Migration Flows in Mexico Have Challenged the Country’s Immigration Policies

2018/12/13 Leave a comment

Interesting overview of some of their challenges:

Mexico is facing new challenges as millions  of Mexican migrants return from the United States and Central Americans seek asylum and safe passage through the country. Historically, Mexico has been a predominantly immigrant-sending country. Political unrest and violence in Central America, heavy-handed immigration enforcement in the United States, and increased development in Mexico has made Mexico a country of destination, return, and transit. Each of these roles demands a unique, humane, and thorough policy response.

Until recently, Mexico has never had a coherent immigration policy. Past laws, such as the 1974 General Law of Population, focused solely on enforcing criminal penalties for immigrants entering or staying in the country without authorization. Throughout the past decade, however, several reforms to laws and policies have expanded the scope of Mexico’s immigration policy to reflect the realities of the country’s diversifying population. Yet while legislative changes to immigration and asylum laws have been implemented to expand services and protections for immigrants, they have not been sufficient to address the needs of return migrants and Central American asylum-seekers and have revealed large gaps in Mexico’s immigration policies and practices.

Mexico’s response to return migration is falling short

The Mexican government has made efforts to ease the transition of returnees through the creation of several programs and initiatives aimed toward reintegration. For example, the Somos Mexicanos initiative, which the National Institute of Immigration (INM) implemented in 2014, aims to facilitate the reintegration of Mexican nationals, providing them with food, medical attention, toll-free calling, free transportation, and employment assistance upon initial return. While such existing programs and initiatives are a step in the right direction, they have done little to ease the transition of many returnees, who continue to struggle with emotional trauma and lack access to employment, educational opportunities, and the long-term support they need to navigate life in Mexico.

With the government falling short, nonprofits have instead shouldered the responsibility of facilitating successful reintegration by directly working with returnees, providing them with long-term support, and serving as valuable networks. Certain organizations—such as Otros Dreams en Acción, New Comienzos, El Instituto para las Mujeres en la Migración, and Dream in México—offer free programs that assist returnees in pursuing educational opportunities, searching for jobs, accessing mental health services, securing emergency shelters, obtaining identification documents, and enrolling in mentoring programs. Yet while nonprofits have worked to fill the gaps that exist between the services that government-run programs offer, Mexico is still struggling to keep up with returnees. Moreover, if the Trump administration is allowed to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, stripping immigration status from approximately 700,000 current DACA recipients—nearly 80 percent of whom are from Mexico—the forcible or voluntary return of these long-term U.S. residents to Mexico would overtax the country’s already strained social services.

Central American migration poses another challenge for Mexico

Since early 2018, Mexico has responded to the increased number of Central American migrants with force. In response to pressure from the United States, Mexico has heightened security efforts along its southern border and has detained and deported thousands of Central American migrants. According to Mexico’s National Institute of Migration (INM), 80,000 Central American migrants were deported from January 2018 through September 2018. In 2017, due to worsening conditions and violence in the Northern Triangle region, which includes Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, 14,596people applied for asylum in Mexico—a 66 percent increase from 2016. Despite this increase, only 1,907 requests were approved in 2017. This surge in asylum claims has placed a strain on the severely understaffed and underfunded Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR), the department that processes asylum petitions. A 2016 study documented the difficulties Central American migrants face when seeking asylum in Mexico, including due process violations; obstacles in gaining access to asylum procedures; lack of information about their rights at migration stations; and lack of legal representation during the petition process.

With the arrival of the most recent Honduran caravan, however, Mexico’s response to Central American migration has begun to shift slightly. On October 26, former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto announced a plan called “Estás en tu casa,” or “You are home,” to facilitate the asylum process for those in the caravan. The program will grant migrants official documentation, temporary work permits, medical attention, and access to education for children if they return and file with the INM in Mexico’s southern states, Oaxaca and Chiapas. According to the Mexican Office for Domestic Affairs, more than 3,800 migrants have applied for refugee status, nearly 136 Honduran migrants per dayhave requested assistance to return, and thousands more have chosen to continue toward the United States due to concerns over long wait times and mistrust of Mexican authorities. Asylum-seekers in Tijuana now face extreme backlogs as U.S. Border Patrol only processes 40 to 100 asylum claims a day. As tensions and uncertainty in Tijuana continue to rise, Mexico has increased its efforts in response to a situation that remains both complex and ever-changing.

There is opportunity for meaningful change

While Mexico has taken substantive steps to improve its immigration system, it should continue to partner with both the United States and international organizations such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in order to strengthen its capacity to effectively address surmounting immigration challenges and overhaul the bureaucratic process that continues to make it difficult for returnees to enroll in school, seek employment, and access social services. Mexico would also benefit from collaborating with nonprofit organizations on the ground so that it can better understand the needs of return migrants. Meanwhile, organizations such as COMAR should receive additional resources so that they can efficiently and fairly process and provide refuge to those seeking asylum. Finally, Mexico should work to demilitarize its southern border and build bridges with Central American countries in an effort to encourage meaningful change in the region.

The election of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a left-populist candidate of the National Regeneration Movement, may also catalyze a change in the way Mexico approaches migration. President López Obrador has been vocal in his critique of Mexico’s security policies, anti-immigration efforts on Mexico’s southern border, and the United States’ involvement in shaping Mexico’s immigration policy. He recently urged the United States, Canada, and Mexico to jointly address the migration influx by investing in development in Northern Triangle countries, though the focus of his immigration policies remains unclear.

Conclusion

Migrants and returnees who seek opportunities, refuge, and safe passage should be met by policies and programs that support their well-being and promote stability. With looming uncertainties in U.S. immigration programs such as DACA, as well as continued instability in the Northern Triangle region, it is critical that the López Obrador administration makes immigration policy a priority. As the new administration settles into office, it should focus not only on reforming its current immigration policies but also on adopting policies that transform the landscape of immigration toward a more humane and orderly system.

Source: Migration Flows in Mexico Have Challenged the Country’s Immigration Policies

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Dozens More Cambodian Immigrants to Be Deported From U.S., Officials Say

2018/12/13 1 Comment

Sigh….

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The Trump administration is preparing to deport the largest group yet of legal Cambodian immigrants to the United States over the next few days, according to human rights groups and an American official, continuing a wave of deportation that has fallen heavily on refugees who fled the upheaval surrounding the Vietnam War.

The new deportations include an expected 46 people who are scheduled to arrive in Cambodia on Dec. 19, the American official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of deportations that had not been officially announced.

Many of those being deported have few or no memories of Cambodia, as they were part of an exodus fleeing Khmer Rouge massacres and were granted refugee status in the United States. Some actually have green cards and have been convicted of a felony while in the United States, though often from many years ago.

“We are expecting more than 40 later this month,” Bill Herod, the founder of the Khmer Vulnerability Aid Organization, a Phnom Penh-based group that works to integrate Cambodian deportees into the country, said in an interview. Mr. Herod said that the exact number and arrival date of deportees often changes due to variables including last-minute legal challenges and weather complications.

Reached for comment, the United States Embassy in Phnom Penh referred The Times to the Department of Homeland Security, whose officials did not respond to requests for comment. The Cambodian government did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

President Trump has continued to place harsh limits on immigration and asylum at the center of his national policy, and over the past year, the White House has pushed to greatly expand the number of foreign residents of the United States who are eligible for deportation.

That effort has included what American officials describe as a renewed push by the White House this month to negotiate with Vietnam to take back a category of refugees in the United States — those who immigrated before 1995 — who had been considered protected under an earlier agreement.

In the case of Cambodians living in the United States, some deportations began in 2002 under a bilateral agreement signed by both countries. But the Trump White House has greatly stepped up the process, widening the numbers of Cambodians it considers deportable.

Rights groups have criticized the new deportation push because many of those designated for deportation will be separated from families who remain in the United States. Others are the children of Cambodians who fled torture and massacre by the Khmer Rouge regime and are being returned to a developing country in which they have never lived or of which they have little memory.

During the Vietnam War, the United States secretly bombarded Cambodia and dropped 2.7 million tons of explosives on the country in operations that some credit with partially enabling the Khmer Rouge’s rise to power.

“Virtually all are the children of Khmer Rouge refugees,” Mr. Herod said of those being deported from the United States. “Virtually all have a difficult time adjusting.”

Cambodia’s government began resisting the push for more deportations in 2017, citing human rights concerns and expressing an interest in negotiating a new agreement.

The Trump administration responded by classifying Cambodia as “recalcitrant” and imposing visa sanctions on some high-ranking government officials and their families. The American and Cambodian governments reached an agreement to resume deportations in February, and Cambodia has since accepted its nationals in increased numbers.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman, Brendan Raedy, declined to confirm the new deportations set for Dec. 19, citing security concerns. He did, however, say that as of Sept. 17, “there were 56 Cambodian nationals in I.C.E. detention with a final order of removal, and 1,799 non-detained Cambodians with a final order of removal.”

Mr. Herod, of the Khmer Vulnerability Aid Organization, said that American officials alerted him in December 2017 “to prepare to receive 200 new arrivals each year for the next several years.”

Only 74 and 29 Cambodians were deported in 2016 and 2017, respectively, according to I.C.E. reports. Mr. Herod said he was aware of 94 Cambodians who had already been deported this year.

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Tories pursue high-stakes strategy in condemning United Nation’s migrant pact: John Ibbitson and Chris Selley commentaries

2018/12/12 Leave a comment

John Ibbitson on the politics of the CPC’s opposition to the Global Compact on Migration:

A database search suggests that the first article in a mainstream Canadian news outlet that criticized the United Nations’ new migration compact appeared on the Toronto Sun website on Nov. 30.

That document – officially the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration – is now a high-stakes controversy from which both Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau hope to profit. One of them is making a mistake. But right now, it’s hard to know who.

Liberal Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, along with representatives from more than 160 other countries, has signed the agreement in Marrakesh. Mr. Hussen called the compact “an effective way to address the challenges that migration can bring.”

This may well be true. But had it not been for the conservative media and Official Opposition sounding the alarm, most of us would never even have heard about the compact, much less Canada’s decision to join it.

Parliament hasn’t debated or voted on the agreement; the government hasn’t bothered to consult Canadians on whether they oppose or support it. This is foreign policy conducted in the dead of night.

However, there is one significant problem with Mr. Scheer’s claim that the compact will “erode our sovereign right to manage our borders.” The problem is that the thing is innocuous, a succession of bland paragraphs promising to promote this and consult on that.

The document stresses that it is not legally binding and “reaffirms the sovereign right of States to determine their national migration policy and to govern migration within their jurisdiction.”

There is a foolish clause on “sensitizing and educating media professionals.” Otherwise the document mostly commits states to sharing information, fighting human trafficking and abiding by the rule of law. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Except that’s not how others treat the document, pro and con.

Pro: Former Canadian Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour, who is now the United Nations Special Representative for International Migration, called the compact “one of the defining projects of our generation,” which “will remain the reference for all future initiatives dealing with cross-border human mobility.”

Con: The United States – well, of course, with Donald Trump as President – Australia, the Dominican Republic and Chile have not signed, along with Israel and a clutch of countries in Eastern Europe, where migrants are deeply unpopular. Rightly or wrongly, some analysts see things in those bland paragraphs that could force countries to increase their immigration and refugee intake.

This is one reason why the Conservatives are making such a big deal of the accord. Another is that demonizing the compact fits with a narrative they wish to construct: that the Liberals have lost control of the immigration system, that tens of thousands have streamed across the border illegally and that now the government is surrendering sovereignty to a dysfunctional, even corrupt, United Nations.

The truth is that, over the past six months or so, the government has managed to greatly reduce the flow of asylum claimants entering Canada from the United States. And, as I and wiser minds read it, the migration compact surrenders not a jot or tittle of Canadian sovereignty to the UN.

But many Canadians do worry about losing control of the border. This doesn’t make them anti-immigrant; it just makes them anti-uncontrolled-immigration. And even those who support increased immigration may shake their heads at the Liberal inability to manage major files. As the Tories might put it, the Liberals can’t build a pipeline, can’t control the border, won’t balance the budget.

But on the immigration issues, at least, this strategy comes with great political risk for the Conservatives. More than half the population of Mississauga is not Caucasian. Fifty-three per cent of the population of Richmond, B.C., is ethnic Chinese.

If suburban immigrant voters decide that the Conservatives have become anti-immigrant, even nativist, they will shun the party and the Conservatives will lose the next election. You cannot win at the federal level without substantial support from immigrant voters. There are just too many of them.

The Liberals take pride in how they’ve handled immigration and are happy to campaign on it. The Conservatives think the Liberals are vulnerable on immigration and are happy to campaign on it. Who is right? It will take an election to find out.

Source:     Tories pursue high-stakes strategy in condemning United Nation’s migrant pact Subscriber content John Ibbitson December 10, 2018     
And Chris Selley suggests the CPC could have made a more sophisticated critique of the Compact rather than playing the identity politics card (which the Liberals are also happy to play):
One hundred and sixty-four countries agreed to the UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration in Morocco on Monday. And while the ship has long since sailed, in theory, there are quite a few things in there that Canadian conservatives might have gotten behind.

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Christie Blatchford: Police and blacks in Toronto: The numbers tell a hard truth

2018/12/12 Leave a comment

Lot of coverage on the just released report by the Ontario Human Rights Commission but picked Blatchford given her generally more sympathetic coverage of police issues, with her column all the more devastating as a result:

There is nothing like solid data — naked, objective, hard data — even for someone like me, who struggles mightily with numbers.

Numbers are what’s at the core of an Ontario Human Rights Commission report released Monday. I don’t know that it’s the first time the commission has backed up the anecdotal with hard data, but it’s the most astonishing such marriage I can remember.

The report includes analysis of data collected from the Special Investigations Unit, the arms-length agency that probes all serious incidents where police forces in Ontario inflict serious injuries upon civilians.

For the first time, it also includes a review of the SIU director’s reports, a rich trove of heretofore unreleased detail — including descriptions of the circumstances of each incident, assessments of the civilians involved and the justification behind the SIU director’s decision to charge or not charge police.

Using that information, plus SIU investigator notes, case photographs, police documents such as officer notes and even media reports (solely when race couldn’t be otherwise determined) the analyst — University of Toronto associate criminology professor Dr. Scot Wortley — examined 244 completed SIU investigations of civilian/Toronto Police Service encounters in the four years from 2013-2017.

In those years, black people made up about 8.8 per cent of the population in Toronto. Yet, shockingly, they also made up 70 per cent of police shootings that resulted in death, 61 per cent of other sorts of lethal force encounters, almost 29 per cent of all Toronto police use of force cases and fully one quarter of all SIU TPS investigations.

As Chief Commissioner Renu Mandhane said, “This inquiry is different from past initiatives. We will examine racial disparities in how police services are provided in Toronto and will marry hard data with lived experience and case law.”

The report is called A Collective Impact, the commission’s interim report on its inquiry into racial profiling and racial discrimination of black Torontonians by police.

Even its aim is different. “The goal of the inquiry is to build trust in law enforcement and make our communities safer,” Mandhane said. That’s exactly what such an inquiry should hope to do, but not all its predecessors have been so clear.

Now, to put this in perspective, it’s important to remember that Toronto police have about 30,000 encounters a year with those it calls “in crisis,” meaning people who are emotionally or mentally disturbed. About 97 or 98 per cent of these end without the use of any sort of force. And encounters with people in crisis account for a significant chunk of those who end up in use of force clashes — almost 30 per cent.

Another troubling note: In a “significant minority” of SIU cases, the SIU director had problems with Toronto Police co-operation, though, a small mercy, such problems were no worse in cases involving black citizens.

One of these issues was delayed or improper notification to the SIU; police are supposed to notify the unit immediately whenever a civilian has been seriously injured or died. Sometimes, police notes indicate there was early awareness someone had been badly hurt, but the SIU was still not called right away.

