Ukraine-Russia war: Putin #citizenship decree violates children’s rights, Ukraine says – BBC

2024/01/08 Leave a comment

Of note and yes it does:

Ukraine has condemned a decree signed by President Putin making it possible to confer Russian citizenship on Ukrainian children moved to Russia.

Last March, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Putin over Russia’s policy of forced child deportations.

The Ukrainian foreign ministry called the decree illegal.

However, Russia insists it is moving the children out of harm’s way.

On 4 January Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a citizenship decree expediting Russian citizenship to foreigners and stateless people.

The Ukrainian foreign ministry singled out the passage saying that orphaned Ukrainian children or those deprived of parental guardianship can be fast-tracked to Russian citizenship by way of a presidential decision, or after a request by the institution holding them.

The decree states that a citizenship application for such a child can be submitted by their legal guardian or the head of a Russian organisation responsible for the child.

The Ukrainian foreign ministry sees this as Russia’s attempt to solve its own demographic crisis, describing it as a violation of Ukrainian and international laws and children’s rights.

The decree is yet more evidence of Russia’s policy of forced assimilation of Ukrainian children, and crimes against Ukraine in general, the ministry added.

Ukraine’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, says Moscow is granting citizenship to the children so that they are not regarded as Ukrainians who have been transferred to Russia.

The Ukrainian authorities have identified over 19,000 Ukrainian children who have been deported to Russia since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Only 387 children have been brought back so far, according to the Ukrainian national database Children of war.

In November 2023, the BBC’s Panorama TV programme revealed that a political ally of Mr Putin adopted a child seized from a Ukrainian children’s home.

Sergey Mironov, the 70-year-old leader of a Russian political party, is named on the adoption record of a two-year-old girl who was taken in 2022 by a woman he is now married to, according to documents seen by Panorama.

In March, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Mr Putin for alleged war crimes in Ukraine. The ICC said he was responsible for for unlawful deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia.

Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, was hit with the same charges. ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan said children could not be “treated as spoils of war” and that it was possible Putin could stand trial.

Source: Ukraine-Russia war: Putin citizenship decree violates children’s rights, Ukraine says – BBC

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Russia ‘systematically’ forcing Ukrainians to accept citizenship, US report finds

2023/08/04 Leave a comment

Of note, continuing weaponizing of citizenship:

Ukrainians living in Russian-occupied territory are being forced to assume Russian citizenship or face retaliation, including possible deportation or detention, a new US report has said.

Yale University researchers found that residents of the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions were being targeted by a systematic effort to strip them of Ukrainian identity.

Ukrainians who do not seek Russian citizenship “are subjected to threats, intimidation, restrictions on humanitarian aid and basic necessities, and possible detention or deportation, all designed to force them to become Russian citizens,” the report said.

Russia’s actions were “classic war crimes in the sense that they are restricting or limiting through this process people’s ability to access critical services and resources that Russia is required to allow all people to access, such as healthcare, and humanitarian systems,” Nathaniel Raymond, the executive director of Yale School of Public Health, told CNN.

Moscow claims to have given Russian passports to more than 3 million Ukrainians since 2014, after the annexation of Crimea and occupation of Ukrainian territories since the launch of its full-scale invasion in 2022.

Russian prime minister Mikhail Mishustin said in May that Moscow had given passports to almost 1.5 million people living in parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions seized since October last year.

“This number has grown since then, with leaders of the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) claiming that three-quarters of residents of that oblast [region] had received Russian citizenship,” the report said.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has signed a series of decrees to compel Ukrainians to get Russian passports, in violation of international humanitarian law, the report said.

The report included a timeline of increasingly aggressive measures to pressure or force Ukrainians to become Russian citizens, starting in May 2014, when Russia illegally annexed Crimea. The timeline continues ahead to July 2024, when, according to new Russian laws, residents without Russian citizenship would be considered “foreigners” or “stateless” and can be detained in detention facilities and/or deported to Russia.

  • March 2014: Russia illegally annexes Crimea and passportisation begins.Nine months after annexation, Russia claims that over 1.5 million people in Crimea have received Russian citizenship.

  • February 2022: Russia’s full-scale invasion begins and Moscow captures parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Three months later, citizenship application in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia is simplified. This follows the simplification of citizenship applications in Donetsk and Luhansk in 2019. In September 2022. Russia illegally annexes Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

  • 18 March 2023: Russia introduces a law on unilateral renunciation of Ukrainian citizenship introduced. The policy allows residents to “renounce” their Ukrainian citizenship unilaterally. Two days later, Putin calls for passportisation to be accelerated and local occupation authorities quickly announce new passporting offices and mobile teams.

  • 27 April 2023: Russia adopts a law that will allow authorities to detain or deport residents without Russian passports. Starting July 2024, residents without Russian citizenship will be considered “foreigners” or “stateless”.

