La CAQ adoucit sa position sur l’immigration

2018/05/17 Leave a comment

The contrast in titles between the Globe (CAQ seeks to expel immigrants who fail ‘Quebec values’ test – The Globe and Mail) and La Presse is telling (La Presse is the more up-to-date version).

Will be interesting to see if the CPC in its effort to gain support in Quebec by further devolving immigration responsibility to that province (Tories on the rise in Quebec as Scheer woos former Bloc voters, poll …) will have second thoughts should the CAQ be elected and implement such post immigration testing:

À quatre mois des prochaines élections, la Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) a édulcoré sa position sur l’immigration. Plus question pour le Québec d’expulser des immigrants qui, au bout de trois ans, n’ont pas appris le français ou ne cherchent pas un emploi ; il appartiendra à Ottawa de procéder éventuellement à des évictions.

Dans un « document d’orientation » sur l’immigration publié ce mois-ci, la CAQ se défend de vouloir expulser ou extrader des immigrants : « le recours à ce vocabulaire témoigne d’une mauvaise foi ou d’une méconnaissance de nos institutions », indique-t-on. Un immigrant « récalcitrant » qui ne respecterait pas l’engagement pris à son arrivée ne serait plus admissible au Certificat de sélection du Québec ; « le gouvernement du Québec fera alors parvenir au gouvernement fédéral un avis officiel pour l’informer de la présence en territoire canadien d’une personne sans statut. Le gouvernement fédéral décidera alors des mesures qu’il entend prendre ».

« [Le pouvoir d’expulsion], je ne pense pas avoir jamais dit que ce serait le gouvernement qui le ferait. Le seul pouvoir que le Québec a est d’accorder ou non un certificat de sélection. » – François Legault, chef de la CAQ, dans un entretien avec La Presse

Sans ce certificat, « techniquement, la personne se retrouve sans statut, donc elle ne peut rester au Canada ».

En conférence de presse, le 16 mars 2015, en présentant la politique avec le député Simon Jolin-Barrette, M. Legault s’était fait demander si les contrevenants seraient expulsés. « L’immigrant [qui] ne reçoit pas son certificat permanent, bien oui, il devra retourner, puis le gouvernement fédéral devra s’assurer que cette personne retourne chez elle », avait-il dit. Plus tard, à une autre question sur l’éviction des immigrants récalcitrants, il avait ajouté qu’ils pourraient être candidats dans d’autres provinces, mais pas au Québec. « Ils ne peuvent pas rester de façon permanente même s’ils se sont fait une blonde, un chum au Québec puis qu’ils ont eu un enfant. À un moment donné, il y a des lois, puis nous, on pense que c’est important pour le vivre-ensemble québécois que les personnes parlent français, connaissent et respectent les valeurs québécoises et répondent aux objectifs d’employabilité », avait soutenu M. Legault il y a trois ans.

La proposition de la CAQ maintient la réduction du nombre d’immigrants acceptés chaque année – des 50 000 actuels, on voudrait passer à 40 000. « C’est une réduction temporaire », a expliqué hier M. Legault, qui rappelle qu’après 10 ans, 26 % des immigrants reçus ont quitté le Québec. « Pendant un certain nombre d’années, il faut réduire le nombre. Actuellement, à 50 000, on excède nos capacités à l’emploi et à la formation en français », observe-t-il. La barre sera remise à 50 000 une fois ces objectifs atteints. « Au cours d’un mandat ? Je ne veux pas fixer de délais, mais cela pourrait être ça », a précisé M. Legault.

Selon le premier ministre Philippe Couillard, la position de la CAQ illustre que pour ce parti, l’immigration « est un problème à régler ». « [Une autre idée] de M. Legault qui est brouillonne et inapplicable à plusieurs égards. Ce que sous-tend ce discours-là, c’est le fait que l’immigrant est un problème ; c’est un problème à régler, alors que c’est une occasion extraordinaire pour le Québec », a lancé M. Couillard en marge du point de presse où il a confirmé qu’Alexandre Taillefer deviendrait président de la campagne électorale du Parti libéral du Québec (PLQ).

Au Parti québécois (PQ), on qualifie la position de la CAQ en matière d’immigration d’« irréaliste ».

« Ce n’est pas sérieux, a martelé hier le chef du Parti québécois, Jean-François Lisée. Ce que la CAQ dit, c’est : “On va faire entrer jusqu’à 100 % d’immigrants qui ne connaissent pas le français puis, après trois ou quatre ans, s’ils ne l’ont pas appris, ils vont rester parce qu’on va demander au fédéral de les expulser, [mais] le fédéral ne va pas les expulser.” »

« On est au coeur de l’imagination fautive de la CAQ, proposer des affaires qui ne se peuvent pas, qui n’existera pas, qui ne sera pas appliquée », a souligné M. Lisée.

via La CAQ adoucit sa position sur l’immigration | Denis Lessard | Politique québécoise

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Violeta Moskalu: Bill aims to strip Ukrainians living abroad of citizenship | KyivPost

2018/05/17 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to see whether the Ukrainian Canadian community takes a more high profile on this this proposed legislation (welcome comment by any Ukrainian Canadian readers).

StatsCan data suggests that less than 10 percent of Ukrainian immigrants (first generation) have dual citizenship:

The Verkhovna Rada may soon consider amendments that could deprive many Ukrainians living abroad of their citizenship.

President Petro Poroshenko submitted the amendments, called bill No. 8297, on April 19, identifying them as urgent. The amendments will be considered by a Rada committee on May 16 and may be considered by the Rada as early as on May 17.

The legislation was previously promoted by the authorities as being aimed at depriving of their citizenship those who voted in Russia’s fake referendum to annex Ukraine’s Crimea in March 2014.

In fact, it will not apply to those people, but may apply to almost any Ukrainian with dual nationality abroad. The wording of the bill is so vague that its effect may be devastating.

The bill says that “(…) if an adult citizen of Ukraine has used an electoral or other right granted to him by foreign citizenship or has fulfilled the duties that foreign citizenship puts on him, which can be confirmed by the data of the public registers of state bodies or local governments of foreign states, information published on official websites, in official publications by state bodies or bodies of local government and/or documents provided by such bodies, or if he or she (an adult citizen of Ukraine) received or used in Ukraine or during the departure/entry to Ukraine a passport of a foreign state, which has been recorded by an official employee of the State Border Guard of Ukraine or another the state body of Ukraine.”

Bill No. 8297 states that “the acquisition of Russian citizenship due to unlawful … actions on the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol by the occupation administration of the Russian Federation” will not be classified as the voluntary acquisition of citizenship. Therefore, participation in the sham Russian elections in Kremlin-annexed Crimea it will not be considered as grounds for stripping a person of Ukrainian citizenship.

This is not the first attempt by Poroshenko to deprive of millions of Ukrainian people of Ukrainian citizenship. In March 2017, bill 6175 was submitted by the president to the Verkhovna Rada, but thanks to the efforts of the Ukrainian diaspora and Ukrainian expats, the bill was blocked.

Moreover, Poroshenko has used citizenship legislation as a tool to get rid of his political opponents. Last year, he stripped his vehement critic Mikheil Saakashvili and his ally Sasha Borovik of their Ukrainian citizenship.

The cancellation of their citizenship violated Ukrainian and international law and due process and was politically motivated, according to both Saakashvili’s lawyers and independent ones.

Despite the catastrophic demographic situation in Ukraine, the Ukrainian government continues its attempts to deprive citizenship to a large number of Ukrainian people, without recognizing that today de facto, at least 10 percent of Ukrainians are bi- or multi- national.

In fact, the repeated attempt to pass such legislation seems even more threatening, since this repeated political mistake is interpreted by experts as a conscious desire to deprive of Ukrainian citizenship millions of Ukrainian people who temporarily live abroad, without any understanding of their role and contribution to the development of Ukraine.

Ukrainians who live abroad are the best lobbyists of Ukraine. Moreover, they are de facto the best investors, who support Ukraine financially on their shoulders, as the mythological ancient Greek titans. According to the data of the National Bank and the State Statistics Service, Ukrainians abroad transfer five times more money to their homeland than foreign investors. For example, in 2017, Ukrainian migrants transferred to Ukraine $9.3 billion. By comparison, during the same period, foreign direct investments amounted to $1.8 billion. Financial transfers from Ukrainians abroad are increasing every year ($7 billion in 2015, $7.5 billion in 2016). Thus, the recent relative stability of the national currency has been achieved thanks to the Ukrainians living and working abroad. Meanwhile, due to the fact that about 10 million Ukrainians work abroad, Ukraine has a lower level of unemployment, and their financial transfers reduce the level of poverty in the country.

A careful analysis of international practice shows that the global trend is the opposite to banning multiple citizenship. Since 1960, the global tendency has changed dramatically, and the vast majority of states do not use their laws to automatically deprive people of citizenship. International experience on the multiple citizenship phenomenon shows that 55 percent of countries allow multiple citizenship without restrictions, 19 percent of states allow it with certain limitations, and only 26 percent of countries ban multiple citizenship. These last are mostly the least developed countries of the world.

While Israel and China fight for the rights of their citizens living outside the country, and in Germany or in Canada there are special integration programs, Ukraine prefers not only to forget about foreign Ukrainians, but even to break ties with them, and revoke their Ukrainian passports. In parallel, the Ukrainian authorities do not create opportunities for high-skilled specialists to return to Ukraine, to help in reforming the country, or bring in new, modern attitudes and approaches, or innovations.

“Ukraine needs powerful government managers, especially with experience from successful projects abroad. Therefore, the adoption of these amendments is inadmissible. These amendments will push Ukrainians to renounce to their Ukrainian nationality and will make it impossible to attract the best specialists to state bodies. In fact, this could be qualified as political sabotage against Ukraine,” said Vadym Tryukhan, a Ukrainian political analyst and ex-diplomat.

The most-used political thesis to defend this rigid approach to citizenship is that in this case Ukrainian politicians will not be able to have several passports.

“The authors of such bills seem to completely ignore the risks of loss of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens as a result of adopting these amendments,” says Igor Reshetnyak, an activist of the Ukrainian community in France and Switzerland.

“This is especially critical at time when the population of Ukraine is steadily decreasing. Of course, there are different agents of the Kremlin in Ukraine, but their damage is not in holding several passports, but in their illegal actions. For these actions they should be punished, and in this case the possession of Ukrainian citizenship by these agents only makes it easier to bring them to justice.”

