MPI: Unleashing Power in New Ways: Immigration in the First Year of Trump 2.0

2026/01/14 Leave a comment

Usual good and comprehensive analysis by MPI:

Having campaigned on and won re-election with immigration as a top issue, President Donald Trump has kept it at center stage in the first year of his second term. Immediately upon returning to office, the administration advanced sweeping changes to immigration policy, unprecedented in their breadth and reach. These changes have made the United States more hostile to unauthorized immigrants while also altering how the government treats immigration and immigrants of all legal statuses and the communities in which they live. The impacts on individuals, families, workplaces, and the nation’s overall economic outlook and global standing will be felt for years ahead.

While some efforts have stalled or not yet met the White House’s lofty goals, the administration has dramatically reshaped the machinery of government to target unauthorized immigrants in the country, deter unauthorized border arrivals, make the status of many legally resident immigrants more tenuous, and impose obstacles for lawful entry of large swaths of international travelers and would-be immigrants. These changes could set the course for reduced family, humanitarian, and employment-based immigration in the future, while also driving key aspects of U.S. foreign policy.

In This Article

To accomplish the administration’s mass deportation goal, Trump advisor Stephen Miller and other aides dismantled longstanding norms. The White House invoked archaic statutes, enlisted support from state and local law enforcement as well as federal agencies that historically had no immigration enforcement role, and pressured foreign governments to receive deportees. Perhaps most visibly, it militarized immigration enforcement: Scenes of troops and masked federal agents roaming U.S. streets, lobbing tear gas and in some cases violently—and even fatally—subduing individuals, have garnered global attention and profoundly changed how many residents go about their daily lives. Among other changes, some U.S. citizens now feel compelled to carry identification with them at all times.

The administration has leaned heavily on executive action rather than seeking legislative change in Congress. As of January 7, Trump had signed 38 executive orders related to immigration, accounting for nearly 17 percent of the 225 total orders signed so far during his first year, which is more than the 220 executive orders signed during his entire first term. The administration also ushered in hundreds of other actions via presidential proclamations and policy guidance that have had profound impacts on immigration policy. The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) estimates that the Trump administration in the first year of its second term took more than 500 actions on immigration, surpassing the 472 actions over all four years of Trump’s first term.

While some elements of the administration’s approach mirror policies of the prior term, albeit at far greater scale and scope, the changes of the last year have been arguably more impactful than any during the first term. Administration officials appear to have learned from their first-term experience and have also benefited from a much more sympathetic Congress and Supreme Court. Indeed, Congress in July provided the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with a staggering $170 billion to upscale over Trump’s second term what was already the world’s largest detention and deportation machinery. And the Supreme Court has greenlit several high-profile actions, including revoking Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from about 600,000 Venezuelans, although it blocked the administration from deporting noncitizens without due process and did not allow deployment of the National Guard for immigration enforcement. Key questions on birthright citizenship and other immigration policies are yet to be resolved.

The net change has been dizzying in its scope and speed. After the administration further shut down access to asylum, unauthorized arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border plummeted to the lowest levels since the 1970s. This development has allowed the administration to shift its focus largely to unauthorized immigrants living in the United States, whom MPI estimates numbered 13.7 million as of mid-2023. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests have more than quadrupled since Trump took office, while average daily detention has doubled. On December 19, DHS said that 622,000 noncitizens had been deported since Trump took office, a high—but not historic—number. It is below the 778,000 repatriations carried out in the final full fiscal year of the Biden administration, and well short of the Trump team’s pledge of 1 million deportations per year. The administration’s deportation number likely includes noncitizens turned away at U.S. borders and at airports; limited release of immigration enforcement data means it is unclear who is being counted and how. While the administration claims 1.9 million people have “self-deported” during that same period, it has not provided any data, including on use of the CBP Home app, through which immigrants are offered a free flight and $1,000 payment if they return to their origin country.

The hardline approach has extended to many lawfully present immigrants and those aspiring to come legally. The administration has stripped temporary legal protections from more than 1.5 million humanitarian parolees, nearly completely halted refugee resettlement, and severely restricted access to asylum. It has also erected obstacles and therefore slowed the granting of lawful permanent residence, temporary visas, and U.S. citizenship. International students and scholars have been targeted for expressing their political opinions, many newcomers face extensive vetting of their social media activity and medical history, and hefty new fees and visa bonds have caused some would-be immigrants and visitors to rethink plans to come to the United States. Slower legal immigration will likely affect labor markets, local economies, and the broader economic outlook for years to come, with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and the Congressional Budget Office already reporting negative effects and potential future implications.

This article reviews the changes to U.S. immigration policy during the first year of the second Trump term….

Source: Unleashing Power in New Ways: Immigration in the First Year of Trump 2.0

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‘You are a very bad minister,’ Conservative immigration critic says at tense committee meeting

2025/12/05 2 Comments

Watched this brutal exchange. Her name comes up periodically as someone who may be shuffled and her appearance yesterday may increase speculation. That being said, MP Rempel Garner is somewhat of a bulldog in her questioning.

As to DM Kochhar’s letter asking MPs to be more respectful of public servants in their questioning, and to be mindful of the risks of posting edited clips that target them, I recall former DM Fadden having the same concerns some 15 years ago or so, albeit in a safer social media environment:

Immigration Minister Lena Diab sparred with her Conservative critic at a tense House of Commons committee meeting Thursday as the two disagreed on everything from immigration levels and deporting non-citizen criminals to what kind of salad they prefer.

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner put Diab in the hot seat throughout her two-hour committee appearance, grilling Diab about her file and accusing her of being “a very bad minister” when she struggled to give a clear answer on whether she will use powers under the government’s pending C-12 legislation to mass extend temporary visas.

A section in that bill gives the government the ability to stop accepting applications or cancel, suspend or change documents for an entire immigration class — something critics on both sides of the issue say could be abused either to turbocharge the number of newcomers or cancel visas en masse.

Asked if she plans to use that power to keep more people in Canada rather than expelling them when their visas expire, Diab said “that’s not the purpose” of the legislation but wouldn’t say how it would be used.

A frustrated Rempel Garner interrupted Diab.

“When you ask a question I think you should be able to have decency to let someone respond,” Diab said.

“I don’t like your word salad, it’s true. You are a very bad minister,” Rempel Garner said.

“You know what, I prefer fattoush and tabouleh to your salad, at any time,” Diab said.

“That is the oddest thing any immigration minister has said at this committee. It’s very weak and will likely be added to your performance reviews,” Rempel Garner said.

“It’s my culture,” said Diab, who is Lebanese Canadian.

At one point, another Liberal MP, Peter Fragiskatos, stepped in as the two exchanged words.

Rempel Garner said she wasn’t speaking to him about these issues.

“He’s going to have your job,” she said to Diab of Fragiskatos, suggesting the minister was about to be shuffled out of cabinet. “I’ll likely be having this conversation with him in a couple of months.”

Rempel Garner also asked Diab about some recent non-citizen criminals getting more lenient sentences so they can avoid deportation.

Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, a permanent resident or foreign national can be deemed inadmissible if they engage in “serious criminality,” which includes any crime that results in being sentenced to prison for more than six months.

In one recent case an Indian national paid for sex with what he thought was a teenager at a Mississauga, Ont., hotel. That teenage girl was actually an undercover cop.

The man was ultimately sentenced to a conditional discharge for committing an indecent act and was sentenced to 12 months of probation, including three months of house arrest. Rempel Garner said the man should have been dealt with more harshly by the courts and ultimately deported.

Asked if she will send a message to judges that are letting non-citizen criminals off easy to avoid being forced out of Canada, Diab said that’s not her role.

“Sentencing decisions are made independently by the courts,” she said, while assuring the Conservative critic the government will remove foreign criminals when appropriate.

“So, you’re pro-raper,” Rempel Garner asked provocatively.

“The courts have already indicated that serious offences will be dealt with seriously,” Diab said, while adding she wasn’t familiar with the case Rempel Garner raised.

“Can’t you just say it’s wrong and we’ll look into it?” Rempel Garner asked in return. “You just defended a guy who sexually assaulted somebody. It’s rampant in our justice system.”

“A wise person once told me you debate the issues and the policy and you don’t debase the individual,” he said, urging his colleagues to follow that mantra.

Deputy minister cites cases of bullying

The meeting started with the committee chair, Julie Dzerowicz, reading a letter from Diab’s deputy minister — the top bureaucrat in the department — saying some public servants have been subjected to bullying and intimidation after appearing before the committee.

