Asylum claims jump at Canadian airports after Ottawa eases some visitor visa requirements

2023/10/24 Leave a comment

“Fix” one problem by creating another! Waiving the sufficient funds requirements and the demonstration of intent to leave requirement may have appeared a good idea at the time but did nobody at the official or political level not expect an increase in claimants?

Canada is experiencing a surge of asylum claims being made at domestic airports after a contentious move by the federal government to waive certain requirements for thousands of visitor visa applicants.

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has processed more than 26,000 asylum claimants at airports through September this year, an increase of 54 per cent from last year’s total, according to figures from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). While the numbers have been rising since 2022, the trend accelerated in the spring.

In March, the federal government closed Roxham Road, a popular route into Quebec for those seeking asylum in Canada. The closure has forced would-be claimants to find new entry points.

But there was another, less-publicized move, that likely contributed to the trend. Earlier this year, Ottawa waived some eligibility requirements for visitor visa applicants – in particular, those individuals no longer have to prove they have sufficient funds to stay in Canada or demonstrate they will leave the country when their visas expire. The policy went into effect on Feb. 28 and lasts through the end of 2023.

The Globe and Mail reported in January that IRCC was considering such a move, after the newspaper leaked a government document that outlined ways to reduce a significant volume of visa applications.

The memo said that not all applicants for temporary resident visas, or TRVs, would be “genuine visitors,” and that in waiving eligibility requirements for those individuals, it could lead to an additional 8,600 asylum claims.

Still, Ottawa pressed ahead with the plan – although it didn’t disclose anything publicly until June, four months after the policy took effect. Radio-Canada was first to report on the change.

“The percentage of people coming to Canada on a TRV and claiming asylum remains low compared to the overall volume of TRVs the department typically issues each year,” IRCC spokesperson Mary Rose Sabater said in a statement. “In the current reality of increasing global migration, Canada, like many other countries, is experiencing a rise in the number of people claiming asylum.”

Many people connected to the immigration system, including lawyers and government employees, have criticized Ottawa’s approach to expediting the processing of applications. They say the immigration department is not performing its due diligence in screening all visitors, while also putting stress on the refugee system, which was already struggling to accommodate a rush of people seeking protection in Canada.

The change “makes our immigration system seem unreliable,” said Zeynab Ziaie Moayyed, an immigration lawyer in Toronto. It’s “a short-sighted way to reduce that backlog, but creates all kinds of other problems.”

At times last year, there were more than 2.6 million applications in IRCC’s inventories, including for visitor visas, work and study permits and permanent residency. As of Aug. 31, there were 2.2 million applications in the queue.

The IRCC memo, which dates to December, said waiving eligibility requirements would apply to roughly 450,000 TRV applications in the system.

The document said the stockpile of applications was “eroding the public’s trust” in the department and its ability to manage migration. Hopeful immigrants and visitors often complain that it can take years for the government to render a decision on their files.

“The accumulated visitor visa inventory is limiting Canada’s attractiveness for tourists and business persons, in addition to keeping families separated,” the government said on a webpage that announced the policy change. “Facilitating the processing of applications currently in the inventory by streamlining eligibility requirements will position Canada for a clean start and a return to pre-pandemic processing times, thereby ensuring our international competitiveness moving forward.”

The measure applies to visitor visa applications that were in the system by Jan. 16, coinciding with the date of The Globe’s story on the policies under consideration.

The government also waived a requirement – the need for foreign nationals to establish that they will leave the country by the end of their authorized stays – for those seeking “super visas,” which allow parents and grandparents of Canadian citizens or permanent residents to visit the country for five years at a time.

Despite the exemptions, prospective visitors are still subject to other screening procedures, such as those ensuring they aren’t a known threat to national security.

In a statement, the CBSA said it has seen an increase in the number of asylum claimants in recent weeks at airports, including Montréal–Trudeau International Airport and Toronto Pearson International Airport. The agency said the claimants were mainly from Mexico, India, Kenya, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria and Uganda.

Federal data show that a majority of asylum claims made at airports occur in Quebec. Eric Forest, a spokesperson for Trudeau International Airport, said it is “not suited to receive a large number of asylum seekers daily nor should it be its mandate.”

The IRCC memo outlined the pros and cons of using “aggressive measures” to reduce its inventory of visa applications, which it described as a crisis situation. Among the drawbacks, there would be “increased pressure” on the asylum system, including for the CBSA, the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, hotels and airlines.

As of June 30, there were more than 103,000 refugee protection claims pending at the IRB, an increase of 47 per cent over six months.

Ms. Ziaie Moayyed questioned why IRCC would waive some requirements when it already has methods to process applications in bulk.