Given that a presidential election will be held next year, the bill looks like an attempt to diminish the electoral rights of Ukrainians living abroad, who may have a different (and sometimes more critical) vision of the actions of the present government.

“As always, the authorities ignore the interests of millions of Ukrainians who live abroad,” says Tamila Karpyk, a representative of Open World Learning in Toronto and an activist of the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada.

“Rather than anticipating the restoration of electoral constitutional rights and ensuring the full representation of the interests of Ukrainians abroad in the Ukrainian parliament (today there are no deputies from a foreign constituency in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine), the authorities make numerous attempts to curtail their electoral rights.”

Some lawmakers are aware of the need for massive public discussion and a professional approach to public policy, but their voice is poorly heard in the media.

“Citizenship can be neither a free gift nor a tsar’s ‘punishment,’” says Oksana Syroyid, a lawmaker from the Samopomich party and deputy speaker of the Rada.

“In a globalized world, in a context of ‘non-visa regimes’ and negative labor migration, the policy on citizenship needs changes. Citizenship should be seen not only as an identity and privilege of ‘vassalage.’ In any case, changing citizenship policy requires more public consensus rather than arbitrary decisions.”

During the times of Stalin, the Ukrainian intelligentsia and dissidents were eradicated by the Soviet NKVD, and now Poroshenko is making a second attempt to revoke the Ukrainian passports of those Ukrainians who have succeeded in the global world. Will this second attempt be successful?

via Violeta Moskalu: Bill aims to strip Ukrainians living abroad of citizenship | KyivPost

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Against #ResistanceGenealogy: Digging up information about the immigrant ancestors of Trumpsters is doing more harm than good.

2018/05/17 Leave a comment

Thoughtful critique, both substantively and in terms of effectiveness.

While I too share her initial like of Mendelsohn’s work, in the end, is it meaningful to compare previous immigration periods and patterns when the workforce was less dependent on skilled labour than today’s labour market needs? And does it resonate with those who are on the fence on immigration-related issues?:

I want to love #ResistanceGenealogy, the hashtag and project started by Jennifer Mendelsohn. The journalist and researcher digs up genealogical information on prominent Trumpsters, especially those who are architects and cheerleaders of the administration’s restrictive stance on immigration. Tomi Lahren’s great-great-grandfather forged citizenship papers; Mike Pence’s family benefited from “chain migration”; James Woods’ ancestors fled famine and moved to Britain as refugees. Plenty of liberals applaud Mendelsohn’s finds; others have joined in the project and contributed to the hashtag with their own family stories. She’s gotten coverage everywhere from Politico to Wonkette to CNN.

But #ResistanceGenealogy is fundamentally flawed. Its popularity showcases the left’s inability to recognize how deeply racism is embedded in the Trump administration’s approach to immigration, and to see clearly what the effects of that racism are.

Starting in the 1830s and 1840s, some American abolitionists advocated for a tactic called moral suasion, arguing that surely white Americans who truly knew about the full horrors of slavery would change their minds and fight for its abolition. They tried to promote fellow feeling, telling stories of separation and sexual abuse to play upon Victorian idealization of family togetherness and womanly virtue. This worked for some listeners, but not for others, whose racism and complicity in the system deadened any natural empathy they might have had. Ending slavery took a war.

It feels like we’re making a similar mistake here. Mendelsohn has tweeted that her project is about compassion, and strives for the awakening of empathy. But no extremely moving information about John Kelly’s or Mike Pence’s families from decades ago will make immigration hawks rethink the way they perceive a story like the one about ICE taking an 18-month-old child from his Honduran mother—telling her to strap him into a car seat, and then driving away without allowing her to say goodbye. From an immigration hawk’s point of view, that’s not anyone like their mother, not anyone like their family.

The chasm between the life and experiences of a white American, even one who’s descended from desperate immigrants of decades past, and the life of this Honduran mother is the entire point of racist anti-immigration thought. Diminishment of the human qualities of entering immigrants (“unskilled” and “unmodern” immigrants coming from “shithole” countries) reinforces the distance between the two. People who support the Trump administration’s immigration policies want fewer Honduran mothers and their 18-month-olds to enter the country. If you start from this position, nothing you hear about illiterate Germans coming to the United States in the 19th century will change your mind.

We need to get past the idea that immigration hawks simply don’t know the immigration history of this country.

Besides giving people who rally against immigration too much benefit of the doubt, this comparative approach is ahistorical (purposefully so, since it’s making an argument for the connection between human experiences across time). This, like our reliance on the invocation of the Emma Lazarus poem on the Statue of Liberty, flattens everything out in a way that does nothing to enhance a pro-immigration argument for 2018.

We need to get past the idea that immigration hawks simply don’t know the immigration history of this country. In an influential 1992 article in the National Review, anti-immigration hard-liner and white (excuse me, “civic”) nationalist Peter Brimelow wrote that the restrictive decades between the enactment of restrictive quotas in the 1920s and the 1965 Immigration Act—a time he called “the Great Immigration Lull”—gave the country time to absorb and assimilate the immigrants who came in the early 20th century. (In one surreal passage, he writes, “the American nation was just swallowing, and then digesting … an unusually large and spicy immigrant meal.”)

