $100, instead of $13.

Cohn says the results there were even more dramatic. “The highest reporting rate was found in the condition where the wallet included $100,” he says. Forty-six percent of wallets with no money were reported, compared with 61% of those with about $13 and 72% of those with nearly $100.

What’s behind all this honesty? The researchers suggest two explanations.

First, just basic altruism — the person who reports receiving a lost wallet might care about the feelings of the stranger who lost it.

There’s some evidence for that. The same team ran a test where some wallets contained only a key — a thing valuable only to the person who lost it. Those wallets were about 10% more likely to be reported than those with no key.

Caring about strangers doesn’t explain everything, though. The researchers think their findings also have a lot to do with how people see themselves — and most people don’t want to see themselves as a thief. Cohn says they polled people who said that if there’s cash in the wallet, it just feels more like stealing.

And, he says, “the more money wallet contains, the more people say that it would feel like stealing if they do not return the wallet.”

Duke University economist Dan Ariely, who studies dishonesty, says this shows material benefits do not necessarily drive people’s decisions about whether to be honest.

The study “shows in a very natural, experimental way our decisions about dishonesty are not about a rational cost-benefit analysis but about what we feel comfortable with from a social norm perspective and how much we can rationalize our decisions,” Ariely says.

The rates at which people tried to return the wallets varied a lot by country, even though the presence of money in the wallet almost always increased the chances. In Denmark, for example, researchers saw more than 80% of wallets with money reported. Peru saw a little over 10%.

The researchers think wealth could be a factor, but there’s a lot more research needed to explain the differences. “Now the problem is that we don’t really know whether wealth affects honesty or it’s the other way around” — whether honesty contributes to a country’s relative wealth, says Cohn.

Countries with higher rates of primary education were also more likely to see high rates of lost wallets being reported.

“What this suggests is that what you learn in school is not just math and reading but also social skills, or just more generally how you treat each other,” Cohn adds.

The study’s results could help policymakers and businesses that want to figure out what motivates people to act for the good of others, rather than for their own enrichment.

“What our study suggests is that there might be a potential to promote honest behavior, first, by making the harm that your behavior can impose on other people more salient,” Cohn says.

Cohn says the results also suggest that to promote honest behavior, businesses or policymakers should make it more difficult for people to deceive themselves that they’re being honest when they are actually doing the opposite. For example, by having people sign a statement promising truthfulness before they report their car mileage, rather than after.

And sometimes, honesty does pay. Almost all of the people who reported a lost wallet got to keep the cash.

Source: What Dropping 17,000 Wallets Around The Globe Can Teach Us About Honesty

Filed under Other Tagged with

Loi 21: Trudeau dénonce, sans plus

2019/06/21 Leave a comment

Of note (see Andrew Coyne: Will leaders tolerate religious segregation just because it’s Quebec?):

La loi québécoise sur la laïcité a rattrapé Justin Trudeau sur le toit de l’ambassade canadienne à Washington, jeudi.

Mais le premier ministre s’est, une fois de plus, contenté de dénoncer la loi du gouvernement Legault, sans dire ce qu’il ferait pour la contrer.

La question est venue en toute fin de point de presse, après une journée à rencontrer le président Donald Trump et des politiciens américains pour discuter de la ratification du nouvel ALENA.

Pourquoi M. Trudeau n’a rien dit depuis l’adoption à Québec du projet de loi 21 ?

« Ma perspective et mes opinions là-dessus ont toujours été très claires », s’est défendu le premier ministre.

« Je suis évidemment préoccupé par une atteinte aux droits fondamentaux des Canadiens », a-t-il ajouté.

Mais pas plus que ses ministres, cette semaine à Ottawa, n’a-t-il voulu dire ce que son gouvernement ferait concrètement pour répondre à cette « atteinte aux droits fondamentaux ».

Lorsque le projet de loi était débattu à Québec, on refusait à Ottawa de dire si on songeait à se joindre à un recours devant les tribunaux pour l’attaquer. On disait attendre de voir le contenu final de la loi une fois adoptée.

Au lendemain de l’adoption de la loi, le ministre fédéral de la Justice, David Lametti, n’avait toujours rien à dire de plus.

« On va regarder ce qui se passe sur le terrain. Aussi on va prendre le temps pour étudier les amendements qui ont été ajoutés à la loi. Et on va agir d’une façon prudente », disait le ministre Lametti lundi.

Il refusait toutefois d’exclure une intervention éventuelle de son gouvernement devant les tribunaux.

« Nous allons sûrement nous assurer que nos opinions soient bien connues et nous continuerons à défendre les droits des Canadiens », a répété, de son côté, M. Trudeau à Washington, jeudi.

Le journaliste lui a alors demandé s’il était temps de faire disparaître la clause dérogatoire.

Le premier ministre a préféré ne pas répondre à cette question.

Source: Loi 21: Trudeau dénonce, sans plus

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →