Canadians increasingly divided on immigration, government research shows

2024/08/01 Leave a comment

Confirms other surveys. Karas is editorialized by adding DEI concerns to the mix as no such question was asked in the survey (https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2024/ircc/Ci4-183-1-2024-eng.pdf):

Canadians are becoming increasingly divided on the federal government’s current immigration targets, with over a third now saying we’re taking in “too many” people from other countries.

The Department of Immigration requested polling agency Ipsos conduct a national survey on its current immigration quotas. 

“Many participants felt that the targets set for the next three years, which were presented to them, were too high,” reads the survey. “They could not fathom how cities, that are already receiving high volumes of immigrants and where infrastructure is already under great strain, could accommodate the proposed targets.”

The survey cost $295,428 and included 3,000 people canvassed with two surveys and 14 focus groups.

When asked if they thought that immigration has a positive effect on their city or town, just over half, 55% agreed, while 22% said the effect has been negative. 

The results were similar when broken down provincially, with 58% saying that the immigration has had a positive effect on their province, compared to 24% who disagreed. 

Asked if immigration had a net “negative effect” on their province, 41% of Ontarians surveyed said yes, while a third of Prince Edward Islanders, 33%, and 27% of Albertans saw immigration as a net negative.

Only 48% of respondents felt that the current targets were “about the right number,” while a little over a third, 35%, said it was ‘too many.’ 

Another small cohort of 12% said that “too few” immigrants are coming to Canada. 

The “too many” sentiment was felt highest in Alberta at 52%, followed closely by Nova Scotia and Ontario at 51% and 49%, respectively.

On the national level, 63% said immigration has a positive effect and 23% said it’s negative. 

This shows the erosion of a long-held immigration consensus in Canada, one expert says.

“For the first time in recent history, support for immigration has eroded steadily amongst the public,” immigration lawyer Sergio Karas told True North.

“There are a multiplicity of reasons why this is happening. Still, the main issues are the cost of living, housing, competition for good jobs, and the general perception that the recent cohorts of immigrants do not contribute to the economy in the same way that previous generations have.”

The immigration department said the “broad sentiment” indicates support for immigration generally but with the caveat of “not right now” or “how are we going to make this work?”

Participants also expressed “strong appeals for reducing the barriers that prevent experienced newcomers from practicing in their fields of expertise,” citing nurses, teachers and skilled labourers as necessary examples. 

However, “reactions to prioritizing those with business skills were more mixed.” 

On the issue of family and immigration, respondents generally agreed on “setting a higher target for sponsoring spouses and partners, who are likely to be working-age, and a lower target for sponsoring parents and grandparents, who might put a strain on the healthcare system rather than contribute to the economy.”

Several participants suggested expediting immigration applications for healthier parents and grandparents over “frailer ones.”

“There is also resentment, especially from immigrants who have been in Canada for many years, that the current crop of newcomers is far more interested in receiving government benefits, and that their language and work skills are not up to par,” said Karas. “This seems to be especially acute about the large number of refugees that Canada has admitted.”

According to the department’s data, few participants believed that Canada was doing the “right thing” by providing asylum to large numbers of refugees. 

While some respondents recognized the “need to assist,” they were also concerned about Canada’s ability to “realistically support population growth given the current strains on public infrastructure.”

Karas said that a further reason for Canadians’ shifting opinion of immigration is the notion that the government is “admitting anyone” without properly vetting them for their skills, language ability and security. 

“While this is not always true, the public is sensitive to how immigrants from non-Western countries are changing the face of Canada,” said Karas. 

“The public concern is that the changes are too rapid and too deep and that immigrants should do more to adapt to existing customs, rather than the public being obligated to adapt to them. Current policies of  Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion have exacerbated that perception as organizations show a preference for EDI hires rather than using a merit system.”