  • 6 June 2023: Destruction of the Kakhovka dam, resulting in widespread flooding and displacement. Russia’s forces use the aftermath to push citizenship on residents. Russian passport holders are made eligible for compensation for the flood damage, whereas Ukrainian passport holders are eligible only for only a small flat payment.

  • 26 June 2023: Planning begins for deportation and detention facilities. The head of the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic” announces a planning group to study facilities for detaining residents without Russian passports for deportation.

  • 1 July 2024: Ukrainian residents who have not accepted Russian citizenship can be detained and/or deported, including to remote areas of Russia.

The report said: “While states are afforded wide discretion under international law with regards to conferring nationality, customary international law clearly forbids the imposition of citizenship without consent or under duress.”

Source: Russia ‘systematically’ forcing Ukrainians to accept citizenship, US report finds

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Exil de mer et de vent 

2023/07/27 Leave a comment

Portrait of Ukrainian exiles in rural Quebec, their welcome into a small community of 100 people, and the challenges they face and how they adopt or not:

Mai dernier. Les trois fillettes sautillent sur le terrain dans le printemps tout neuf. Derrière la maison, il y a la baie immense, les îles, la somptuosité de la Basse-Côte-Nord. Artur exulte : l’épicerie de Tête-à-la-Baleine a enfin reçu des betteraves. Sa soupe borchtch est au feu. Snizhana, vêtue de jaune et de bleu, tient la petite dernière, la quatrième, dans ses bras. « C’est un hasard. Vous me voyez vêtue aux couleurs de l’Ukraine. »

Cet hiver, elle s’est longuement promenée sur la baie gelée, main dans la main avec les enfants et avec sa nostalgie. Ensemble, elle, les filles et la nostalgie, elles ont vu des corbeaux, des phoques, des belettes. Et des renards roux à la queue longue et touffue. En Ukraine aussi, il y avait des renards roux. Les enfants criaient leur joie. Snizhana étouffait son désarroi.

Les Levytskyi, Artur, Snizhana et leurs quatre enfants, sont ici depuis février. Si on les additionne aux membres de l’autre famille ukrainienne arrivée six mois auparavant, les deux maisonnées font gonfler la population de Tête-à-la-Baleine de 11 personnes. Sur une population de 100. C’est beaucoup !

Deux familles qui ont quitté l’Ukraine parce qu’elles étaient en train de devenir un peu folles. Fallait partir. Par tous les moyens. « Mon cerveau avait cessé de fonctionner, se souvient Snizhana, j’avançais comme un animal. » Un animal terrorisé. « Nous dormions tout habillés au cas où il faudrait vite décamper. Je ne suis pas brave, je l’avoue. Peut-être parce que je suis une mère. » Snizhana parle sans s’arrêter, en un flux précipité. « J’ai consulté une psy pour savoir comment cacher aux enfants mes propres angoisses. »

Des histoires qui ressemblent à tant d’autres, de fuites éperdues, d’attentes interminables, de frontières à franchir, de bagages à traîner. Marcher, marcher, exténués, avec le goût de flancher, de s’effondrer. Tenir bon, garder un semblant de moral pour les plus jeunes.

Un village entier mobilisé

Deux familles qui sont parvenues à Tête-à-la-Baleine par la même voie, celle d’un village qui s’est mobilisé pour les accueillir. On a trouvé à chacune une maison, un véhicule, une motoneige, des vêtements, des vivres. Des résidents ont envoyé des chèques pour leurs hôtes venus de loin. « C’était aussi, et peut-être principalement, un échange, une sorte de contrat », explique Michaël Lambert, qui a pris l’initiative de faire venir des familles ukrainiennes jusque dans cette contrée lointaine, désert de poissons et d’oiseaux que nulle route ne relie au reste du Québec et du continent. « On cherchait des familles pour renforcer la vitalité du village, fouetter son économie et empêcher l’école de fermer. » Du donnant-donnant, en quelque sorte.

Trouver des familles qui, en contrepartie d’une vie paisible, loin de la guerre, accepteraient d’y passer ne serait-ce que quelques années, consentiraient à apprendre le français, découvriraient qu’elles apprécient cette vie rudimentaire, loin des centres et de la consommation, dans la poussière grise des quatre-roues l’été, et celle, toute blanche, des motoneiges l’hiver. Avec une épicerie au contenu famélique, des transports impossibles, des bateaux aux horaires incertains ou des avions à prix exorbitants. Des familles qui acquiesceraient au système D, au bricolage, au rafistolage. « On a bien voulu essayer cette vie-là, essayer le Canada », poursuit Snizhana.

Imaginez la scène. Février dernier. Il fait moins 40. Michaël est parti chercher le ménage des Levytskyi entreposé à Kegaska, tandis que la famille, elle, est déjà arrivée en avion à Tête-à-la-Baleine. Une chevauchée en motoneige de 250 kilomètres sur la Route blanche, sentier balisé pour faciliter les déplacements l’hiver sur la Basse-Côte-Nord. Aveuglé par la lumière et frigorifié, Michaël fonce dans la blancheur, traînant le chargement derrière son engin. Et puis, oh ! malheur !, la motoneige s’étouffe, en panne. L’homme manque d’y laisser la peau. À moitié congelé, il sera sauvé par des gens de la côte partis à sa recherche.