That letter, written by Harpreet Kochhar, relayed that some unnamed politicians have posted videos of the public servants testifying at the committee, and they have been targeted online and in person as a result.

Dzerowicz said Kochhar was concerned about the “well-being” of these government workers who he said have endured “significant harassment and abuse” and “hostile emails.”

The letter, shared with CBC News, relays Kochhar’s fear that MPs posting “short, decontextualized clips of committee appearances” by bureaucrats could lead to violence.

“One of our colleagues was recently confronted in a public space by an angry individual referencing material shared online,” Kochhar wrote.

“I want to implore all committee members from all parties to be very cognizant of how we use the information from this committee, whether it’s online or offline,” Dzerowicz said, adding she doesn’t want appearing before a committee to be a “security risk.”

Rempel Garner said Kochhar was trying to “censor” Conservatives and stop them from questioning the department about what she described as a failed immigration policy.

“I will not be silenced,” she said, saying she will fight to get the government to “do the right thing” on this file.

“Giddy up,” she said.

Diab was ostensibly before the committee to talk about the government’s immigration targets for the coming years — figures that were included in the recent federal budget, an unusual move given they are generally delivered publicly by the minister….

Source: ‘You are a very bad minister,’ Conservative immigration critic says at tense committee meeting

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Conservatives plan to try and amend asylum system rules in border security bill

2025/11/21 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to what role the Bloc plays in committee. May well end up with the committee making amendments and the government and NDP rejecting all as was the case with C-3:

Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner said Thursday she plans to try and “amend the heck” out of the government’s border security bill, Bill C-12, with a host of measures targeting the asylum system. 

Her proposed changes include disallowing asylum claims from people who transited through Europe or another G7 country on their way to Canada and denying access to social benefits, except emergency medical treatment, for those with a failed asylum claim.

“I think Canadians want some change in this regard. Canada’s system for allowing and accepting asylum claims is pretty generous,” Rempel Garner said at a press conference on Parliament Hill.

“So somebody who’s failed a review, I think it’s fair that the only federal benefits that they receive is emergency health care and I think a lot of Canadians would agree.”

Rempel Garner said she also plans to propose changes to speed up the deportation of non-citizens if they are convicted of a crime or if their pre-removal risk assessment isn’t successful.

This includes clarifying the definition of “serious criminality” in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to be a conviction of an indictable offence, or a hybrid offence where the Crown proceeded with an indictable charge. 

Rempel Garner also said she will propose a ban on repeat pre-removal risk assessments if the initial one fails unless new evidence of changed circumstances is presented. 

She said increased rates of permanent and temporary immigration, in addition to increased asylum claims, have “broken” Canada’s system and contributed to declining support for immigration.

“I think everybody in Canada, (of) every political stripe, should be deeply concerned with public polling data that shows that Canadians are losing faith in the immigration system,” Rempel Garner said. …

Source: Conservatives plan to try and amend asylum system rules in border security bill

Some initial reactions:

…Fen Hampson, president of the World Refugee & Migration Council, said “there are arguments to be made for tightening up the system to prevent abuses but by the same token you don’t want to swing wildly in the opposite direction.”

He said banning people from claiming asylum who had passed through an EU or G7 country would bar Canada from accepting people fleeing war-torn states who, for practical reasons, have to pass through Europe to get to Canada. 

“You are likely going to have to stop somewhere on your way to Canada and it may be a few days or it may be more than that,” he said. “Few asylum seekers can book a ticket to fly directly to Canada.”

The border and immigration bill – known as Bill C-12 – will be considered clause by clause next week by MPs on the public safety committee. 

Ms. Rempel Garner told a press conference on Thursday that her party will table their amendments then. One would end federal benefits for failed claimants of asylum, beyond emergency health care…

Source: Conservative amendments to borders bill would make sweeping changes to asylum system, I’m going to amend the heck out of C-12 to fix Canada’s broken immigration system. (Rempel Garner’s substack post)

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Globe editorial: There can’t be two types of Canadian citizen [C-3 citizenship by descent]

2025/11/04 2 Comments

Very good Globe editorial assessing Conservative and Bloc amendments to C-3 and correctly distinguishing between the sound amendments of having a time limit of five-years to meet the residency requirement of 1,095 days and the requirement to have annual reporting on the number of persons claiming citizenship under the Bill’s provisions and the less sound amendments to require language and knowledge assessment and criminality/security checks that apply to new citizens, not those entitled to citizenship.