That 1920s decision to install quotas based on racist pseudoscience, which historians on the left view as a damning episode in American immigration history, was, to Brimelow, a positive story: “[O]nce convinced that their nationhood was threatened by continued massive immigration, Americans changed the public policies that made it possible.” (Jeff Sessions is a fan too.) Brimelow’s 1995 book Alien Nation got positive coverage from the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Atlantic Monthly, and so on. Brimelow, and those who think like him, know very well what the history of American immigration was like. They just draw different lessons from it than liberals do.

What about the idea that Americans who benefited from immigration in the past should not “pull up the ladder” after themselves—that they should, knowing their family’s history of struggle and success, give others the chance their ancestors were accorded? Liberals, animated by a sense of fairness, can’t believe that somebody descended from Italian peasants can live with the idea of excluding Syrian refugees today. But what looks like the most galling hypocrisy to liberals seems, to immigration hawks, like self-protective common sense. In one passage, Brimelow mocked the core of the very argument animating #ResistanceGenealogy: “How can X be against immigration when the nativists wanted to keep his own great-grandfather out?” This concept is illogical, Brimelow writes: “This, of course, is like arguing that a passenger already on board the lifeboat should refrain from pointing out that taking on more will cause it to capsize.”

It’s not possible to overcome today’s racist thought on immigration with reminders about past discrimination. The Irish and Italians and Germans weren’t “white” back then, as resistance genealogists like to remind people like John Kelly, but they sure are white now. Since it’s a stated belief of many on the right that a history of discrimination, even a horrific one, shouldn’t matter to a person living in 2018 (see: “Why are black people always talking about slavery?”), it makes little sense to expect that this information about past oppression would move any immigration hawk to defend today’s huddled masses.

One mistake that the left tends to make in engaging in historical fights is to believe the right is simply ignorant and that exposure to more history will change their minds. Liberals do this again and again: writing pieces about Andrew Jackson’s horrific treatment of the Cherokees, issuing correctives about the cause of the Civil War (slavery—it was slavery), telling Kanye to read a book. We seem to hope, all evidence to the contrary, that the real information will get through—and once it gets through, it’ll meet minds that share our moral values and will change accordingly. #ResistanceGenealogy makes all of these assumptions. It gravely underestimates the gulf between these two belief systems. I wish it would work. It won’t.

via Against #ResistanceGenealogy: Digging up information about the immigrant ancestors of Trumpsters is doing more harm than good.

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How Trump is really changing immigration: making it harder for people to come here legally

2018/05/16 Leave a comment

Good overview:

A Trump supporter named John B. who emailed me recently wrote that, “No one is against legal immigration.” President Trump and his administration are, I replied.

Yes, Trump still wants his big, beautiful wall to stop illegal border crossings. But he’s been railing against all forms of immigration since his campaign. And he’s having a much easier time chipping away at legal immigration than funding his wall. In some cases, the methods are strict quotas or new rules. But paperworkand red tape work, too. For instance, this administration tripled the number of pages in green card applications. Forms for sponsoring a foreign-born spouse are nine times longer than they used to be.

Here’s an overview of key ways Trump has made it more difficult and expensive to come here legally for foreign students, skilled temporary workers, green cards holders, refugees and others.

H1-B visas

The Trump administration has piled new compliance rules, documentation requirements and other regulations on H-1B visas. These changes make it much more costly for employers to use H-1B visas to hire skilled foreign workers, which is a likely reason that applications dropped by 20% from 2016 to 2018.

H4 visas

The Trump administration announced plans to take away work permits from those with H-4 visas — the visa for spouses of H-1B workers. In 2015, the Obama administration allowed H-4s to work, and about 91,000 of these visa holders, many of whom are as skilled as their spouses, leaped at the opportunity.

Foreign students

The number of foreign students at U.S. universities was down about 17% in 2017 and likely will fall further this year. A major draw of studying in the United States is the ability to work here after graduation. Those on student visas can legally work for 12 months after earning their degrees, and STEM graduates can stay for three years under a program called Optional Practical Training. In 2016, about 200,000 students signed up for OPT, which is often a first step toward an H-1B visa.

Foreign students fear that President Trump will restrict OPT or the H-1B visa. Trump hasn’t canceled OPT yet (and his administration even defended it in court) but $63,000 a year (the cost of tuition and living expenses at UCLA) starts to look like a very risky investment if paying for it depends on getting a work visa in a few years.

Refugees

Trump temporarily halted the entire refugee program last year, claiming that terrorists would get into the country masquerading as refugees. It started up again for most countries, but Trump precipitously cut the number of refugees the U.S. will accept. If admissions for 2018 continue at their current pace, 75% fewer refugees will arrive this year than in 2016. Trump even canceled a planned pilot program that would have allowed private individuals or charities to sponsor refugees and absorb all welfare costs — the kind of program Canada has had for more than a decade.

Muslim ban

Preventing terrorism was the reason given for Trump’s so-called Muslim ban, an executive order that limits or altogether bars visas for citizens of several Muslim-majority countries, North Korea and Venezuela. Lower courts keep ruling against it, but the ban and related policies are having a big effect. For instance, while all refugee numbers are down from 2016, the number of Muslim refugees has been cut by 91%. Immigrant visas issued to people from Muslim-majority countries are down 26%, and temporary visitors from Muslim-majority countries by 32%.