L’une chante, l’autre pas

Deux familles, donc, venues d’une même Ukraine, échouées dans un même exil de mer et de vent, mais deux familles bien différentes. Avec chacune leur façon de voir la vie, avec des exigences distinctes, peut-être, face à l’existence et une quête du bonheur qui ne se ressemble pas. Si bien qu’aujourd’hui, l’une arrive à s’adapter, l’autre pas. L’une envisage de rester, l’autre pas. L’une chante, l’autre pas.*(1)

« Je me sens perdue dans un pays perdu, confie Snizhana. J’ai envie que les enfants aient des activités parascolaires, qu’ils connaissent autre chose pour leur développement intellectuel et spirituel. » À cela s’ajoute son tourment de décevoir ceux et celles qui, à Tête-à-la-Baleine, se sont démenés pour les accueillir. « Même si je comprends leur décision de partir, je suis déçu, dit Michaël, c’est un peu comme un contrat brisé. » « Je comprends leur déception, rétorque doucement Snizhana, mais c’est de notre vie et de notre avenir qu’il s’agit. »

La famille Lizunova, de son côté, envisage de s’acheter une maison à Tête-à-la-Baleine et de quitter le presbytère où elle est provisoirement logée. Les deux adultes, des cousines, Antonina Lizunova et Olga Kulyk, apprennent activement le français, l’une dans le but de travailler à l’aéroport, l’autre pour devenir cuisinière à l’auberge de l’Archipel, au coeur du village. D’ailleurs, Olga a fait cuire sa première morue hier, sous la supervision de Marco Marcoux, propriétaire du lieu, qui lui donnait ses instructions en usant de Google Translate. « Une morue apprêtée à la mode de chez nous ! lance Marco, avec une purée de pommes de terre et un quartier de citron. »

S’encourageant l’une et l’autre et transmettant leur force morale aux trois ados dont elles ont la charge, les cousines sont animées d’un optimisme à tous crins. Mais quand on leur demande si elles souffrent du mal du pays, leurs yeux s’embrument. Ah ! combien elles voudraient pouvoir m’ouvrir leur coeur et se faire comprendre au moins un peu, en français ou en anglais. Bon, à défaut, ne parlant ni l’une ni l’autre langue, elles m’offrent une petite crêpe « à la viande », une expression qu’elles ont apprise depuis leur arrivée à Tête-à-la-Baleine.

Partir dès que possible

Le village s’est mis en quête d’une autre famille ukrainienne. Aux dernières nouvelles, une mère, un père et leurs cinq enfants s’annonçaient pour bientôt.« On a déjà tenu deux activités de financement », se réjouit Michaël.

Snizhana, elle, veut quitter Tête-à-la-Baleine aussi vite que possible. C’est fou, elle le sait, elle veut partir avant que les mouches noires ne fassent leur apparition. Oui, elle en est consciente, c’est fou, elle qui a survécu aux bombes, aux explosions, aux tirs de mortier, est prise d’une peur obsessive des mouches noires. Comme si le ciel allait à nouveau l’attaquer et fondre sur elle. « L’exil ne prive pas uniquement l’individu de sa terre natale, écrit Marie Daniès, dans la revue Mémoires. L’exilé se perd car ce qui le définissait, son rapport à lui-même, aux autres, a disparu. Le sens de sa vie lui échappe. »

En songe, je vois Snizhana au bout du quai de Tête-à-la-Baleine, immobile, offerte aux vagues et aux oiseaux. Rêvant d’on ne sait quoi. Elle ne sait plus. Snizhana, d’autre part et de nulle part. Snizhana, en exil de tout ce qui est elle-même. Snizhana, l’errante des splendeurs et des malheurs de la terre.

Ailleurs le monde est doux

L’air est meilleur et de partout

Coulent des fleuves d’or et de musique

Ailleurs dormir mon coeur tragique*(2)

Source: Exil de mer et de vent

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Despite end to visa program Ukrainians will still seek refuge in Canada, group says

2023/07/20 Leave a comment

Of note:

As the war in Ukraine continues, some Ukrainians will still want to seek safe haven in Canada despite the end of a special visa program, according to the head of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress.

The group’s CEO Ihor Michalchyshyn said he knows many Ukrainians who returned to their country after coming to Canada in the early days of the war, but that could change depending on what happens in Ukraine.

“It’s a good opportunity to remind people that the war is still on. People are still moving around, there is a lot of uncertainty. I don’t think anybody knows where they will end up or what they’re going back to.”

Over the weekend, the government allowed a special visa program, the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel, to expire. The program allowed Ukrainians to apply to come to Canada with limited barriers and allowed them to stay for up to three years, work legally and receive settlement supports.