The Liberals and NDP removed the amendments at third reading. We will now see how the Senate deals with the Bill shortly, and whether it passes the original bill or provides some sober second thought and reinstates these two amendments:

…Last month, the Conservatives, supported by the Bloc, added an amendment in committee to change the requirement that in order to pass on citizenship, a foreign-born Canadian needs to spend 1,095 cumulative days in Canada before the child is born or adopted. The Conservative change would require the parent to spend 1,095 days in Canada within a five-year period. This revision makes sense, as it means these individuals have truly lived here, rather than just spent a few weeks at their grandparents’ cottage each summer. It demonstrates a more meaningful connection with Canada, and administratively, it will be easier to prove. 

The Conservative amendments would also require a report to Parliament annually on how many new citizens the bill creates. This is a sensible requirement. 

The problems lie with the Conservatives’ addition of an English or French language test, a security screening for criminal activity, and a citizenship test demonstrating knowledge of Canadian history. These requirements are similar to those needed by immigrants applying for citizenship, so it sounds logical – but it confuses the issue. 

Halt of ‘Lost Canadians’ bill could mean citizenship for thousands born to parents with no ties to Canada

Canadians by descent get their citizenship at birth based on their parents’ status. Presumably, under the Conservative rules, if these people applied as adults for citizenship certificates or passports and failed the tests, they could be stripped of their citizenship. Uyen Hoang, director-general of the citizenship branch at the Immigration Department, has warned that the tests would be “impossible to operationalize.” …

Source: There can’t be two types of Canadian citizen

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Liberals, NDP bid to undo Harper-era rule on citizenship for Lost Canadians

2025/10/27 Leave a comment

The Liberals and NDP, along with government officials, are right to raise concerns regarding the amended Bill’s requirement for knowledge and language assessment along with security and criminality checks as these would likely not survive legal challenges.

However, there is no such impediment to the amendment requiring the residency requirement of 1,095 days within a five year period prior to the birth of a child. Nor is there any such impediment for requiring annual reports on the number of Canadians claiming their citizenship under the Bill’s provisions:

The Liberals and NDP are pushing for a citizenship bill to move forward without Conservative changes that would require security screening and language checks before children born abroad to foreign-born Canadians could qualify for a passport. 

Earlier this month, Conservatives, with the support of the Bloc Québécois, voted through a raft of changes to the government’s proposed legislation, known as Bill C-3. 

The bill aims to reverse a change by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government in 2009 that stripped people born into this situation, who are often known as Lost Canadians, of their automatic right to citizenship.

But the Conservative amendments to the Liberal bill – expected to go to a vote on Monday – would make people aged 18 to 54 clear several hurdles in order to inherit Canadian citizenship, putting them on roughly even ground with immigrants seeking citizenship. 

They would have to pass an English or French language test, be subject to security screening to check for criminal activity, and pass a citizenship test demonstrating knowledge of Canadian history.

Bill C-3 requires Canadian parents born abroad to demonstrate a substantial connection to Canada before they can pass on citizenship to a child born outside the country. They would need to spend a cumulative 1,095 days – the equivalent of three years – in Canada before the birth or adoption of the child seeking citizenship. 

The Conservative changes would require the 1,095 days to be consecutively spent in Canada within five years, and not made up of a few weeks, months or days over many years. …

Source: Liberals, NDP bid to undo Harper-era rule on citizenship for Lost Canadians

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New report outlines the biggest reasons immigrants stay in Canada, and it’s not just financial

2025/09/10 Leave a comment

From my friends at ICC. Courage and optimism are characteristic of immigrants:

As Canada risks losing more immigrants amid a rising cost of living, a new report finds the biggest factors in whether newcomers stay aren’t just financial.

While housing and affordability remain top concerns, a new survey of nearly 5,000 immigrants finds newcomers are far more likely to stay in Canada if they feel hopeful about their future and connected to the country, according to a report from the Institute for Canadian Citizenship on Tuesday.