‘Extreme vetting’

Last year, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson ordered additional security screenings for all immigrants and visitors seeking visas — a move also presented as a way of keeping out terrorists. Immigration attorney Shabnam Lotfi told me that these new procedures, “are causing significant and expensive delays for visa applicants who have already been vetted under the current effective security procedures.”

Asylum

The administration has directly and indirectly hampered the ability of foreigners to ask for asylum in the U.S. For instance, it cut the number of visas issued to Venezuelans by as much as 74% relative to 2013. That country is in political and economic crisis, but Venezuelans have to get to the U.S. to request asylum — and they can’t get here without a visa. Meantime, the Border Patrol is discouraging asylum-seekers from Central America by breaking up families who arrive at the southern border. The government places parents and children in separate immigration detention cells, sometimes for months.

Temporary Protected Status

In a string of announcements over recent months, Trump has said he’ll end Temporary Protected Status by 2020 for about 437,000 migrants mostly from El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti. TPS allowed them to stay here legally after natural disasters struck their home countries. More than 80% of TPS migrants from those countries have jobs here. They have about 273,000 U.S.-born children. Many have been here for decades; they won’t leave now, just as Salvadorans didn’t leave between 1996 and 2001 when their TPS was rescinded.

This is just the low-hanging fruit on the immigration tree. Trump would happily prune more if he could get Congress to go along. He endorsed the RAISE Act, which would cut legal forms of immigration by 50%. He so badly wants to eliminate diversity visas and severely restrict family-based immigration that he seemed willing to trade partial amnesty for some Dreamers (the young people enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program). Still, the changes Trump pushed for would have resulted in the largest policy-driven gutting of legal immigration since the 1920s. Thankfully, they didn’t make it through the Senate.

Trump campaigned that he would take steps to grow the economy by 3% per year or more. To that end, he’s cut taxes and slashed regulation. But he needs legal immigrant entrepreneurs, investors and workers to keep expanding economic growth — especially with unemployment now below 4%. He won’t make America great again without letting in more legal immigrants.

Source: How Trump is really changing immigration: making it harder for people to come here legally

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Sadrehashemi/Waldman: Four myths about Canada’s border crossings

2018/05/16 Leave a comment

While their arguments have a sound basis, I find them somewhat disingenuous.

One could, for example, designate Roxham Road as a port of entry, given that 91 percent come through there. Some would, or course, try other places to enter, and we may get into a game of “whack a mole”, but no need to patrol the entire border as in many places, geography still makes it harder.

And one could, as Howard Anglin has suggested earlier (How Canada can restore order to its immigration system – Macleans.ca), have any increase in asylum seekers count against the total number of refugees rather than merely be additive.

Whatever the option proposed, or options being considered by the government, there are no easy solutions. But however and ultimately, as Andrew Coyne has argued, viability depends on cooperation with the US (Andrew Coyne: Asylum problem will only be fixed … – The Victoria Star).

While I agree that some of the rhetoric regarding the influx if overblown, similarly downplaying the risks to public confidence in immigration is equally unhelpful:

Michelle Rempel, Conservative immigration critic, tweeted recently that the media was finally writing about “illegal border crossings” after she had been raising it for a year. The problem is that several recurring myths are shaping much of the coverage. Here are four of them:

The first myth is that Canada could designate the entire border as a port of entry. This is not a viable option. The public safety minister cannot legally designate the entire border as a “port of entry.” Under our law, a “port of entry” is a place designated open by the minister based on a number of factors, including the anticipated frequency of persons arriving at a particular location. Border officials must examine and process people seeking to enter Canada at ports of entry.

Imagine that all 8,891 kilometres of our border with the United States were a port of entry. Even if we only had one officer every 100 meters, we would still need more than 270,000 new officers to cover the border 24/7. This is not a serious policy proposal and should not be treated as one.

The second myth is that refugee claimants who are crossing into Canada at non-official border crossings are entering illegally. Canada is a signatory to the UN Convention on Refugees. Under international law, a refugee claimant cannot be punished for the way they enter into a country to seek asylum. Our immigration law does not make it illegal to enter Canada using informal border crossings, as long as a person reports to border services without delay. There is no legal basis to insist, as some have, that those who cross at non-official border points should be summarily deported, or that their refugee claims should be expedited since they will be refused. Underlying these suggestions is the assumption that people who are entering are not “real refugees.” The problem is that you cannot tell whether someone is a “real refugee” simply by the way they enter your country. In fact, in 2017, 53 per cent of those who crossed irregularly from the United States were found to be refugees.

The third myth is that people who are crossing from the United States are taking the spots reserved for refugees Canada would bring from overseas, somehow displacing them from a “queue.” This is comparing apples and oranges. Canada has a quota for the number of refugees it brings from overseas, either through the private sponsorship program or the government assisted refugee program. The quota is not determined by the number of refugee claims that are made in Canada. A rise in the number of refugee claimants arriving at Canada’s border does not push out refugees that Canada would accept from overseas camps.

Fourth, the rush to extreme, unviable policy solutions is predicated on the most egregious myth: the federal government has lost control of the border. This is far from true. The vast majority of those crossing the border, 91 per cent, are coming through one place, Roxham Road in Quebec, and immediately declaring themselves to Canadian authorities. There is no pressure to go “under-ground”; instead, there is a fair process to ensure proper adjudication of refugee claims. Security checks are expedited for these claimants, ensuring those who enter in this fashion do not pose a security threat. The government has also increased the capacity of border officials and refugee adjudicators.