The government rejected calls to extend that program and will not accept new applications, though anyone who has already applied and been approved will still be able to come to Canada until March 2024.

The government first unveiled the new program in March 2022, just weeks after the invasion. In total, the government received 1.1 million applications, roughly 800,000 of them have been processed and approximately 166,000 people have come to Canada.

The program was initially set to expire in March, but was extended until July 15. During that extension period 140,000 people applied.

Michalchyshyn said there has been a slowdown in the number of new arrivals from Ukraine, but with the war still threatening civilians, many Ukrainians who hold one of the special visas may decide to come.

“There isn’t a city or a region that hasn’t been touched. Every Ukrainian knows somebody who’s fighting or who’s been killed,” he said. “Ultimately, we need Ukraine to win the war and establish a peace for people to have that context and make decisions.

Ukraine had a pre-war population of just over 40 million, but estimates suggest as many as 10 million people have fled the country since the invasion began on top of others who have been internally displaced. The country’s population has been in decline for decades and could continue to shrink in the years ahead.

Michalchyshyn said when the war is over he believes many Ukrainians will return, but some may decide to start new lives here. Canada is currently home to the largest Ukrainian disapora in the world outside of Russia.

“The government of Ukraine is going to do everything it can to encourage people to come back when they feel safe, and there are lots of people going back now,” he said. “It’s a family decision. It’s an individual decision based on circumstances, based on what they see in their future.”

Mary Rose Sabater, a spokesperson for the immigration department, said after the previous extension, they decided now was the time to wind down the program. She said that doesn’t mean Ukrainians can no longer immigrate.

“Ukrainians are still able to come to Canada by applying through Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s existing temporary resident programs. In recognition of the continued danger while Russia’s invasion continues, we’re implementing these new measures to ensure continued support to Ukrainians in Canada,” she said.

While it ended the special visa program, the government did announce a new process for Ukrainians with family in Canada to become permanent residents.

Sabater said Canada still wants to help for as long as the war continues.

“The Government of Canada continues to do everything possible to help those fleeing Russia’s invasion, which includes providing a safe haven and peace of mind.”

Andrew Griffith, a fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and former director general with Citizenship and Immigration, said the Ukrainians who have travelled to Canada are largely younger people with post-secondary educations — the kind of people Canada is usually looking for.

He said balancing the collective good of Ukraine and the individual good for people fleeing the war is part of the balance of any immigration policy, but he said Canada tends not to be overly concerned about what happens to source countries.

“I have never seen any evidence that we consider the interest of the source country in any meaningful way.”

He said the government’s choice to end new applications for the special visa program is a reasonable measure and a sign to those people who have been approved that they need to make a decision.

“It sends a signal to people that if they want to use this pathway, they’ve got a certain limited amount of time to do it.”

Source: Despite end to visa program Ukrainians will still seek refuge in Canada, group says

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Demand for low-wage foreign labour is surging, change to program for Hong Kong and new program for Ukraine effects

2023/07/17 Leave a comment

Starting with the overall picture and good commentary on the negative impact on productivity by Rupa Banergee:

Canadian companies are ramping up their recruitment of foreign workers to fill a variety of low-wage roles in the service sector, including cooks, cleaners and retail clerks.

In the first quarter, employers were approved to fill about 22,000 positions through the low-wage stream of the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program, an increase of roughly 275 per cent from four years earlier, according to figures recently published by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC).

From January through March, employers were approved to hire more than 2,800 cooks, making it the most sought-after role in the low-wage stream. Companies were seeking thousands of other workers for the food-service sector, such as cashiers. Construction labourers and nurse aides were also in high demand.

To hire a TFW, companies must submit a Labour Market Impact Assessment to the government, showing they can’t find local workers to fill vacant positions. If those roles are approved, foreign workers must obtain the appropriate permits to begin their employment. The ESDC numbers reflect the first part of this hiring process.

The figures are even higher than presented: ESDC excludes some employers – such as business names that include personal names – from its data set of approvals by company.

Regardless, the figures show a dramatic rise in demand for TFWs.

Not only have employers faced historically tight labour markets in recent years, but the federal government has made it easier to hire through the program. Ottawa overhauled the TFW program last year, with some moves allowing employers to hire a greater proportion of their staff through the low-wage stream.

While these changes were cheered by business lobby groups, they were also criticized by migration experts.

The TFW program “disincentivizes employers from making the effort to reach out to underutilized segments of the labour market, and also to improve wages and working conditions,” said Rupa Banerjee, a Canada Research Chair in immigration and economics at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Instead, the TFW program provides employers with a “cheap, flexible and frankly vulnerable source of labour to fill gaps in the labour market,” she said.

Source: Demand for low-wage foreign labour is surging

Recent program announcements highlight the difficulties for the government in having coherent immigration policies. The recent removal of education requirements for Hong Kongers undermines skill levels and productivity, along with demographics given that the change will result in a shift towards older immigrants.