Sometimes, the SIU director questioned the legal basis for police to have stopped or detained the black person in the first place, or for conducting searches.

And black men were significantly over-represented in SIU investigations of sexual assault complaints — six times more likely than their numbers in the population would suggest.

The data lend heft to the “lived experiences” people have been hearing about for decades and which the commission heard about in focus groups — black Torontonians being stopped because they “matched the description” of a suspect, including a young black man who was running to school, excited about a special event, and was stopped in full view of his classmates, and a black man who earlier this year who was leaving his office and searched in front of his workmates and onlookers both.

“I was feeling embarrassed,” the youth told the commission. “This is not who I am. This is not who I want to be. After that, people were looking at me different, like I was a criminal or some type of thug.”

It’s funny, but not so long ago, I was in a room full of accomplished black citizens; this was the judicial discipline hearing into the conduct of Ontario Court Judge Donald McLeod, one of a few black faces on the bench. Many of them were upset that the hearing had even been called. McLeod is a distinguished man who made it to the bench from a hard background (single mom, subsidized housing) and who in his efforts to pay it forward by founding a non-profit national black organization allegedly crossed a line judges should not cross.

McLeod had been moved to act by the shooting of a pregnant young woman, which hit close to home; he’d gone to school with the young woman’s aunt.

There was a real sense of affront in the room, that somehow, even this good and honourable man who rose so high should have been brought down like this.

It’s not quite the same thing, rather a real sense of injury and injustice, when black people end up, in such out of whack numbers, dead or hurt after encounters with police. We leave it alone to fester at our peril.

Source: Christie Blatchford: Police and blacks in Toronto: The numbers tell a hard truth

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A Conservative Judge Torched Donald Trump’s Latest Illegal Assault on Immigrants

2018/12/12 Leave a comment

Canadian conservatives advocating simplistic solutions to asylum seekers should take note:

If there were any lingering doubt that Donald Trump’s latest plan to curb asylum is flatly unlawful, Judge Jay Bybee quashed it on Friday.

In a meticulous 65-page opinion, Bybee—a conservative George W. Bush appointee—explained that the president cannot rewrite a federal statute to deny asylum to immigrants who enter the country without authorization. His decision for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is a twofold rebuke to Trump, halting the president’s legal assault on asylum-seekers and undermining his claim that any judge who blocked the order is a Democratic hack. The reality is that anyone who understands the English language should recognize that Trump’s new rule is illegal. Like so many of Trump’s attention-grabbing proposals, this doomed policy should never have been treated as legitimate in the first place.

Friday’s ruling involves a proclamation that Trump signed on Nov. 9, ostensibly to address the “continuing and threatened mass migration of aliens with no basis for admission into the United States through our southern border.” The order alluded darkly to the caravan of asylum-seekers then approaching the border, which Trump tried and failed to exploit as a campaign issue. To remedy this “crisis” and protect “the integrity of our borders,” he directed the federal government to deny asylum to any immigrant who enters the United States unlawfully.

Ten days later, U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar halted the new rule, holding that it likely exceeded the president’s authority. Trump responded by dismissing Tigar, a Barack Obama appointee, as an “Obama judge.” The comment led to a rare rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts, who told the AP: “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.”

As Trump escalated his feud with Roberts, his Department of Justice appealed Tigar’s ruling to the 9th Circuit. It faced a seemingly propitious panel: Bybee, Judge Edward Leavy, and Judge Andrew D. Hurwitz. Bybee is a very conservative jurist who authored the original “torture memo,” justifying the Bush administration’s brutal interrogation of detainees. Leavy is a staunchly conservative Reagan appointee; only Hurwitz, an Obama appointee, leans to the left. Under Trump’s partisan vision of the judiciary, the DOJ would seem to have a good shot at reviving the asylum rule.

But Bybee didn’t bite. In a crisp and rigorous opinion for the court, he wrote that Tigar was correct to conclude that the policy almost certainly violates the law. The problem, Bybee explained, is that Congress expressly provided asylum-seekers with the right that Trump now seeks to revoke: an ability to apply for asylum regardless of how they came into the country. The Immigration and Nationality Act states that “[a]ny alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival …), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum in accordance with this section.” This provision implements the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which the United States has ratified. It directs signatories not to “impose penalties [on refugees] on account of their illegal entry or presence.”

The plain text of the law couldn’t be clearer: Immigrants in the U.S. are eligible for asylum whether they arrived legally (through a “designated port of arrival”) or illegally. If the president wants to change that fact, he’ll have to convince Congress to break its treaty obligations and alter the law.

Obviously, the Trump administration has not persuaded Congress to overhaul asylum law. So it tried to work around the existing statute by allowing unauthorized immigrants to request asylum—then directing the government to deny their application. Bybee easily disposed of this semantical workaround. “It is the hollowest of rights,” he wrote, “that an alien must be allowed to apply for asylum regardless of whether she arrived through a port of entry if another rule makes her categorically ineligible for asylum based on precisely that fact. … The technical differences between applying for and eligibility for asylum are of no consequence to a refugee when the bottom line—no possibility of asylum—is the same.”