While some try to raise alarm about a “crisis” at the border, the number of refugee claimants in Canada has to be put into a broader perspective. It is true that the number of refugee claimants has risen over the last year, but we also saw similar numbers in 2001. And globally, the same number of refugee claimants who came to Canada over all of last year entered Bangladesh in a single day. This is not the time to ignore our global duties and hastily throw up new barriers. Rather, by treating those who have crossed from the United States fairly and with compassion, according to law, Canada will merely be complying with its obligations as a party to the UN Refugee Convention.

via Sadrehashemi: Four myths about Canada’s border crossings | Ottawa Citizen

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Fewer Americans Renounce Citizenship, But Taxes Still Drive Them

2018/05/16 Leave a comment

The latest numbers (some debate on Twitter for the reasons):

For the first time in five years, the number of Americans who renounced their citizenship fell slightly in 2017 (5,133) from the previous year (5,411), which had been a record. The total for the first quarter of 2018 was 1,099. In recent years there has been a marked upswing in expatriations, and tax considerations are often at least a part of the equation. Moreover, these published numbers are probably lower than the actual number of those who expatriated. How complete these lists are remains unclear. Despite the official list, many leavers are not counted, and both the IRS and FBI track Americans who renounce. 

The figures for recent years show an important trend. The total for calendar year 2016 was 5,411, up 26% from 2015, which had 4,279 published expatriates. The 2015 total was 58% more than in 2014. The reasons for renouncing can be family, tax and legal complications, and some renouncers write why they gave up their U.S. citizenship. Expats have long clamored for tax relief. One law motivating some is FATCA, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. FATCA has been ramped up worldwide, and requiring an annual Form 8938 filing if your foreign assets meet a threshold.

FATCA was enacted in 2010, and over five years, was painstakingly implemented worldwide by the U.S. Treasury Department. In now spans the globe with an unparalleled network of reporting. America requires foreign banks and governments to hand over secret bank data about depositors. Non-U.S. banks and financial institutions around the world must reveal American account details or risk big penalties. Some renounce because of global tax reporting and FATCA. Dual citizenship is not always possible, as this infographic  shows. America’s global income tax compliance and disclosure laws can be a burden, especially for U.S. persons living abroad. Their American status can make them untouchable by many banks.

Americans living and working abroad must generally report and pay tax where they live. But they must also continue to file taxes in the U.S., where reporting is based on their worldwide income. A foreign tax credit often does not eliminate double taxes. Moreover, enforcement fears are palpable for the annual foreign bank account reports called FBARs. They carry big civil and even potential criminal penalties. The civil penalties alone can consume the entire balance of an account.

Ironically, even leaving America can be costly. America charges $2,350 to hand in your passport, a fee that is more than twenty times the average of other high-income countries. The U.S. hiked the fee to renounce by 422%, as previously there was a $450 fee to renounce, and no fee to relinquish. Now, there is a $2,350 fee either way. The State Department said raising the fee was about demand and paperwork, but the number of American expatriations kept increasing. Moreover, to exit, one generally must prove 5 years of IRS tax compliance. And getting into IRS compliance can be expensive and worrisome. For some, a reason to get into compliance is to renounce.

However, if you have a net worth greater than $2 million, or have average annual net income tax for the 5 previous years of $162,000 or more, you can pay an exit tax. It is a capital gain tax, calculated as if you sold your property when you left. A long-term resident giving up a Green Card can be required to pay the exit tax too. Sometimes, planning and valuations can reduce or eliminate the tax, but the tax worry can be real, even for those who will not face it.

Source: Fewer Americans Renounce Citizenship, But Taxes Still Drive Them

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How violent U.S. rally outed key players in Montreal’s alt-right

2018/05/15 Leave a comment

Good long read (abridged here):

They didn’t want to show up to the white nationalist rally empty-handed.

The Unite the Right march in Virginia would be the largest white supremacist gathering in a generation and the small, militant crew of Quebecers were eager to make an impression.

A few days before the long drive south, one of their leaders logged onto an American alt-right forum with a request.

“We are about 20 guys driving through the border from Canada and we obviously will not be able to bring protective gear like shields and so on through the border agents,” wrote Date, a prominent Montreal white nationalist. “If you’ve got extra ones, some of our members are interested in buying them from you over there.”

The following night, on Aug. 10, 2017, one of the group members withdrew $850 in Bitcoin to help cover expenses. Activists in the alt-right use the online currency because it’s unregulated and difficult to trace.

They left for Charlottesville a few hours later.

On Aug. 11, the Montrealers would participate in a torch march through Charlottesville, blending into a crowd that chanted “Blood and soil” and “Jews will not replace us.”

The next day, they faced off with a crowd of anti-fascists in the southern college town. As the rally wound down, a white supremacist drove his car into a mass of counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old Charlottesville resident Heather Heyer.

Within an hour of the attack, users of an encrypted white supremacist chat room in Montreal began posting memes congratulating the attacker and describing his vehicle as a “car of peace.”

Last month, the Montreal Gazette obtained roughly 12,000 closed messages from the closed “Montreal Storm” server on Discord, an encrypted chat service. Those documents, combined with information from sources close to the group, indicate that the initial thrill of Charlottesville quickly gave way to a culture of paranoia within the group.