Optimism about the future – measured by immigrants’ confidence in their personal and family prospects, plans for long-term life in Canada and belief that friends and family can succeed here – is the strongest driver of immigrant retention, with just a one per cent increase in optimism boosting the likelihood of staying by 28 per cent.

A one per cent increase in a sense of belonging – measured by identifying as Canadian, feeling accepted in Canada, trusting other Canadians and believing that the country provides good opportunities for one’s family – increases the likelihood to stay by 25 per cent.

The same increase in safety and stability raises the likelihood of a newcomer staying permanently by 16 per cent, and an uptick in economic optimism adds 15 per cent.

As Ottawa plans to slash the number of immigrants over the next three years, resulting in a 1.7 per cent drop in the country’s gross domestic product by 2027, it is crucial to retain talented immigrants who are already here, said Daniel Bernhard, CEO of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship.

New immigration targets are expected to cut Canada’s population growth by 1.4 million over the next three years, with permanent resident admissions dropping from 464,265 in 2024 to 365,000 in 2027, leading to 1.3 billion fewer hours worked, according to Canada’s parliamentary budget officer.

“Immigrants are hand-selected to address Canada’s most pressing needs and so each one that leaves is a great loss,” Bernhard said. “The needs they were brought here to fill do not leave with them.”

One in five immigrants who come to Canada ultimately leave the country within 25 years, with about one-third of those people moving on within the first five years, according to a November report from the ICC.

The report found that economic immigrants and francophones are the most likely to leave – the two categories of immigrants Canada prioritizes most.

The ICC is calling on policymakers to increase immigrant retention through targeted investments in domains that help build connection and optimism, including “initiatives that support newcomer skills development and labour market integration” and “activities that connect immigrant families and friends to each other and to other Canadians, building community, inclusion and belonging.”

“We know immigrants are leaving Canada, but until today, policymakers had very little evidence to guide investments in retention,” Bernhard said.

The survey shows that “making people feel at home, feel welcome, feel Canadian, feel attached to this place and to these people is more than just a nice thing we do for our newest neighbours,” he added.

“It’s a key growth and success strategy for the community.”

Source: New report outlines the biggest reasons immigrants stay in Canada, and it’s not just financial

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Pierre Poilievre’s call to scrap the temporary foreign worker program marks new, tougher stance for Conservatives

2025/09/04 Leave a comment

Safer area for Conservatives to attack and immigration critic Rempel Garner is having fun tweeting examples of TFWs in low-skilled service jobs. The excesses need to be trimmed and Canadian employers should not rely on TFWs to the same extent as cheaper labour or avoiding more investment in technology. Expect the provinces will also push back given the views of their business communities.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is calling on Mark Carney’s Liberals to ditch the federal government’s decades-old temporary foreign worker program, taking a harder stance against a program he’s previously said should be reduced, not axed outright.

The reason why, Poilievre said Wednesday, is because of worsening youth unemployment, rather than a Liberal-induced “immigration crisis” he has claimed has weakened both the economy and security of the country.

“The individual temporary foreign workers, the workers themselves, they are not bad people. They are not the problem. They are being taken advantage of by Liberal corporate leaders who want to use them to drive down wages,” Poilievre said at a news conference in Mississauga.

“We continue to support the dream of all immigrants to Canada, the immigrants who come here to be Canadian to get a job, work hard, contribute and live a good life that is part of the Canadian promise, and that is not what we’re addressing here today.”

Experts, however, warn that the Conservative leader’s framing is misleading, and promotes beliefs that foreign workers are a prominent threat to Canadian jobs.

The long-standing temporary foreign worker program allows Canadian companies to hire foreign nationals for temporary positions, as long as employers complete a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) to demonstrate the need for a temporary worker and that no local Canadians or permanent residents can fill the role. Through its various streams, the program has been lauded as a way to address labour shortages, but has also become a magnet for criticisms that it exposes workers to exploitation and abuse.

During this year’s spring campaign, Poilievre pledged in his platform to “restore order to immigration” in part by “dramatically reducing the number of temporary workers.”

On Wednesday, his party called on Ottawa to permanently end the program, cease issuing visas for new workers, create a separate program for “legitimately difficult-to-fill agricultural labour,” and to wind down the program more slowly in “ultra-low-unemployment regions.”