Source: Canadians increasingly divided on immigration, government research shows

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Vancouver’s Langara College among those bracing for drastic plunge in foreign students

2024/07/29 Leave a comment

The impacts of the international student cap being felt:

…At Langara College, president Burns said in her message to faculty that while foreign student applications are down 79 per cent for the January term, they are also down nine per cent for the fall term, which begins in just six weeks.

Burns attributed the declines to several factors.

They include Immigration Minister Marc Miller’s promise in January to decrease the number of study visas it hands out by 35 per cent this year compared to last.

The B.C. government has also been making reforms — including instituting a new requirement that no more than 30 per cent of students at public post-secondary schools can be foreign students. There are 217,000 foreign students in the province’s post-secondary institutions.

This year both the federal and B.C. governments are expressing the need to temper the record volume of foreign students because of the impact on runaway housing costs, particularly rents, as well as on infrastructure and social services, such as health care.

On a national level, there are mixed signals about the pace at which foreign students are entering Canada.

Last year the country had about 1.1 million foreign students, a jump of three times from when Justin Trudeau was elected in 2015.

Despite Miller pledging to cap study visa approvals at 360,000 for this year, immigration department data shows it issued more study visas in the first five months of this year than it did in the first five months of last year, which broke records.

According to numbers from the immigration department, Canada has handed out 217,000 international study permits in the first five months of 2024. In the same period in 2023, 200,000 were handed out.

In B.C., however, study visa numbers are slightly reduced. In the first five months of 2024 the immigration department has issued 40,000 visas to those who say they will study in B.C. That’s down from about 45,000 in the same period last year.

In response to Postmedia’s questions, the immigration department said via email: “It is premature to claim the cap isn’t working.”

The ministry noted the cap doesn’t apply to students who apply to extend their studies from within the country, nor to those attending kindergarten-to-Grade 12 programs. It also said it expected visa approvals will go down in the months of August and September.

Andrew Griffith, a former immigration department director who now writes independently about migration, says he believes overall foreign student numbers will begin broadly declining soon.

A crucial government data table, he says, reveals that the volume of people around the world inquiring on the immigration department’s website about getting a Canadian study visa is down 26 per cent this year compared to last.

For instance, there were far fewer inquiries about obtaining a Canadian study visa in June of this year: 68,000  compared to 110,000 in June of 2023….

Source: Vancouver’s Langara College among those bracing for drastic plunge in foreign students

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This international student with mental disorders took 9 years to get a degree and was refused a work permit. Here’s why he’s challenging Canada’s rules

2024/07/27 Leave a comment

While I feel for the person and his family, hard to see how he would be likely to contribute economically. Perhaps on H&C grounds. Immigration essentially is about discrimination, who gets in, who does not, and this strikes me as legitimate with respect to the PGWP:

Growing up in Nigeria, Izaka Jefferson Eugene-Akhere was bullied and called “fat kid,” “Michelin man” and “Big Show.”

Even his father and uncles would make fun of him and joked his breasts were so big that he needed a bra. People just thought he was lazy and attributed that to his binge-eating and binge-watching TV; no one recognized his mental disorders.

Eugene-Akhere would hide in his bedroom and skip classes, letting his grades slip, so he wouldn’t stand out any more than he had to due to his size.

In 2012, the then 18-year-old was hoping to start fresh in Canada when his parents enrolled him in Columbia International College, a private school in Hamilton, to continue his education. After finishing one year of high school here, he started his undergraduate study in business at York University, also as an international student.

But his anxiety and depression continued to haunt him. After twice having his studies suspended by York due to his poor attendance and grades, Eugene-Akhere finally graduated in June 2022. He subsequently applied for a postgraduation work permit, which was refused last November.

Despite his reluctance to attract attention, Eugene-Akhere has put himself in the spotlight by challenging the eligibility criteria of the postgraduation work permit. He claims that requiring an applicant to have studied full time discriminates against disabled students and violates their equality rights under the Charter.

To qualify for a postgraduation work permit, an international student must complete a study program from an authorized institution and maintain full-time student status during each semester, except for the final term, or unless they had taken an approved leave by the school of no more than 150 days.

Post-secondary international students with mental health challenges and disabilities are supposed to be accommodated by colleges and universities, which generally allow the students to go part-time to reduce their workload. 

In the past, individual immigration officials would consider the evidence to grant exemptions when assessing postgraduation work permit applications. Sometimes, a student would challenge a refusal in court and win.

However, in 2022, the landscape changed after the Federal Court ruled in two separate cases, those of a graduate from Jamaica who studied at George Brown College and another from India at St. Lawrence College. The court set precedents that immigration officers do not have the discretionary power to modify or waive any of the eligibility requirements for work permits.

“What makes this case different is rather than challenging the officer’s discretion to issue a (postgraduate work permit), we’re challenging the constitutionality of the policy itself,” said Andrew Koltun, co-counsel for Eugene-Akhere with Lou Janssen Dangzalan. They are helping him on a pro bono basis.

“If the policy is ironclad and the policy excludes students with disabilities unintentionally but still in effect, then the policy itself is unconstitutional. No other applicant at Federal Court has challenged the constitutionality of this policy.”

The Immigration Department said it cannot comment on this case because the matter is before the Federal Court.

Born and raised in Lagos, Eugene-Akhere had a middle-class upbringing; both his parents are bankers. His mother and father were barely home and he was cared for by his teenage aunts, a household steward and driver.

“Television and food were my true primary companions during my childhood,” recalled Eugene-Akhere, now 30, who asked not to be photographed for this story as he’s still struggling with mental illnesses related to his appearance.

He started getting ridiculed and bullied about his weight. It got worse after he finished Grade 6 and moved to a boarding school as he drifted further from his busy parents and three younger siblings.

“I felt unloved and that my parents probably thought of me as a failure and did not want to have anything to do with me,” said Eugene-Akhere, whose waist size reached 46 inches. He stands about five-foot-nine.

After spending a year in high school in Hamilton, he enrolled in York University’s business and society undergrad program. He says he would hear people murmuring about his weight and feel like an outcast. Soon, he stopped going to classes and struggled to meet assignment deadlines.

In 2014, York issued a one-year mandatory withdrawal for his poor grades and attendance. He returned a year later but relapsed and was “debarred” in 2017 for two years after his GPA fell below 4.0 out of 9.

In 2019, he reapplied and resumed his studies. He met an academic counsellor and was advised to take a part-time course load. When he finished his degree in 2022, he had had a part-time load in five of his 17 semesters attending the school.

“She would say, ‘You should take your courses little by little so you don’t overwhelm yourself,” said Eugene-Akhere, who didn’t know about the eligibility for the postgraduation work permit at that time.

“There’s always the apprehension for me to be in a crowd. So there was less of that for me.”

A York University spokesperson declined to comment on this case but said the school offers a range of supports and services to international students, including immigration advising through licensed professionals. Accommodations include a modified course load, support with note-taking or peer assistance. 

It may also include a reduced course load while still maintaining full-time enrolment status to avoid negative impacts on the international student’s present and future immigration matters.

Upon his graduation, Eugene-Akhere said York referred him to his lawyers, who helped submit his postgraduation work permit application in September 2022 and recommended he get diagnosed, given the learning difficulties he described to them. 

A psychological assessment by the Bhatia Psychology Group concluded Eugene-Akhere suffered body dysmorphic disorder, social anxiety disorder, and dysthymia or persistent depressive disorder. Dysmorphic disorder is a mental health condition where a person is constantly anxious about flaws in their appearance.

The associated dysregulation, anxious distress, depressive mood and low self-esteem, it said, could contribute to his struggles with procrastination, worries about making a mistake, attending class and speaking in class, making eye contact with professors and peers, and concentration.

Despite the diagnosis, Eugene-Akhere’s postgraduation work permit application was refused in October and he appealed to the Federal Court.

“Mental health is invisible as a disability,” said Dangzalan. “It’s not in your face, so it’s very hard to spot.

“The postgraduation work permit program offers no accommodation. It’s structured in such a way that it only accepts the healthiest students with no conditions that interfere with their ability to study.”

Meanwhile, Eugene-Akhere is out of status in Canada and must rely on the financial support of his parents, who are struggling back home as the Nigerian currency has fallen to record lows amid surging inflation.

“My parents have invested over $200,000 in me, in Canada,” said Eugene-Akhere, who has been exercising in his free time and cut his waist size to 32 inches.

“I feel like I’m being punished because of my disabilities and my mental health issues. I would like to help my mom, my dad and siblings with bills.”

Source: This international student with mental disorders took 9 years to get a degree and was refused a work permit. Here’s why he’s challenging Canada’s rules

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Canadian Christian Colleges Hit Hard by New Immigration Restrictions

2024/07/23 Leave a comment

Notable impact:

It seemed like a door had opened.

Providence University College and Theological Seminary in Manitoba started an associate’s degree program that could be marketed to international students. To president Kenton Anderson’s delight, the two-year degree attracted a significant number of applicants eager to study in Canada. Several hundred students enrolled.

For the private evangelical school, that generated significant revenue and helped further fulfill the mission of spreading the gospel around the world.

Providence made plans to grow the program—could they attract 500 international students? 600? 700?—and bought an apartment building in nearby Winnipeg to provide increased student housing.

Then, a single government decision closed that door.

Canada’s federal government announced new restrictions on undergraduate international students in January 2024. When the rules take effect this fall, the total number will be reduced by about 35 percent.

Providence was anticipating several hundred new international students. Now, when the semester starts the first week of September, the school will only greet about 20.

“It’s many millions of dollars of revenue just gone,” Anderson told CT. “And, of course, as a private tuition-funded Christian school, it’s not like we have a lot of that money lying around.”

According to the Canadian government, there are several reasons to reduce the number of international students at Canadian colleges and universities. Officials said they were concerned that lax admissions were diminishing the quality of the country’s education.

“We want to ensure that international students are successful and to tackle the issues that make students vulnerable and hurt the integrity of the International Student Program,” Julie Lafortune, a spokeswoman for the department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, told CT in an email.

The government was also concerned about the strain that the influx of internationals puts on the already stressed housing market. Many cities across Canada have seen housing costs skyrocket in recent years. Experts estimate 5.8 million new homes would have to be built by 2030 to bring prices back down to affordable levels.

“While international students are not responsible for the challenges that communities are facing in housing, health care, and other services, the growth in the number of international students is unsustainable and has added significant demand for services that all Canadians must be able to access,” Lafortune said.

The new rule sets limits on international students for each province. The provinces will then determine the allocation of that limited number of students—how many will go to one school, how many to another.

In Manitoba, the government decided to prioritize permits for international students attending public universities. Providence was allowed just a small amount.

Anderson said the combined decisions of the federal and provincial governments were enough to threaten the existence of the evangelical university. But Providence isn’t alone, he said. Many institutions of higher education are going to suffer.

“That was a very popular move politically for them to make, but it was a bit of a blunt instrument,” he said. “It just kind of like hit everybody.”

Kingswood University in New Brunswick will notice the hit.

In its 80-year history, the Methodist-affiliated school has come to rely on the flow of enrollments from abroad. Sometimes as much as 40 percent of the student body has been international. The majority have come from the United States, but many have come from further away as well, reflecting Kingswood’s Methodist ties and its missions-minded identity.

“It’s impossible for us to do what we were chosen and funded to do because of this new rule,” president Stephen Lennox told CT.

In the rural community of Sussex, where the university is located, housing is not a major problem, according to Lennox. He understands the government concerns about education quality and housing stock, but neither issue actually applies to Kingswood. So the rule doesn’t solve anything but does seriously hurt the school.

Christian Higher Education Canada sent a letter to Marc Miller, minister of immigration, refugees, and citizenship, asking him to reconsider. Lennox, who is on the board, is one of the leaders at 22 Christian schools in Canada who signed the appeal.

“Our schools provide theological education, preparing individuals to fill positions as pastors and other religious professionals,” it said. “Limiting the number of international students restricts us in our mission to help alleviate the pastoral leadership deficit in churches around the world.”

One major issue that will impact Kingswood is the change to the process of admitting US students. Americans who want to study at evangelical schools in Canada will find it’s a bit more difficult than it was before.

“They’ve always been allowed to enter by a door that’s a little easier to pass through than a typical international student. Now they all have to come through the same door,” Lennox said. “A student two hours away in Calais, Maine, has to go through the same process that someone coming from Swaziland has to go through. And to me, that just doesn’t seem to make any sense.”

Some evangelical schools in Canada have seen problems with housing. The government concern about people having places to live is relevant to their context. But they were already figuring out solutions.

“Finding housing in Moncton can be a challenge,” said Darrell Nevers, marketing and communications manager at Crandall University, a school associated with the Canadian Baptists of Atlantic Canada. “However, our student network is strong; most students can find suitable housing before arrival or soon afterwards. We also work with community partners to help students find safe and affordable housing.”

Crandall, which is also in New Brunswick, typically recruits between 400 and 450 international students each year to the Moncton campus—just under 50 percent of overall enrollment. The largest numbers of students come from India, Nigeria, Columbia, Ghana, and Bangladesh. The majority are enrolled in graduate programs, however, which are exempt from the new restrictions for now.

That reduces the impact but doesn’t entirely eliminate it. Crandall is welcoming only 8–12 international undergraduate students this fall but 140 additional students are enrolled in graduate programs.

“While we are certainly concerned that these changes will impact our undergraduate student enrollment, we believe that our provincial government has been incredibly fair in how they have allocated numbers to New Brunswick schools,” Nevers said.

Faced with the new restrictions, some universities have chosen to pivot.

“We feel like the Lord has definitely closed a door for this season. We hope that it opens again, either with a change of government or just because they see there is a better way. But we also feel like, ‘Hey, the Lord wants us to exist. What other options are out there for us?’” said Lennox at Kingswood.

Currently, the school has plans to offer a one-year master’s in leadership starting in January 2025. Those students will be exempt from the new restriction, and Kingswood hopes to recruit enough of them to offset the losses in undergraduate enrollment. Since it’s a one-year program instead of a four-year program, however, they will have to recruit at a faster rate.

Providence has also taken steps to expand its graduate offerings. Anderson said it was incredibly difficult for faculty and staff to get a new program in place as quickly as they needed to, but it was essential to the future of the institution.

“It was just one of those things where you do or die, so to speak,” the president said. “We’re doing a lot of things to strengthen our work and our sustainability as an institution and what we offer to the kingdom of God, to the church, to our communities.”

New graduate programs will bring about 300 international students to Providence this fall. That alleviates immediate financial concerns, but school officials have a new awareness of how easily that could change. Recruiting more international students no longer seems like a key piece of a solid plan for sustainability.

“The international work was good in that it was helping buy time, essentially,” Anderson said. “Now, we’re going to have to dig a little deeper.”

Source: Canadian Christian Colleges Hit Hard by New Immigration Restrictions

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Foreign student permits are already outpacing 2023’s record numbers

2024/07/23 Leave a comment

Analysis fails to address time lags between expressing web interest in getting a study permit and more significantly, the number of applications processed. Both are down about 25 percent, January-May, 2024 compared to same period in 2023.

While the number of study permit holders increased January to May, the numbers have started to decline in April and May by just over 12 percent:

Even as federal Liberal government is pledging to cap the number of international study permits, its own data show Canada is approving permits at a pace faster than last year, which saw a record number of approvals.

According to numbers curated online by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), Canada handed out 216,620 international study permits in the first five months of 2024.

Just 200,205 study permits were handed out during the same time period in 2023.

By the end of 2023, 682,420 study permits had been granted to foreign students.

Canada has been granting the vast majority of permits to India, with 278,335 going to students from that country in 2023, a number nearly five times more than to students from China, the second-highest country of origin, who were granted 58,230 permits in 2023.

Canada’s third-most popular source of international students in 2023 was Nigeria, with 37,575 permits handed out in 2023, followed by the Philippines with 33,830, and Nepal at 15,920…

Source: Foreign student permits are already outpacing 2023’s record numbers

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Canada to stop processing study permits for colleges, universities that fail to track international students

2024/07/11 Leave a comment

The federal government having to take on a role the provinces should be doing given in their jurisdiction :

The federal government plans to suspend processing of study permits from post-secondary students if the schools fail to keep track of international students’ enrolment. 

The proposed regulations would compel colleges and universities to report to the federal Immigration Department whether a student is attending school and complying with all study permit requirements.

The move is part of recent attempts to restore confidence in Canada’s international student program.

Under the plan unveiled in the Canada Gazette, students must also apply for a new study permit whenever they want to switch schools, and before the start date of the new study program.

In flexing its muscle to ensure compliance, the federal government is treading a fine line, as governance of the education system falls under provincial jurisdiction.

The Immigration Department is responsible for the entry of international students, establishing the conditions that study permit holders must meet while in Canada, and deciding whether a study permit should be issued.

Although Ottawa only grants study permits to “designated learning institutions,” it’s the provinces that designate if a college or university is authorized to admit international students.

As a result, federal officials have had a tough time monitoring what goes on after a student enters Canada. They don’t know if a student is enrolled in the school named in their study permits or if they are actually studying until they need to extend a permit or apply for postgraduation work permits….

Source: Canada to stop processing study permits for colleges, universities that fail to track international students

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Douglas Todd: Canada should warn guest worker, student applicants they’re taking a big gamble

2024/06/26 Leave a comment

Good comments by Kurland, Skuterud and Lee:

….Their plight is the direct fault of Ottawa, say migration specialists.

“Over the past four years the number of people with temporary status in Canada has skyrocketed” because of an executive decision from the office of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, says Richard Kurland, a Vancouver immigration lawyer.

“So there is now a chicken in the python problem,” he said.

“People with study permits, and then post-graduate work permits, who can’t qualify for permanent resident status face taking an airplane ride home in shame and poverty. Or they’ll find a way to stay.”

Kurland expects to see “increasing trends of marriages of convenience, refugee claims and applications for humanitarian and compassionate relief.”

A sign of what’s to come might have already arisen at Seneca College in Toronto, where asylum claims from international students increased from 300 in 2022 to almost 700 in 2023. At Kitchener’s Conestoga College, claims jumped from 106 to 450 during that same period.

University of Waterloo economics professor Mikal Skuterud, a specialist in labour, said “lots of non-permanent residents in Canada are seeing their permits expire and the government is worried that large numbers have no intention of leaving the country.”

The Liberal government created the predicament a few years ago, said Skuterud, when it signalled to the world, particularly those with low skills, the easiest way to become a citizen of Canada is to show up as a temporary resident.

“For migrants, Canada’s immigrant selection system now looks like a lottery, in which a work or study permit is the ticket. That’s a big problem. And it wasn’t like this before 2021.”

The Liberal government made the mistake of dismantling the country’s skills-based immigration system because of a “post-pandemic obsession with labour shortages, which is economic nonsense fuelled by corporate Canada,” Skuterud said.

George Lee, an immigration lawyer in Burnaby, said the “federal government created this problem: They’ve brought in too many people. The government wanted to address labour shortages. But now they say,  ‘It’s too much!’ In effect the government is blaming itself.”