Those days in Charlottesville were meant to be a sort of coming-out party for the alt-right. The torch march, the shields, the clubs, the guns, the beatings — these were meant to show the world that the white nationalist movement was a force to be reckoned with. Charlottesville was going to be their Kristallnacht.

It didn’t go as planned.

In the backlash that followed Heyer’s death, the alt-right began to implode. Waves of men who participated had their identities revealed, lost their jobs and friends, and dropped out of the movement.

….

The evolution of Generation Identity Canada’s branding is reflective of a shift in strategy for various alt-right groups. As the term “alt-right” became toxic after the violence in Charlottesville, the groups which organized under its umbrella attempted to rebrand.

The switch from Generation Identity to ID Canada reflects the push, exemplified by Andrew Anglin of the Daily Stormer, for groups to adopt “patriotic” positions as cover for their white supremacist ideology.

ID Canada, whose membership seems to be mostly drawn from the Montreal Storm crew, appears to be an attempt to bring such a strategy to life. The group refers to itself as “identitarian,” drawing on the European far-right theory. They frame their actions specifically in the language of patriotism, and reverence for (white) Canadian history.

On its frequently asked questions page, ID Canada even denies harbouring racist views. “We do not see ourselves as superior to others on the simple basis of our skin colour. … We are an identitarian movement that seeks to preserve our culture, customs, traditions and values etc.”

One of the lasting effects of the violence in Charlottesville was its blow to the far-right’s ability to raise money and spread propaganda online. In late August 2017, PayPal began cracking down on groups that use its site to fund hate groups. The Daily Stormer, one of the largest white nationalist news sites on the internet, was kicked off American, Chinese and Russian servers before being pushed onto the dark web, a network of websites that are only accessible through a special internet browser.

“Charlottesville marked the beginning of a sharp downturn for the [far-right],” Balgord said. “Their ability to move money around was severely constrained. Their ability to operate on social media and use chat platforms was severely constrained.”

Shutting down the alt-right’s main platforms of communication hampered its ability to recruit, spread propaganda and radicalize new people, Balgord said.

“By exposing them, we contain them. By driving them off these platforms, we contain them. They never fully go away but we minimize the damage they do.”

Source: How violent U.S. rally outed key players in Montreal’s alt-right

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Sadiq Khan: UK citizenship fees leave children in limbo

2018/05/15 1 Comment

In Canada, issue is adult fees of $530 (plus $100 right of citizenship). Previous government did not change fees for children ($100 plus $100 for the same right of citizenship):

Children and teenagers born in Britain are being left in limbo without access to education or employment because of £1,000 fees to gain citizenship, Sadiq Khanhas said, saying the government may face another Windrush-style scandal.

The mayor of London said the fees many young people were forced to pay were unacceptably high, given that most had lived most or all of their lives in the UK, but did not officially have British citizenship.

Most of the young people involved came to the UK with their parents as babies or small children, or were born in the UK to parents who migrated here.

Most teenagers do not realise they do not have secure status until they apply for post-18 education and are rejected because they cannot access funding or student loans. Instead, universities will class them as international students, charging them tens of thousands of pounds.

Without settled status, young adults may find themselves unable to rent a home, access healthcare, open bank accounts or start a job, under “hostile environment” restrictions introduced by the government, once they leave full-time education.

More than 159,000 Londoners aged 24 and under were found to be in this position by research from 2007. Khan said he was commissioning research to understand whether the problem had risen since new immigration restrictions came into force over the past decade.

“The recent Windrush scandal has shone a light on an immigration system that is simply unfit for purpose,” Khan said. “These young Londoners have lived most, if not all, of their lives in this country.”

Khan said it was shameful that young people, many born in Britain, found themselves barred from working or learning.

The mayor said the government “profit on their circumstances, despite the amazing contribution they make to our city and our country”.

The government needed to both streamline the application process and waive the “astronomically high” fees to affirm their citizenship, he added.

In April 2018, the cost for a child to register as a British citizen was £1,012 and £1,330 for an adult to naturalise their citizenship. The charity Citizens UK has calculated that much of the fee is profit – about £640 – compared with the £372 administration cost.

Those who were not born in the UK, but were brought to London as young children, face additional immigration fees of £8,521 over a 10-year period.

The executive director of Citizens UK, Neil Jameson, said it was “a huge own goal to deprive young people with bright futures of education when now more than ever Britain needs to extend a hand of welcome”.

The sums can put huge pressures on families who wish to register their children as British citizens, which is possible after a child has been in the country for 10 years. Some parents may still have uncertain immigration status, with no right to work and no recourse to public funds, meaning they can be effectively destitute.

…A Home Office spokeswoman said the fees took into account the wider costs of running the immigration system, saying it was “funded by those who benefit from it” in order to reduce taxpayer expense.

“There are exceptions to visa application fees to protect the most vulnerable, such as for young people who are in the care of a local authority,” she added.

Source: Sadiq Khan: UK citizenship fees leave children in limbo

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Unsurprising that stricter Danish rules give fewer Muslims citizenship: immigration minister

2018/05/15 Leave a comment

Frank and direct:
Denmark’s minister for immigration Inger Støjberg says she is not surprised that fewer Muslims have been approved for Danish citizenship since the government introduced stricter rules in 2015.