In light of the proclamation’s fundamental illegality, Bybee, joined by Hurwitz, affirmed Tigar’s nationwide restraining order. Leavy dissented in a curious five-page opinion insisting that the INA grants the executive branch power “to bring safety and fairness to the conditions at the southern border.” His anemic analysis is no match for Bybee’s thorough demolition of the DOJ’s illogical position. It seems quite likely that a lopsided majority of the Supreme Court will eventually agree with Bybee’s majority opinion.

It is satisfying to see a “Bush judge” (in Trumpian parlance) hand the president such a stinging legal defeat. Roberts overstated the case in totally dismissing the role of partisanship in the judiciary; of course some judges are political. But for now, a majority of the federal judiciary remains willing to stand up to the president, at least when he issues blatantly illegal orders. Judges like Roberts and Bybee may let Trump manipulate ambiguous laws to do some very bad things to immigrants. But they are not willing to let the president ignore a clear and constitutional directive from Congress.

The next time Trump floats a flagrantly lawless idea, then, it’s worth remembering that nativist bluster cannot transmogrify an illegitimate command into a permissible executive order. Just because the president considers ending citizenship for the children of unauthorized immigrants, for instance, does not mean he can actually get away with it. Like the INA, the Constitution grants certain rights that the president cannot unilaterally rescind—including birthright citizenship. Bybee felt no compunction to pretend that Trump’s illicit scheme has any legitimacy. Neither should the rest of us.

Source: A Conservative Judge Torched Donald Trump’s Latest Illegal Assault on Immigrants

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Study highlights ‘uncomfortable truth’ about racism in the job market

2018/12/12 Leave a comment

My analysis shows similar patterns, but with distinct differences between the various visible minority groups, with some groups (i.e., Chinese) doing better, others (same groups as identified in their study) doing worse, with visible minority women doing relatively better, compared to not visible minority than is the case for men:

Racialized workers in Ontario are significantly more likely to be concentrated in low-wage jobs and face persistent unemployment and earnings gaps compared to white employees — pointing to the “uncomfortable truth” about racism in the job market, according to a new study.

The study from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found that women of colour are the most disadvantaged in the province’s labour market: they experience higher unemployment rates than all other groups and earn 58 cents for every dollar that a white man makes — a gap that has improved by just five cents since 2006.

Sheila Block, senior economist with the CCPA’s Ontario office and co-author of the report with Ryerson professor Grace-Edward Galabuzi, said the findings showed the “persistence of labour market inequality despite an increasing racialized population.”

“A policy of approach of benign neglect is not going to be sufficient to ensure that all Ontarians’ talents, whether they are racialized or non-racialized, are fully utilized,” she said.

Racialized Canadians now make up 29 per cent of the Ontario population, compared to 23 per cent in 2006 — meaning that job market barriers impact a larger demographic.

“It has negative impacts on the individuals that are discriminated against, but it also has a negative impact on our overall economic activity and efficiency,” Block said.

The study, being released Tuesday, is based on Statistics Canada census data and shows that racialized communities in Ontario face higher unemployment rates than non-racialized workers — but also have higher participation rates, which measures how many people are either employed or actively looking.

Block said that indicated that despite putting “similar effort” into working or finding work, racialized workers are less likely than their white counterparts to actually get a job.

Racialized women had the highest unemployment rate at 10 per cent, compared to 8.7 per cent for racialized men, 7 per cent for non-racialized men and 6.4 per cent for non-racialized women.

Employment dipped for all groups since 2006, showing an “overall deterioration in labour market conditions,” the report found — driven in part by the impact of the loss of middle-class manufacturing jobs over the past decade.

The erosion of traditional middle-class industrial jobs saw a “sharper deterioration” in conditions for men, particularly for white men. Non-racialized men’s unemployment rates increased by 1.4 per cent since 2006, compared to 0.9 per cent for racialized men.

But the study showed that women, especially women of colour, are still significantly more likely to be concentrated in low-wage jobs. Racialized women were 25 per cent more likely to be working in occupations in the bottom half of the income distribution than white men. Racialized men were less likely to be in low-wage occupations than women, but more likely than white men.

“I think that tells us that is still a very large gap over that 10-year period and that gap has remained despite the hollowing out of middle-income jobs and particularly manufacturing jobs,” Block said.

The report notes that a “common Canadian narrative is that the discrimination that racialized workers face … is part of the immigrant experience and that it is common to all immigrants.”

That, the data suggests, is untrue: racialized male immigrants earn 70 cents for every dollar that non-racialized immigrant men make, and racialized female immigrants make 78 cents for every dollar that white immigrant women make. Those gaps persisted for second- and even third-generation immigrants.

“These findings point to the need for Ontario to deal with the uncomfortable truth that its labour market is not equally welcoming to all immigrants,” the report notes.

Outcomes varied for different racialized communities: Black, Latin American, and Filipino workers, for example, consistently had a “large earnings gap despite the length of time their families had been in Ontario,” according to the study.

“Addressing the labour market discrimination faced by racialized workers will require a deeper understanding of racism and the different ways it is manifested in the labour market for different racialized groups,” said the report.

The findings come as the Ontario government reverses recently enacted labour protections aimed at improving conditions for precarious workers. Bill 47 cancelled a scheduled minimum-wage increase from $14 to $15 in January, removed the right to equal pay for equal work for temporary, part-time and casual employees, and cancelled two paid sick days for all Ontario workers.

A report on provincial workplace standards written by two special advisers under the previous government found that visible minorities, new immigrants and women were overrepresented in precarious jobs.