Tim Powers, chair of public affairs firm Summa Strategies, said Poilievre’s tougher position and shift in tone suggests he is seizing on Canadians’ economic fears while also avoiding turning away more immigrant communities who could join his coalition of Conservatives.

“It isn’t so much about what the program actually does. It’s what he thinks it represents to Canadians, this narrative that their jobs are being taken from them, and young people don’t get the opportunity to do work because temporary foreign workers are replacing them,” Powers said.

“I think if you talk to a lot of employers who use the program, they would tell you that trying to find local workers, particularly in service-based jobs … is hard to do because not everyone views the opportunities to work in a fish plant or a Tim Hortons as a job they want.”

At a cabinet retreat in Toronto, Prime Minister Mark Carney said he believed the program still had a place in his policy book and said he would assess how well the program was working.

“When I talk to businesses around the country … their number 1 issue is tariffs, and their number 2 issue is access to temporary foreign workers,” Carney told reporters.

But the Conservative leader, citing a youth unemployment rate that has climbed to 14.6 per cent, rolled out a series of claims about the program to justify his ask.

“The Liberals promised they would cap the temporary foreign worker program at 82,000, but in the first six months, they’ve already handed out 105,000 permits,” Poilievre said.

….According to federal data, Canada set a target to admit 82,000 new arrivals through the program this year.

But Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said Poilievre’s 105,000 figure does not “represent new arrivals to the country” and includes permit extensions for people already in Canada.

“Between January and June 2025, 33,722 new workers entered Canada through this program, which is roughly 40 per cent of the total volume expected this year,” a spokesperson for the department said in an email.

Despite Poilievre’s focus on the economic impacts of the program, some economists and immigration experts expressed concern about that the Conservative leader’s comments could still feed into the belief that migrant workers steal jobs. 

“It is wrong to suggest that migrant labour is a major source of the problems Canadian workers are experiencing today — which are the result, first and foremost, of (U.S. President) Donald Trump’s tariff attacks, lingering high interest rates, the decline of high-wage industrial jobs, and government austerity in some provinces,” said Jim Stanford, economist and director of the think tank Centre for Future Work.

Stanford also emphasized that the program Poilievre is targeting only makes up a small share of the workforce and should not be confused with foreign workers under the substantially larger International Mobility Program, which includes international students.

Stanford said Poilievre’s claim that temporary foreign workers now make up two per cent of Canada’s workforce is inaccurate.

According to government data on the program, there were approximately 191,000 work permit holders in total in 2024, “less than one per cent of the workforce,” Stanford said. …

Source: Pierre Poilievre’s call to scrap the temporary foreign worker program marks new, tougher stance for Conservatives

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Su | Canada’s immigration approach is becoming more exclusionary. It’s not the direction we should be heading

2025/08/20 Leave a comment

Classic example of activist academic arguments, conflating previous race-based criteria with more objective age, language and education criteria, assuming that refusals are all unjustified, that international students were the focus of anger rather than the Liberal government.

And any public conversation will of course need to address the very real pressures on housing, healthcare and infrastructure that immigration-based population growth has exacerbated.

It is striking that so many immigration researchers did not anticipate or warn about the impact of the excessive growth in temporary and permanent residents. Some reflection is in order, rather than making these weak, and in some cases, false arguments:

In 2023, Canada marked the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act, a law that explicitly banned nearly all Chinese immigrants for nearly a quarter century. Many see it as a black mark in Canadian history because it deliberately targeted and expelled the very Chinese labourers who had done the dangerous, back-breaking work of building the Canadian Pacific Railway, only to be cast aside once their labour was no longer needed.

The centenary was a moment of reflection. But since then, Canada has become more restrictive, not less. Rising immigration refusal rates, while not racially explicit, are carrying the pattern of exclusion forward.

Recent data shows that applicants across almost all permanent and temporary resident categories, skilled workers, international students, grandparents and refugees, are facing more rejections. Immigration officials and political leaders point to policy integrity, institutional capacity and shifting targets. But these procedural justifications obscure a more unsettling truth: our immigration system is shifting from openness toward restriction, prioritizing exclusion over welcome.

As a migration scholar as well as an immigrant myself, I know that exclusion doesn’t always arrive with bold legal declarations. It often hides in plain sight, through administrative hurdles, opaque rules, and decisions that are hard to explain but easy to feel.