Last week, StatCan reported 2.8 million temporary residents in Canada, comprising a record 6.8 per cent of the population. That’s up from 3.5 per cent two years ago.

More than one million are foreign students, most with work permits. Others are classified as “temporary foreign workers” or “international mobility” workers. Another 360,000 are asylum claimants.

In light of Immigration Minister Marc Miller promising this spring to reduce the number of study visas, partly in response to the pressure on housing prices and social services, Kurland said Canada should warn would-be migrants they’re taking a big gamble.

“They now face a loss of their significant investment in time and money. The problem is that the majority of people are unaware that every (newcomer) takes the risk that Canada’s immigration regulations may be changed at any time,” said Kurland, who publishes the newsletter, Lexbase, which previously reported on how Canada’s border services are better tracking when people actually exit the country.

Canada’s problem with an influx of temporary residents is different from what’s facing the U.S. and Europe. Those regions have experienced waves of millions of undocumented migrants. But, for the most part, Canada has explicitly welcomed the record flow of newcomers, most of whom are unskilled.

Skuterud questions the immigration minister’s May announcement that he would like to reduce the number of temporary residents in Canada simply by turning them into permanent residents, particularly through the provinces’ so-called nominee programs.

“The irony of all this is that the government is providing more ad hoc openings to permanent residency to relieve the bulging non-permanent population.” It’s thereby “inadvertently” encouraging more people to start in Canada on a temporary basis with the dream of staying forever, he said.

The surge of temporary residents has not only exacerbated Canada’s housing crisis, Skuterud said rapid population growth, almost entirely from international migration, correlates with Canadian wages staying stagnant.

Lee, who came to Canada on a study visa from China in 1992, supports Canada’s efforts to bring high numbers of international students to the country, saying they’re primed to become engaged citizens since they have learned the culture, to speak English or French, and have developed Canadian-based job skills.

The problem, Lee said, is that when Ottawa tried to address a perceived labour shortage, it went too far and embraced too many newcomers at once. “We need a more balanced approach.”

Kurland suggests Ottawa adopt a “consumer protection” model to more honestly process people who want to move to Canada.

Canada’s immigration department, he said, should ask people who apply online for temporary residency: “If you are planning to possibly immigrate to Canada, do you acknowledge that your plan may fail if Canada immigration law and regulations were to change?”

Skuterud offers a different way forward. He says Ottawa has recently been over-promoting a “two-step immigration” scheme that pushes aspiring immigrants to first enter the country on a temporary basis.

He would like the government to return to emphasizing the more traditional economic-class pathway to permanent resident status, which relied on a transparent, above-board ranking system to select candidates.

Source: Douglas Todd: Canada should warn guest worker, student applicants they’re taking a big gamble

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Globe editorial: The right question to ask about international students and housing

2024/06/24 Leave a comment

Great summary:

…Ultimately, Ottawa must act to fix the incentive structure that has contributed to the lack of affordable housing. As we’ve argued before, students should be limited to on-campus work. Ottawa should not guarantee permanent residency for international students, although they should be able to apply. Decisive action, which to date has been lacking, will eliminate the incentives that have distorted Canada’s international student system.

That action starts with asking the right question: how can Ottawa fix the mess it has made?

Source: The right question to ask about international students and housing

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Krikorian: Donald Trump, Immigration Expansionist

2024/06/24 Leave a comment

From the US right wing largely anti-immigration crowd. Comments on how this approach would “would turn every university (and community college!) into a citizenship-selling machine.” Sounds somewhat familiar to some of our education institutions and provincial ministries?

In a podcast this week with several tech investors, Donald Trump said he wants to give green cards to any foreign student who graduates from a U.S. institution. (The full interview is here; the immigration comments start at about 43:40.)

It’s true that his staff has subsequently tried to walk some of this back, but his comments shouldn’t surprise anyone.

While Trump’s explicit endorsement of this specific “staple a green card to every diploma” scheme is new, he’s always made clear, even during his first campaign, that he favored increased immigration. I’ve written in these pages about Trump’s support for expanded immigration here and here. And here. And here.