This is not to discount the very real humanitarian objectives behind these two programs, or the political pressure behind most, but to note the overall incoherence:

Vancouver resident Calvin Wong says he can finally start picturing a future in Canada after the federal government announced it was dropping educational requirements for Hong Kongers seeking permanent residency in the wake of the Chinese city’s crackdown on dissent.

Wong, 28, had graduated from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology with a computer science degree in 2017 before moving to Canada on a work permit in 2021, looking for a life where he could enjoy “political freedom.”

But immigration pathways for Hong Kong residents that have allowed thousands to settle permanently in Canada excluded Wong because it has been more than five years since he graduated.

That will change from August 15, after Ottawa announced on Tuesday it would remove all educational requirements for people with at least a year of work experience in Canada.

Immigration consultants say the move effectively opens pathways for Hong Kongers of all ages, instead of the current focus on students and recent graduates. They said they had been flooded with inquiries since the announcement.

“It’s a very great move by the Canadian government and I can eventually get permanent residence here, contribute and live in Canada safely,” said Wong, his voice breaking with emotion.

The store clerk said the chance to secure permanent residency came as a “huge relief,” and his decision to move to Canada was something he would “never regret.”

In 2021, the federal government created two immigration pathways for Hong Kong residents who had either worked or studied in Canada.

The pathways were in response to a crackdown on political dissent after protests drew millions onto Hong Kong’s streets in 2019, followed by the introduction of a harsh new national security law in 2020.

Stream A applies to former Hong Kong residents who graduated from a post-secondary institution in Canada within three years. People with at least one year of work experience in Canada who graduated from a foreign or Canadian institution within five years could apply for Stream B.

The changes open up Stream B to anyone with a year of work experience in Canada, regardless of education.

Sean Fraser, minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship, said the change was a “win-win situation.”

“(It) means that we can welcome more Hong Kongers to Canada who need our support, while simultaneously helping Canadian businesses fill labour gaps with workers who already have work experience here,” he said in a statement.

The announcement by Fraser’s ministry said Canada “continues to stand by Hong Kong residents, and supports their freedom and democracy.”

Canada has welcomed 3,122 permanent residents under the two pathways as of April 30, 2023.

Wong said that being excluded under the current rules had left him depressed.

“I felt it was really difficult to plan my future at that time. I was thinking: where should I go? Should I try my best to stay in Canada or go to the United Kingdom?” said Wong.

Wong said he can now make plans for the future and would submit his immigration application as soon as he completes his one year of work experience in Canada.

Vancouver-based Immigration consultant Peter Pang said the move is a “huge change,” opening up more opportunities to Hong Kongers to contribute to Canada.

Richmond, B.C., immigration consultant Ken Tin Lok Wong said that while the current rules do not ban older people, the time limits since graduation had effectively set a bar.

To have graduated in the past five years generally meant applicants to Stream B were not particularly old, and were “of working age,” he said.

Wong said he had some clients who were ready to pack their bags and leave Canada. But they now felt like they had “hit the jackpot.”“The announcement feels like Canada is helping to retain Hong Kongers regardless of their education,” he said.

“So, if you happen to be a legal worker in Canada, if you happen to obtain one year of work experience, then you are through.”

Source: Canadian government drops education requirement for Hong Kong immigrants

Similarly, hard to see how the new pathway for Ukrainians will contribute to productivity or demographics:

The federal government has launched a new immigration program for Ukrainians fleeing their embattled country, allowing those in Canada with family to receive permanent resident status.

“We continue to extend unwavering support and a lifeline to families separated by this conflict, including through this family reunification pathway that will help Ukrainian families stay together as they rebuild their lives in their new communities in Canada,” said Immigration Minister Sean Fraser in a statement released Saturday.

Eligibility will be extended to Ukrainians living in Canada with temporary status and with one or more family members in Canada.

The government said more details will be released closer to when the program launches on Oct. 23, 2023. The program will have no cost attached to it and will be in place for one year.

The announcement Saturday comes on the day the government’s initial emergency immigration program was set to expire.

Under the Canada-Ukraine authorization for emergency travel (CUAET), launched in March 2022, Ukrainians were able to come to Canada and live and work for up to three years. They benefited from a variety of measures meant to speed up the visa process, including prioritized processing and waived fees.

Roughly 166,000 Ukrainians have come to Canada through the special visa program. That’s about 21 per cent of the 800,000 emergency visas granted, from around 1.1 million applications, according to the government.

‘We’re just asking for lots of flexibility’

In an interview Saturday, the head of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress said the details to come would be key to their response to the program. But in general, he said his organization is pushing for more options for Ukrainians coming to Canada.

“We’re just asking for lots of flexibility on the pathways for people as they make their way through what is a very uncertain situation,” said Ihor Michalchyshyn, the UCC’s CEO.

“The war has not ended, we have to keep options open for people.”

One key unknown was what set of questions the government would be using to determine eligibility and approvals throughout the process, he noted.