According to research carried out by newspaper Politiken, 70 percent of new Danish citizenships in 2014 were to people from primarily Muslim countries. That figure has fallen drastically to 21 percent this year.

In the same period, Denmark has begun to allow double citizenship, increasingly the likelihood of nationalisation applications from Western countries.

Støjberg said the figures show that the curbs, which her ministry was responsible for implementing, have had the desired effect.

“There is no doubt that this is because the demands have been increased. For example, the language requirement, being able to provide for oneself, staying away from criminality and passing certain tests,” she said.

“In my view there is no doubt at all that it is much easier to integrate a Christian American than a Muslim Somali,” Støjberg said.

The citizenship rules introduced in 2015 by the then-Liberal government with the support of Denmark’s other right wing parties included more stringent language demands, financial autonomy, a higher score in the citizenship test and stricter rules relating to criminal records.

“It is clear that if you come from other parts of the world, you have to exert yourself somewhat harder to, for example, learn the language,” Støjberg said.

She added she would begin talks over potential further curbs in the coming week.

“I have tightened up [on citizenship] once, and a new set of curbs is now on its way. People that have committed gang crime must not be allowed citizenship,” she said.

“The aim of tough rules is to make Danish citizenship something to strive for,” she added.

Source: Unsurprising that stricter Danish rules give fewer Muslims citizenship: immigration minister

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Mukhbir Singh: Sikhs have earned their place on the political stage

2018/05/15 Leave a comment

In terms of numbers of MPs in relation to population, 16 Sikh Canadian MPs form 4.7 percent of Canada’s parliament, compared to 1.5 percent of Canada’s population, reflecting in part their relative greater concentration in ridings compared to other groups such as Black Canadians (5 MPs compared to 2.9 percent of the population) as well as their activism:

A few short months ago, as Sikhs in Canada grappled with media coverage rife with unfounded claims of “Sikh extremism” in Canada, some commentators posed a question that would have caused a massive uproar had “Sikh” been replaced with “women”, “Indigenous” or “black” — by asking the question “are Sikh over-represented in Canadian politics”?

All Canadians — Sikhs, women, Indigenous, black, LGBTQ — have the right, responsibility and privilege to engage politically and serve their communities without having this right questioned on the basis of their race, religion and gender.

For 50 years, after their arrival on Canadian soil, Sikhs did not have the right to vote and no representation in government, making even the most basic and mundane of tasks — owning or even renting a house, going out in public without verbal attacks or physical violence, a challenge. There was rarely a politician to help or speak out on behalf of the community.

In the early 1900s, senior government officials came up with a scheme to expel the entirety of Canada’s Sikh population to the British Honduras (now Belize).

Incoming migrants from Asia, including Sikhs who had the same status as Canadians as subjects of the British empire, were required to possess $200 — an inconceivable amount — while European migrants were only required to have $20 in their possession.

In 1914, a boat of Sikhs entered British Columbia via the “continuous passage” journey which required a direct journey to Canada from India and were still refused entry. After months of living on the boat, the 376 Sikhs were forced to return to India, resulting in the deaths of many of these Sikh men.

While this was happening, Sikhs from the same families and villages as the men on the Komagata Maru were shedding blood in key battles in the First World War, including the battles of second Ypres, Somme, Vimy, Passchendaele, Cambrai and beyond. Sikh soldiers were reinforcing a weakened Canadian division on Flanders Fields as the first gas attack was illegally used by German forces. Sikhs and Canadians defended the line, shoulder to shoulder as brothers in arms, while the Canadian government and public was instituting racist policies.

Sikhs joined the Canadian British forces even as they faced racist policies and while they protested discriminatory treatment through the efforts of Teja Singh and Hari Singh who presented their case on the restrictions of South Asian migration in England. Average South Asian community members took to the streets in order to publicly protest their conditions and tried to create change through petitions to the Canadian, British and Indian governments.

Activism is an important tool to achieve affect change and work for positive outcomes. In democratic countries, we have the privilege to carry that activism forward by being involved in the process of governing and challenging and changing the unfairness and inequality in our political systems.

Sikhs believe strongly in the principles of service and creating positive change for everyone in society. An important way to do that is through politics.

In 1993, the first Sikh was elected to the House of Commons. In 2015, a record 16 members of the Sikh community became MPs and four were named to Cabinet. In 2017, Jagmeet Singh became the first visible minority and Sikh to be elected as the leader of a major political party.

Such progress and such a Canadian success story should make Canadians proud, but there has been a backlash. A short reading of the comment sections on articles relating to Sikh politicians or the replies on Twitter shows that many Canadians are deeply resentful about what they see as a “takeover” of their country. Some commentators have published opinion pieces that include warnings about an ethnic takeover of Canada, claims that Sikhs in Canada are “over-represented” in politics and the suggestion that Sikhs, including NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, carry “blood hatreds” that they have brought with them to Canada. Among the mainstream media, there has been nary a voice condemning these examples of race-baiting.

The charge that Sikhs are over-represented has been particularly jarring. Such allegations feed the type of tribalism and communalism that we see consuming other places around the world. What should be the right amount of representation? Is white over-representation the only acceptable form of over-representation in politics? Such allegations are a clear attempt to marginalize Canada’s Sikh community and seeks to diminish their role in defending, building and contributing to this country.

Source: Mukhbir Singh: Sikhs have earned their place on the political stage

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