“They could have used the technology tools they have to process those applications,” she said. “It wouldn’t have created this really bad precedent that Canada will, at some point, if pushed, allow a large number of applications to go through without any eligibility assessment.”

Source: Asylum claims jump at Canadian airports after Ottawa eases some visitor visa requirements

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Citizenship in Scandinavia – What are reasonable demands for full membership?

2019/12/05 Leave a comment

Interesting comparison, showing despite the different approaches, the underlying views on citizenship requirements in all three countries were very similar:

In 2018, together with our colleagues in the other Scandinavian countries, we undertook a representative survey in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Young people from ages 20 to 36 were interviewed – just over 7500 in total. Individuals from the majority populations, descendants of immigrants from Iraq, Pakistan, Poland, Somalia, Turkey, and Vietnam, were included. Immigrants from Iraq and Somalia also participated in the survey in all three countries, while immigrants from Pakistan, Poland and Turkey were included, in addition, in the Norwegian sample. All respondents were asked what they considered reasonable requirements for citizenship, what they thought of the existing rules in their respective countries, and to what extent they felt they were recognized as members of the national community.

Citizenship is the last stop on the way to formal membership in a new homeland. Before this, immigrants with legal status already enjoy many rights. New members of Scandinavian societies have access to some civil and social rights, from day one in the country. Still, citizenship is regarded as important and attractive, especially among those who come from countries with greater legal, economic, and political uncertainty. Citizenship in Scandinavia protects them from deportation, in principle at least. It bestows help overseas, grants the right to vote in parliamentary elections – and not least, gives access to a Scandinavian passport, with all the rights to travel freely and work in the entire EU region.

In the last few years there has been a trend to implement stricter requirements for citizenship in many European countries, such as knowledge tests (language, history, and society), proof of self-sufficiency, and longer waiting times.

Among researchers, these stricter requirements are often interpreted from either a control or an integration perspective: Recent increases in immigration have made authorities keen on finding legal ways to control access to citizenship. On the other hand, concerns over integration have raised the bar for competence in language and knowledge about society, and those who are permanent residents and seek citizenship are required to meet this higher bar in order to become full members.

Regardless of how one interprets the politics, these laws create indisputably higher barriers. There has been an (implicit) assumption among researchers that the stricter requirements are not in immigrants’ interest, but no empirical research has been done. This new survey is the first to investigate these issues empirically.

The three Scandinavian countries are interesting to compare because they cover the entire scale when it comes to citizenship requirements. Denmark is one of the strictest countries in Europe when it comes to citizenship. Sweden is on the liberal outer edge, while Norway – as is often the case with immigration and integration policies – finds itself somewhere in the middle.

We began our study with the assumption that these marked political differences would be mirrored in the immigrant groups and descendants’ attitudes in the three countries – that immigrants and descendants in Denmark would be more critical of the country’s rules, than corresponding groups would be to Swedish policies in Sweden, for example. We also thought the majority populations would want stricter requirements than the minorities would, especially in Denmark. The results did not meet our expectations though, and in many ways were very surprising.

Overall the survey does not show big differences between the three countries, and when it comes to attitudes toward how the rules are and should be, there are barely differences between the three groups (majority, immigrants, and descendants). The prevailing attitude is that it is legitimate to set requirements for new members of society who become citizens – the majority across groups believe these requirements should include five years of residence, a simple language and society test, an oath, and being part of the work force. At the same time, they think it should be legal to keep one’s original citizenship when naturalizing. In other words, there should be clear requirements to become a full member of a Scandinavian society, but these should be reasonable and possible to meet. The results paint a picture of consensus on what “reasonable” means – a framework that lies somewhere between the extremes represented by Denmark and Sweden.

Other institutions, like the education system, labor market, and health care system are probably more important as a basis for attitudes toward membership in society than citizenship.

How should we interpret these findings? The alignment in attitudes across our survey respondents is a pointer to the fact that life in Scandinavia is not so different across the three countries, despite the respective states’ different policies on immigration. In fact, other institutions, like the education system, labor market, and health care system are probably more important as a basis for attitudes toward membership in society than citizenship.

The survey does not tell us anything about emphasis placed on different institutions’ importance for feelings of membership, acceptance, and belonging. But we do see indications of experiences of both discrimination and of lower levels of trust among minority groups.

The consensus on requirements, nevertheless, suggests that the citizenship institution continues to matter as a framework for togetherness. The survey also indicates that minority members of society are reflected actors, alongside majority society members, when it comes to guarding the last ticket into society – and what should be demanded, in order to ensure the functioning of an increasingly diverse society.

Source: Citizenship in Scandinavia – What are reasonable demands for full membership?

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