Ukrainians approved under the CUAET will still be able to travel to Canada up until March 31 of next year. Afterward, they will be subject to the standard immigration measures available to others around the world.

“Once in Canada, temporary residents will be eligible to apply for an extended stay of up to three years through study permits and open work permits, all of which will be prioritized. They will also have access to settlement services, such as language training and employment services. These measures will help them thrive in communities across the country,” the government release said.

Canada has the largest diaspora of Ukrainians outside of Ukraine and Russia, with over 1.4 million people of Ukrainian descent living here, according to government statistics.

Michalchyshyn said while immigration programs and settlement services are important for people coming to this country, the priority push from his organization is still aid to Ukraine itself.

“The sooner that Ukraine wins the war, the sooner peace and normality can resume and this massive refugee crisis will come to an end.”

Source: Canada to launch new permanent residency program for Ukrainians fleeing war

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Family reunification for Ukrainians in Canada to come soon: immigration minister

2023/06/14 Leave a comment

Will be tricky given precedents it may set for other groups and mixed signals regarding mixed signals to Ukraine government:

Immigration Minister Sean Fraser says he plans to announce a long-awaited program to grant permanent residency to Ukrainians with familial ties to Canada soon, but a similar program for other Ukrainians is still a ways away.

Canada took the unusual step last year of offering temporary refuge to an unlimited number of Ukrainians fleeing the war, and so far 230,000 have made the journey.

The government also promised a family reunification program for Ukrainians that would offer those with familial ties to Canada permanent residency status, but that has yet to be realized.

Fraser says those who don’t qualify for family reunification can still apply for permanent residency through traditional immigration streams.

The government plans to assess whether more needs to be done to secure permanent residency for other Ukrainians over the next year or two.

McGill Institute for the Study of Canada director Daniel Béland says the government will need to co-ordinate with the Ukrainian government, since offering permanent residency could signal a lack of optimism about Ukraine’s ability to beat the Russian military out of its sovereign borders.

Source: Family reunification for Ukrainians in Canada to come soon: immigration minister

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Russia forces occupied Ukrainians to change citizenship

2023/05/06 Leave a comment

Citizenship warfare and erasing identity:

A convoy of empty buses sweeps into a town, alongside members of Russia’s domestic intelligence agency FSB. They cite a decree issued by the Russian president regarding the deportation of anyone without Russian citizenship from the occupied territories. “They radically demand that people either give up their Ukrainian passport in favor of a Russian one, or their property will be confiscated immediately and they will be resettled,” according to the Ukrainian military.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree according to which citizens of Ukraine living in the Russian-occupied parts of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk who wish to keep their Ukrainian citizenship can only stay there until July 1, 2024. After that, they can be deported from those occupied regions.

“Constant threats”

DW spoke to people from the occupied parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions who confirmed that Ukrainians are being forced to take Russian passports. For security reasons, none of the people want to be named.

“Russian soldiers searched everything in our house. When I showed my Ukrainian passport, they shouted that I should change it for a Russian one, and that otherwise my car would be taken away, and I would be deported,” an elderly man from near Kherson said.

A woman from the Zaporizhzhia region was in tears as she recounted how Russian occupiers threatened to deport her young children to Russia if she didn’t immediately apply for a Russian passport.

Another woman was threatened by Russian soldiers who “put a bag over her head” because she refused to change citizenship. “We held out until the end, we didn’t want to accept a Russian passport. But it’s just unbearable and scary,” the woman from near the Azov Sea told DW.

Why the rush?

The first deputy chairman of the Kherson regional council, Yuriy Sobolevsky, said the pressure on the people living in the occupied territories has recently increased significantly. “Access to medical care and freedom of movement between cities will be restricted for those who refuse to accept Russian passports,” he said. He thinks the Russians are now resorting to terror because not as many people in those territories want to become Russian citizens as Moscow had hoped.

According to the British Ministry of Defense, Moscow apparently wants to speed up the integration of the occupied territories into Russia to sell the invasion of Ukraine as a success to its own people, particularly in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.

But people are afraid of ending up in Russian databases, a young man from Khrustalnyi in the Luhansk region told DW. He’s from an area which has been occupied since as early as 2014. Many don’t know what to do. “More and more employers are demanding a Russian passport,” the young man explained. But anyone who applies for a Russian “residence permit” is handing themselves over to the occupying forces. Then there is also the risk of being drafted into the war.

Conflicting signals from Kyiv

Should people have a Russian passport forced on them or not? There are conflicting takes on this among Ukrainian politicians. Dmytro Lubinets, human rights commissioner in the Ukrainian parliament, said on TV that Ukrainians in the occupied territories should accept Russian passports if they fear for their lives. He stressed that Ukraine does not recognize such forced passports and that it would not mean that they lose their Ukrainian citizenship.

However, the Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories, Mychajlo Podoljak, said Ukrainians should not accept Russian passports. “Do not cooperate with the occupiers, do not accept Russian passports, flee if possible or wait for our army,” she said on TV.