“When we are lowering the floor, we are disproportionately having an impact on racialized workers and in particular racialized women,” Block said.

“We need legislation that both strengthens the Employment Standards Act and makes it easier for workers who are in precarious employment to unionize.”

“The bottom line: we are still waiting for bold new policies to close the persistent gap between racialized and non-racialized men and women in Ontario,” the report concludes.

“Until we tackle the barriers to employment equity and to decent work, Ontario’s racialized income gap is likely to remain.”

Source: Study highlights ‘uncomfortable truth’ about racism in the job marketWomen of colour most disadvantaged, with higher unemployment rates, lower pay, according to report by Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

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Lawyer versus consultant? Immigration data shows visa applicants have best shot with former

2018/12/12 Leave a comment

There may also be some selection bias involved (e.g., nationals who engage lawyers may be stronger candidates for visa approvals):

Foreign nationals who prepare their own Canadian visa applications are nearly as successful in being accepted as those who spend money on a consultant to do the job.

But chances of success are much higher if they hire an immigration lawyer to help get their study, work or visitor visas, according to immigration data obtained under an access to information request.

Canada received 342,154 temporary resident applications in 2017, the data shows. While 86 per cent of applicants declared themselves as self-represented, 6 per cent were represented by consultants and another 5 per cent by lawyers. The remaining 3 per cent hired Quebec notaries or used “non-remunerated” representatives.

Overall, 18.9 per cent of the applications were rejected. Those who prepared their own applications had a 19.3 per cent refusal rate, slightly higher than the 18 per cent among those who paid a consultant to do it.

In contrast, only 10.4 per cent of applications prepared by a lawyer were rejected. The refusal rates for applications prepared by Quebec notaries and unpaid representatives were 13.1 per cent and 10.1 per cent respectively.

Marina Sedai, chair of the immigration section of the Canadian Bar Association, said she wasn’t surprised lawyers had the highest success rate.

“Canadian lawyers’ rigorous education, legal analysis skills, and high ethical standards enforced by an effective regulator, have long been understood to result in better outcomes,” Sedai said.

“Lawyers’ culture of the law being a calling rather than a business means that although lawyers will often take the tough cases, they will also protect clients by advising them against hopeless cases.”

When it comes to the lower success rate for consultants, lawyers are quick to point out that group has lower educational requirements and a less robust regulatory regime than lawyers. For their part, consultants say the immigration data is too general and doesn’t give the full picture.

“It is based on the flawed assumption that all applications are equally complex. In reality, applications completed by unpaid representatives may be far simpler, thus having a much higher chance of success,” said the Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants in a statement to the Star.

Currently, licensed immigration consultants must meet a minimum language requirement and graduate from an accredited immigration practitioner program, which takes about a year to complete full time. While only about 1,000 lawyers practise immigration law, there are five times more licensed consultants in Canada.

“Immigration lawyers typically have completed a four-year bachelor’s degree before undergoing a very competitive process for admission to law school. Law school degrees take three years to complete and are also no cakewalk. Then there is the bar admissions course which must be passed, the articling process, etcetera,” said Toronto immigration lawyer Ravi Jain.

“Many immigration consultants have only completed online courses at a community college. The education and training is just not comparable.”

The immigration consultants’ association, which has more than 2,000 members, said it’s pleased more people are using consultants and believed that’s due to the generally higher fees charged by their lawyer counterparts.

Regulatory bodies for lawyers and consultants do not mandate how much their members can charge clients, but fees can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars.

Jain, who is also vice chair of the bar association’s immigration division, said the success rate for lawyers would likely be even higher if not for the fact lawyers often take up very difficult and complex cases.

“A lot of my clients come to me after they have gone to a consultant or tried on their own,” Jain said, adding many are reluctant to lodge a complaint against their former consultant and prefer just to have him reapply.

“It’s much more difficult to obtain approvals when applications have already been refused,” he added.

Source: Lawyer versus consultant? Immigration data shows visa applicants have best shot with former

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

In Canada, the term ‘nationalism’ doesn’t seem to have a bad rap. Here’s why

2018/12/11 Leave a comment

Interesting and relevant changes to how Canadians perceive attachment and belonging (Ekos more reliable than Leger’s web panel):

On a historic Remembrance Day, a century after the end of the First World War, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a Paris crowd that decaying trust in public institutions will lead citizens to look for easy answers “in populism, in nationalism, in closing borders, in shutting down trade, in xenophobia.”

The implication was clear: if nations turn in on themselves and treat outsiders as threats, we might again find ourselves in a bloody conflict with fronts all over the world.

But a series of surveys suggest the idea of being a nationalist, and nationalism in general, are viewed fairly positively by most Canadians.

What the data suggest is that Canadians don’t see the concept of nationalism the way people do in the United States, where the term is often linked with white-nationalist groups, and then with white supremacy and racism.

Rather, Canadians appear to have constructed their view of nationalism on the idea of feeling connected to our country and ensuring that others feel connected as well — even as we watch the term pilloried globally.

“It is used in different ways — when people are talking about the Trump nationalism, they would say (it’s) bad. But in Canada, they accept it because it is equated with certain communities and they see it as a way it’s helping vulnerable populations find their place in Canada,” said Kathy Brock, a political studies professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont.

“Canadians have just acclimatized to this dual view of nationalism.”