That said, this week’s comments by Trump really were more preposterous than usual. While he cited “people who are No. 1 in their class in top colleges,” he specifically added that foreign students getting a two-year degree from “junior colleges” should also automatically get green cards. Even lobbyists for higher ed and the tech industry aren’t this brazen. They exploit the appeal of keeping the “best and brightest” among foreign students as a means of protecting broader cheap-labor schemes, but I’ve never heard one seriously argue for giving green cards to graduates of community colleges.

If a foreign student completes a PhD in a hard science from one of the top research universities in the country, I will personally deliver a green card to their home. But someone who got an associate’s degree in communications? It’s laughable.

Trump promised the tech guys that the current situation would “end on Day One,” which is more nonsense, since any staple-a-green-card ploy would require legislation. But since this gimmick has been floating around for years, it’s worth thinking through what it would mean.

It would turn every university (and community college!) into a citizenship-selling machine. There are no numerical limits on the admission of foreign students — who number about 1 million now — and foreign students are already a major profit center for schools large and small.

But if any degree from any school would guarantee a green card (and thus U.S. citizenship, access to welfare, and the ability to bring your relatives), applications would soar at every kind of school, and new schools would pop up like mushrooms. Any residual connection that taxpayer-subsidized U.S. institutions of higher education (which is all of them, public or private) still have to the interests of the United States would be washed away by the gusher of easy foreign money. Good luck getting your kid into Hofstra, let alone Harvard.

Not to mention that elite higher education has become a hive of anti-American villainy — why reward them with a firehose of foreign cash?

In Australia the connection between foreign-student visas and permanent residence is closer to what Trump proposes, though still not automatic. The result is that foreign students account for more than 40 percent of all college enrollment and total close to 3 percent of the entire nation’s population. It’s gotten so bad there — remember, even without the automatic provision of a green card that Trump wants — that even the center-left Labour government is cracking down on foreign-student admissions.

The silver lining might be that we can start a conversation about our whole system of admitting foreign students. What’s the rationale for it? Why take any foreign students at all? Why is there no numerical limit? Why no percentage cap for any individual school? Shouldn’t the American people have a say in who moves here, rather than just university-admissions officers? Why is the hiring of foreign graduates (masquerading as students) subsidized through the Optional Practical Training program? And why is ICE so lackadaisical (even under Trump) in its oversight of foreign students, through the sleepy Student and Exchange Visitor Program?

Ceterum censeo academiam delendam esse. (The academy must be destroyed)

Source: Donald Trump, Immigration Expansionist

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Trump proposes green cards for foreign grads of US colleges, departing from anti-immigrant rhetoric

2024/06/22 Leave a comment

Always hard to judge his thoughts as to the degree of seriousness in following through if elected. More likely that his harder line immigration views will prevail given the nature of organizations and possible senior appointments but essentially a version of PGWP:

Former President Donald Trump said in an interview posted Thursday he wants to give automatic green cards to foreign students who graduate from U.S. colleges, a sharp departure from the anti-immigrant rhetoriche typically uses on the campaign trail.

Trump was asked about plans for companies to be able to import the “best and brightest” in a podcast taped Wednesday with venture capitalists and tech investors called the “All-In.”

“What I want to do and what I will do is you graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically as part of your diploma a green card to be able to stay in this country. And that includes junior colleges too, anybody graduates from a college. You go there for two years or four years,” he said, vowing to address this concern on day one.

Immigration has been Trump’s signature issue during his 2024 bid to return to the White House. His suggestion that he would offer green cards — documents that confer a pathway to U.S. citizenship — to potentially hundreds of thousands of foreign graduates would represent a sweeping expansion of America’s immigration system that sharply diverges from his most common messages on foreigners.

Source: Trump proposes green cards for foreign grads of US colleges, departing from anti-immigrant rhetoric

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