One clear example we have all experienced collectively across Canada is the demonization of international students. In the past two years, federal policy changes dramatically capped their numbers, blamed them for historical housing and health care shortages and limited their ability to stay.

This framing fuelled hateful online commentary, targeted in-person violent hate crimes and attacks, and even anti-immigrant posters, such as one spotted near a college in Toronto’s Roncesvalles neighbourhood that used multiculturalism to justify xenophobia.

Another example is a spike in Express Entry rejections for permanent residency when applicants declare an “nonaccompanying” spouse. This tactic, once common and legal, is now treated by officers as a sign of dishonesty, triggering procedural fairness letters or outright refusal. This shift is not in the law but in how rules are interpreted and enforced.

The numbers tell a broader story. In just two years, rejection rates for all temporary resident categories have increased 10 to 27 per cent. For example, rejection rates for student permits rose to 65 per cent from 41 per cent and work permits for spouses to study and work rose to 52 per cent from 25 per cent. While visitor visas rose to 50 per cent from 39 per cent.

Then there are the persistent disparities in approval rates for applicants from the Global South. African students, in particular, have long faced disproportionate rejection. Parliamentary testimony revealed that French-speaking African students can face refusal rates as high as 80 to 83 per cent, among the highest of any group, often because officers doubt their “intent” to return home after studying.

A 2024 MPOWER Financing report found that fewer than half of African student visa applications are approved, with rates dropping to 22 per cent for some Francophone African countries. Earlier analyses of IRCC data by the Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants showed that from 205 to 2020, Nigeria’s approval rate was 12 per cent. These decisions, couched in bureaucratic language, reproduce long-standing patterns of racial and regional bias, sending a powerful message about who is seen as credible future Canadians, and who is not.

To be clear, today’s policies are not the same as the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act, which was explicit, racist, and devastating for Chinese Canadian families. But we would be naïve to think that exclusion only happens when written in black and white legislation.

As Catherine Clement’s recent book ”The Paper Trail to the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act” shows, policy is not just about law, it’s about how it’s felt, lived, and remembered. Her work documents how exclusion operated through bureaucratic delays, suspicion, and silence, separating families for lifetimes and squandering human potential.

What we are seeing today is different, but still worth naming: a shift toward discretion-based refusal, especially for applicants from racialized countries and communities. When exclusion becomes procedural, it becomes harder to see, challenge or measure.

Immigration, at its best, is a promise: that those who qualify will be treated fairly, and that our system reflect our values. My own family benefited from that promise and was able to live the Canadian dream. But rising rejection rates, unclear standards, and a lack of transparency undermine that promise. If we want to preserve the integrity of our immigration system, we must first preserve its fairness.

That starts with publishing disaggregated refusal statistics, improving officer training, clarifying communication with applicants, and creating accountability mechanisms when discretion oversteps reason. Above all, it requires a public conversation that resists easy answers and considers the human cost of policy shifts.

We tell ourselves that we’ve moved past the kind of exclusion Catherine Clement documents so powerfully. But history doesn’t just live in museums, it echoes in policy, in silence, and in the decisions we choose not to question.

We still have time to course correct. But it will take political courage, public awareness, and a willingness to look critically at what our systems are doing, not just what they claim to do. Canada must resist creeping exclusion and remain a place of opportunity, or Gold Mountain (金山) the Chinese nickname for Canada.

Source: Opinion | Canada’s immigration approach is becoming more exclusionary. It’s not the direction we should be heading

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Courts unlikely to provide fifth extension to Ottawa to address Lost Canadians before November, says immigration lawyer

2025/07/15 Leave a comment

Extension unlikely to be needed as adequate time in fall session. Government should improve C-3 by adding a time limit of five-years to meet the 1,095 day physical presence requirement, not the current open ended provision (the Don Chapman specific airline pilot example in contrast to the vast majority of likely applicants):

Parliament needs to “just get on with it” and address the issue of “lost Canadians” through amendments to the Canada Citizenship Act, according to Jenny Kwan, NDP critic of citizenship and immigration.

She told The Hill Times that she wonders if a judge would have the patience to grant the federal government a fifth extension on a court order requiring action before the current November deadline.