In the 1950s and 1960s, Canadians often reported feeling greater attachments to their particular communities or ethnic groups than they did to the country. In the intervening years, connection to country has strengthened while connection to community has faded, said Frank Graves, president of EKOS Research Associates, a polling and market-research firm. The opposite has happened in Europe, he said.

Research also suggests Canadians’ attachments to their ethnic groups have weakened over the last 20 years in favour of an attachment to country, Graves said, even as census data shows the country’s population is becoming ever more diverse.

“We don’t have a common ethno-linguistic homogeneity that produces a definition of ‘the people.’ It’s more civic nationalism,” Graves said.

“In Canada, national identity has been created through a dialogue between citizens and the state and the public institutions — medicare, the Mounties, Parliament Hill. It isn’t as much steeped in history or common race and identity, which probably inoculates it from some of the more disturbing expressions of nationalism.”

Newly released survey data from the Association of Canadian Studies says that 60 per cent of respondents hold a somewhat or very positive view of nationalism, compared with about 45 per cent in the United States. The results were similar in both English and French Canada.

There also appears to be an association between Canadians’ views on nationalism and their views on multiculturalism.

“In contrast to the European idea of nationalism, having that ethnic component to it, most Canadians don’t see nationalism as ethnically driven. They see it more as a form of patriotism,” said Jack Jedwab, the association’s president. “It doesn’t intersect as much as it does in the European context with anti-immigrant sentiment, or a sentiment against diversity.”

The Leger Marketing survey of 1,519 Canadians on a web panel was conducted for the association the week of Nov. 12. Online surveys traditionally are not given a margin of error because they are not random and therefore are not necessarily representative of the whole population.

A day after his Nov. 11 comments, Trudeau was asked how he defined nationalism and where he saw it in Canada.

“In Canada, we’ve demonstrated many times that identities are complimentary,” he said. “I’m an extremely proud Quebecer, I’m an extremely proud Canadian and like most Canadians, they don’t see a contradiction in that.”

Experts say the more negative forms of nationalism are nevertheless simmering in Canada. Jedwab’s survey data suggest that respondents who have positive views of nationalism are somewhat more worried about immigration and security along the U.S. border than those who have negative views of nationalism.

Part of what fuelled U.S. President Donald Trump’s political rise, and his populist rhetoric, was financial worry — or what Graves described as the idea of the everyman versus the corrupt elites. Brock said Canada has thus far avoided similar concerns about class and finances, particularly coming out of the recession a decade ago, and a similar rise of nationalist rhetoric.

“Now, we’re facing some really serious economic challenges and if they come to pass, then we could see a different manifestation of this,” she said. “So I don’t think those (polling) figures are necessarily set in stone.”

Source: In Canada, the term ‘nationalism’ doesn’t seem to have a bad rap. Here’s why

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

Douglas Todd: B.C. coroner fails to release suicide data for international students

2018/12/11 Leave a comment

Surprising that they are not releasing the data. In my experience, British Columbia is better than most in responding to ATIP requests:

International students in Canada and around the world are not only under pressure to achieve high grades. Many are increasingly expected to become permanent residents in their chosen country so they can eventually sponsor their parents and siblings as immigrants.

Given the intense expectations placed on many young students navigating existence in a foreign country, reports of suicide among them are rising in Canada, the U.S., Australia and Britain, their most sought-after destinations.

The China Daily newspaper recently ran a story headlined, ”Suicide stalking too many Chinese studying overseas,” which detailed a spate of suicides among the 330,000 Chinese students studying and working in the U.S.

The large newspaper, which many see as a guide to China’s government policy, urged public officials to find out why. Is it because of “fear of failing and disappointing their parents” or “the loneliness that comes with having to struggle on their own?”

After the suicide last year of Linhai Yu, a young Chinese foreign student in Richmond, China’s consul general for Vancouver also expressed worry about suicide among the 53,000 Chinese students in Metro Vancouver. “Incident rates among the group,” Xuan Zheng said, “have been quite high.”

The grim stories of foreign-student depression and suicide are pouring in from across Canada and the world. This fall, friends of an Indian student in Ontario blamed his self-inflicted death on Canada’s immigration department not granting him a work visa to stay longer. Similar stories from around the world show foreign students at higher risk of mental-health stress.

Given that B.C. has the most foreign students per capita in Canada — being home to more than 130,000 of the Canadian total of 500,000 — my senior editor suggested contacting the B.C. Coroners Service to put some numbers on how many international students have taken their lives.

We thought the information wouldn’t be difficult to determine, since the Coroners Service says it is a “fact-finding” agency responsible for investigating all “unnatural” and “sudden” deaths and making recommendations to “prevent death in similar circumstances.”

My first contact with the Service was in May. In the ensuing seven months, despite numerous communications, the service has failed to provide any information at all about suicide rates among international students. It has, however, offered a steady string of delays and excuses, mixed with large doses of obfuscation.

The B.C. Coroners Service either has no idea how many international students in B.C. have been committing suicide. Or it worries that being frank about it would be insensitive; politically, socially, educationally or psychologically. Perhaps its leadership team, with Lisa LaPointe as long-time chief, just doesn’t think the public has a right to know. We’re just guessing.

Meanwhile, a dire mental-health phenomenon continues to expand along with the unprecedented rise of international students, which politicians and educational administrators welcome for the billions of dollars they pour into local economies and educators’ salaries.

The suicide rate among all students in higher education has long been grave. A British report found university students were killing themselves at the rate of one every four days, the large majority being male.