Life under occupation not a crime

“I’m ashamed and afraid to accept a Russian passport, but I’m also afraid of being deported,” said one desperate woman from the occupied part of the Kherson region. “We can’t leave, as the Ukrainian authorities advise us, because we have an old, sick mother.”

According to Alyona Lunyova from Ukraine’s ZMNINA Human Rights Center, the contradictory advice from Ukrainian officials is confusing people. She stressed that living under occupation is not a crime. “On the contrary, not everyone should leave the occupied territories, it shouldn’t become an empty country and we cannot take in four to five million people from there.” She added that it is not a crime to accept a Russian passport under duress.

Meanwhile, an adviser to Ukraine’s presidential office, Mykhailo Podolyak, said Lubinets’ and Vereshchuk’s advice was not contradictory. He tweeted this advice for Ukrainians in the occupied territories: “If it is possible not to take a Russian passport, then try not to take one. But if you have to take a Russian passport to avoid oppression and torture, then take one.”

Podolyak stressed that Ukraine would not persecute citizens who “passively obtained Russian citizenship.”

Source: Russia forces occupied Ukrainians to change citizenship

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Ukrainians who fled to Canada in ‘grey area’ of immigration system

2023/03/22 Leave a comment

Of note. Potential risk to absorptive capacity should they remain and should the two-thirds who have not used their visa arrive, in addition to the issues raised by stakeholders.

The increased numbers of temporary residents, students and temporary visas, all uncapped, makes a mockery of Canada’s claim to “manage” immigration, given that well over half are not part of the annual immigration plan and are demand driven as my quote below notes:

Ukrainians who have fled to Canada with an emergency visa find themselves in a “grey area” of the immigration system, and several settlement specialists are urging the government to make changes if the program is renewed.

Canada took a new approach to the crisis sparked by the Russian invasion last year, offering an unlimited number of temporary visas to Ukrainians to allow them to live, work and study in Canada while they figure out their next steps.

The idea was to offer refuge to people as quickly as possible, as millions of women, children and older adults fled the violence, without compromising the integrity of the immigration system.

But people who arrived in Canada under the emergency visa don’t qualify for the same supports as people who arrive with a refugee designation, even though most of them think of themselves as refugees, said Ihor Michalchyshyn, executive director of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress.

They also don’t qualify for certain government assistance, benefits and student loans, as permanent residents would.

“The usual programs and funding aren’t available to these Ukrainians, and it’s not organized,” Michalchyshyn said in an interview Monday.

Nova Scotia immigration program director Simone Le Gendre described the confusion the province faced at the outset of the program because its usual immigration settlement guidelines did not apply to Ukrainians with emergency visas.

“What we had was a grey area – a group of people who had experienced trauma were coming to our province and needed to be connected to support very quickly,” said Le Gendre, who spoke at the Metropolis Canada conference in Ottawa Friday.

The new arrivals had “refugee-like” needs, she explained, which prompted the province to set up special committees aimed at connecting people with housing, health care and income support top-ups.

Their task was made even more difficult by the fact that there was no central registry with arrival information, as there would be for permanent residents or refugees.

Provinces and agencies had no idea when Ukrainians would arrive, said Katie Crocker, the CEO of the Affiliation of Multicultural Societies and Service Agencies in British Columbia.

Instead, agencies like hers, the YMCA, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and others stood up booths at airports to try to flag down Ukrainian newcomers as they arrived in Canada and let them know what kind of help was available.

The temporary visa program is set to stop taking new applicants on March 31, giving the government two weeks to decide whether to extend it.

So far, 603,681 people have been approved for a visa under the program as of March 9, 2023, though only 184,908 have actually come to Canada.

When asked about the next iteration of the program last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said only that Canada would “continue to be there to support Ukrainian refugees in various ways, as necessary.”

Crocker said if the program continues, the government should consider a few key changes.

“If we’re not going to have them come as government-assisted refugees with a very clear pathway, then we do need to have some more concrete pre-arrival information (from) them about where they’re going, when they’re coming, who’s coming with them, what their English language levels are, what their credentials are,” said Crocker, who also spoke at the conference.

Those key details would allow settlement agencies to prepare for their arrival and connect them with jobs, housing and other resources they might need, she said.

She also suggested the government consider putting a cap on the number of applications it will approve.

The program was specifically designed without a cap as a way to bring people to Canada quickly, Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said last week at a press conference.

“We made the decision at the time to try something new, to offer temporary protection by leveraging the strength … of Canada’s tourism program, where we’re not required to set a capped number of people that we can support, but we can process whatever applications come in,” he said.

The immigration department says approximately 373 staff have been specifically dedicated to processing applications from Ukrainians, in addition to existing staff who work on the files as part of their regular duties.

Whatever “hiccups” associated with the emergency visas that may have affected immigration processing times are “well worth the value,” said Fraser, who spoke last week at a press conference in Bridgewater, N.S.