“This is astounding. What the current situation is right now is that Canada’s Citizenship Act,
with respect to lost Canadians, is in violation of the Charter [of Rights and Freedoms], and [Bill
C-3] will make it Charter-compliant,” said Kwan (VancouverEast, B.C.).

“I don’t know how much patience [the judge] will have to continue to see delays in the
passage of the bill to make it Charter-compliant.”

Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab (Halifax West, N.S.) tabled Bill C-3, an Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2025), in the House on June 5. The House rose for the summer on June 20, pausing the bill’s progress until Sept. 15, when the next parliamentary sitting begins.

If passed, the bill would reverse a change to the Citizenship Act made by then-Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper in 2009 that introduced a “first-generation limit” when it came to citizenship status. Since that 2009 amendment, a Canadian citizen who was born outside of Canada cannot pass citizenship status on to their child if that child was also born or adopted outside the country.

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice declared in December 2023, that the first-generation limit was unconstitutional on the grounds that it unjustifiably limited mobility and equality rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. At that time, the Court gave the federal government a deadline of six months to fix the law through legislation. This deadline was later extended on four occasions, with the current deadline set as Nov. 20, 2025.

Kwan described Bill C-3 as “a significant piece of legislation that needs to be done,” in an interview with The Hill Times. The bill is nearly identical to the former Bill C-71, which was introduced in May 2024, but died on the order paper when Parliament was prorogued on Jan. 6, 2025.

Kwan argued that a Conservative filibuster in the fall sitting that delayed progress in the House contributed to death of Bill C-71. “Basically, nothing got through, and [Bill C-71] also died on the order paper. So, in this round, it will depend on whether or not the Conservatives will continue to play political games ahead of lost Canadians,” said Kwan.

The Hill Times reached out to Conservative MPs including citizenship and immigration critic
Michelle Rempel Garner (Calgary Nose Hill, Alta.) and Brad Redekopp (Saskatoon West, Sask.), a member of the House citizenship committee, but did not receive a response by deadline.

Bill C-3 would amend the Citizenship Act to automatically grant Canadian citizenship to anyone who would be a citizen today were it not for the first-generation limit. The bill would also introduce a “substantial connection test” for Canadian citizens born outside of Canada who wish to pass on citizenship to their children born abroad. Going forward, the bill would allow access to citizenship beyond the first generation, so long as the parent has spent at least 1,095 cumulative—not necessarily consecutive—days in Canada prior to the birth of their child.

Redekopp told the House on June 19 that Conservatives have significant issues with Bill C-3, and criticized the substantial connection test of 1,095 non-consecutive days as “not substantial at all.”

“It is a very weak way to commit to being a Canadian citizen and then to confer that citizenship onto children. It is not a real test of commitment because the days do not have to be consecutive,” Redekopp told the House. “Also, people need to understand the current situation in our country. They need to live here to understand how things are and some of the issues we have right now in our country … People do not know that if they are living in another country.”

Kwan argued that objections to the non-consecutive 1,095-day minimum don’t make sense.

“Take, for example, a person who’s a pilot, right? You travel all the time. You could be a seond-generation born and you’re a pilot. You fly out of Canada regularly as a pilot, and then that means you’re leaving Canada all the time. So, does that mean to say that they can never get a Canadian citizenship? That doesn’t make any sense at all,” she said.

“You have to recognize the fact that we live in a global society now. Canada is a global country, and people move. You have to make sure that is addressed in such a way that fits the times of today.”…

Source: Courts unlikely to provide fifth extension to Ottawa to address Lost Canadians before November, says immigration lawyer

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What is birthright citizenship and what happens after the Supreme Court ruling?

2025/06/30 Leave a comment

Ongoing and further undermining of checks and balances:

After the Supreme Court issued a ruling that limits the ability of federal judges to issue universal injunctions — but didn’t rule on the legality of President Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship — immigrant rights groups are trying a new tactic by filing a national class action lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of two immigrant rights organizations whose members include people without legal status in the U.S. who “have had or will have children born in the United States after February 19, 2025,” according to court documents.

One of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, William Powell, senior counsel at the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law, says his colleagues at CASA, Inc. and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project think that, with the class action approach “we will be able to get complete relief for everyone who would be covered by the executive order.”

Source: What is birthright citizenship and what happens after the Supreme Court ruling?

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