But emotional stress is even more extreme on students coming in from other countries, according to Australian researchers, who are ahead of professionals in Canada in tracking the emotional difficulties they face with isolation, housing, language, education and immigration status.

Even though Australian coroners, consulates and universities were found to be suppressing details about overseas students’ deaths, the country’s federal government admitted earlier that 51 foreign students had died in one 12-month period. But it took outside investigators to point out that suicide was a key cause of the deaths.

One study in the Australian Journal of Psychology found that Chinese international students experienced significantly higher levels of stress than their Australian counterparts. Education Minister Simon Birmingham this year responded to pleas to better support international students by promising to release more detailed comparative data on their mental health.

Australian sociologist Helen Forbes-Mewett discovered some parents send their mentally unwell children overseas in the hope the health system in their host country is superior to that at home. But extra pressures and traditional cultural stigmas about mental illness, said the Monash University professor, typically compound foreign students’ vulnerability.

Forbes-Mewett says it is impossible to lay blame for foreign students’ mental health or elevated risk of suicide on any one agency. As she suggests, it’s “everyone’s problem.” But at the least more B.C. officials could follow the lead of Australia and release relevant data on suicide rates.

Otherwise the public is kept in the dark, and the private anguish of many overwhelmed international students will silently persist.

Source: Douglas Todd: B.C. coroner fails to release suicide data for international students

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

QS: des divisions autour du port de signes religieux

2018/12/11 Leave a comment

Not terribly surprising that the QS divisions reflect Quebec society at large. Will be interesting to see how and if resolved:

Des lignes de fracture sont apparues au grand jour dans les rangs de Québec solidaire (QS), samedi, alors que le parti s’apprête à redéfinir sa position sur la laïcité.

Des membres de partout au Québec sont réunis à Montréal depuis vendredi à l’occasion du Conseil national de la formation, le premier depuis les élections du 1er octobre. Le rassemblement vise à faire le point sur la campagne historique qui a mené à l’élection de 10 députés solidaires.

Mais en parallèle, les délégués entament une réflexion sur l’enjeu explosif de la laïcité. En mars, ils seront appelés à redéfinir la position du parti sur l’interdiction des signes religieux dans la fonction publique. Et déjà, les clivages étaient apparents samedi.

« Ça peut être très déchirant », a convenu Lise Boivin, coordinatrice du Collectif pour la laïcité de Québec solidaire.

Ce groupe milite pour une interdiction complète des signes religieux dans l’ensemble de la fonction publique, une position plus ferme encore que celle de la Coalition avenir Québec. Mme Boivin fait valoir que les employés de l’État ne peuvent afficher leur appartenance à un parti politique. Selon elle, il devrait en être de même pour la religion.

« La religion, c’est une idéologie aussi. On est libre d’adopter celle qu’on veut. Mais quand on est au service des citoyens, on ne devrait pas afficher notre appartenance religieuse. »

À l’autre bout du débat, on trouve l’ancienne candidate dans Mont-Royal-Outremont, Ève Torres. Cette musulmane féministe porte le voile. Elle souhaite que l’aile parlementaire du parti cesse de défendre le compromis Bouchard-Taylor, qui propose l’interdiction des signes religieux aux fonctionnaires en position de coercition comme les policiers, les juges et les gardiens de prison.

« Ce n’est pas ma position personnelle, a affirmé Mme Torres. Pour moi, il est évident, en tant que féministe, que personne très engagée pour la justice sociale, pour moi il n’y a pas de compromis possible parce que j’ai bien conscience de l’impact que ça a. »

Les tenants des deux positions ont disposé des tables dans le collège de Maisonneuve, où se tient le Conseil national. Ils distribuent des tracts aux membres, qui recevront demain un document de réflexion sur le sujet.

ÉCHANGE ET DISCUSSION

La co-porte-parole de QS Manon Massé ne craint pas que la laïcité sème la discorde au sein de ses troupes.

« Ce que ça démontre, c’est que QS n’est pas le parti dogmatique qu’on tend à vouloir dépeindre. Il y a de la vie, il y a de l’échange, il y a de la discussion. Ce n’est pas tout le monde qui pense pareil et c’est ce qu’on veut permettre avec le cahier de réflexion. »

Les députés interrogés samedi matin n’ont pas manifesté le désir de changer leur position sur le compromis Bouchard-Taylor.

« Moi, je suis à l’aise de défendre cette position en ce moment, a résumé la députée de Sherbrooke, Christine Labrie. Mais je trouve qu’effectivement, ça vaut la peine de se poser la question à savoir si c’est encore la meilleure position. »

« Ma position, c’est le compromis Bouchard-Taylor, a renchéri le député de Jean-Lesage, Sol Zanetti. C’est ça qu’on défend. Il est possible que ce soit maintenu, il est possible qu’on diffère. »

« SENSIBLE »

Émilise Lessard-Therrien, qui représente Rouyn-Noranda-Témiscamingue, s’est dite à l’aise avec la position actuelle du parti. Elle s’attend cependant à un débat vigoureux dans les rangs solidaires au cours des prochains mois.

« Possiblement que ça va être quelque chose de sensible, a-t-elle reconnu. Mais en même temps, on peut juste l’appréhender. On ne l’a pas vécu encore et ça va se passer au cours des prochains mois. »

Source: QS: des divisions autour du port de signes religieux

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

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