The assumption at the time was that Ukrainians would likely return to their home country when the war ended. But increasingly, Ukrainians who come to Canada are showing an interest in staying, said Sarosh Rizvi, the executive director of the Alberta Association of Immigrant Serving Agencies.

A post-arrival survey of Ukrainians who arrived under the program shows that 84 per cent would like to become permanent residents once their emergency visas expire, he said.

“What does that mean for our infrastructure sector?” he said. “What does that mean for immigration levels?”

It also leaves an open question about what kind of support will be available to people who decide to stay if they are denied permanent status in Canada, he said.

Andrew Griffith, Canada’s former director-general of citizenship and multiculturalism, said the government should consider creating targets for the number of temporary residents in the country each year, as it does for other kinds of immigration.

“There are those people that come on a temporary basis but then they transition to permanent resident, and because they’re here, they also need housing, and public services and everything like that,” Griffith said in an interview.

Michalchyshyn, who the government has consulted on the next phase of the emergency visa, said he is hopeful the government will announce more details of its plan this week.

Source: Ukrainians who fled to Canada in ‘grey area’ of immigration system

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One in three Ukrainians with visas have reached Canada as applications approach 700K

2022/11/24 Leave a comment

Of note. Possibly to ensure they have the option in case needed, as hinted at by Canada’s Ambassador to Ukraine::

Government statistics show fewer than one-third of Ukrainians approved for temporary Canadian visas have arrived in the country, even as hundreds of thousands of others remain in the queue waiting to find out if they qualify to travel to Canada.

The temporary visas are part of the special immigration measures introduced by the federal government in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine giving Ukrainians emergency authorization to travel and stay in Canada.

According to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the government received nearly 700,000 requests from Ukrainians to travel to Canada under the special program between March and November.

Yet the department says only around 420,000 applications have been approved so far, while statistics from the Canada Border Services Agency show about 117,000 have actually reached Canada. The majority of those arrived by air.

It wasn’t immediately clear why so few Ukrainians authorized to travel to Canada have done so.

Meanwhile, a document tabled in the House of Commons last week shows that the average processing time for the majority of visas between March and September was 72 days — or more than 10 weeks.

Tabled in response to a written question from Conservative MP Garnett Genuis, the document also says that as of September, about 14 per cent of the applications were for children under 18 while around five per cent were for people aged 61 and older.

The response also says 1,757 applications were rejected and 1,415 applications were withdrawn as of Sept. 20.

It goes on to caution that total application numbers held by the immigration department could be “inflated” because some people have multiple applications associated with their files.

Genuis had asked for data about whether anyone accepted under the program lived outside of Ukraine before Russia’s invasion.

But the department said it was not able to determine a person’s country of residence prior to their application, and that applicants are only required to declare their current country of residence.

In testimony to a Senate committee last week, Ukrainian Ambassador to Canada Larisa Galadza said that to her knowledge, Canada is receiving 14,000 applications a week from Ukrainians, and about seven million civilians have fled Ukraine in total.

She noted that the fact Canada is providing a three-year visa to applicants lessens the pressure to travel immediately.

Source: One in three Ukrainians with visas have reached Canada as applications approach 700K

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The disappeared: Ukrainians plead for answers on family members forcefully taken to Russia

2022/11/22 Leave a comment

Yet another series of war crimes and brutality:

It’s been nearly seven months since Anna Zaitseva and her toddler last came under bombardment by the Russian military in a shelter beneath Ukraine’s Azovstal steel plant – and her young son still cannot fall sleep until she holds her hands over his eyes.

“He’s developed a habit. When he’s trying to sleep, he takes my hands and puts them onto his face to cover it,” Ms. Zaitseva, 25, said in an interview.

The gesture mimics how she used to protect her son, Svyatoslav, as pieces of the bomb shelter’s ceiling rained down on them under the Azovstal steel complex in Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine.

Ms. Zaitseva was one of numerous civilians trapped there for 65 days before a safe-passage operation conducted by the Red Cross this spring.

Now a refugee in Berlin, she travelled to the Halifax International Security Forum this weekend to draw attention to the huge numbers of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers forcefully taken to Russia where they have all but disappeared.

Her husband, Kirillo Zaitsev, 23, was a steel worker turned Azov Regiment soldier. He was one of the last group of Ukrainian fighters holding out in the Azovstal complex until their surrender in mid-May.

Mr. Zaitsev was taken prisoner by the Russians and his wife has not heard from him since. She presumes he’s in a prison camp in Russia, where, by all accounts, Ukrainians are being mistreated and where, she fears, Moscow is failing to live up to the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war.

She said photos of Ukrainian soldiers imprisoned in Russia show how they have lost significant amounts of weight; accounts of the conditions say the jailed troops lack access to proper food, water and medicine. “They are trying to kill them physically and kill their morale.”

Olga Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, told journalists at the Halifax forum that Kyiv estimates 1.5 million Ukrainian women and children have been “forcefully displaced” to Russia.

“We do not have any access to information on where they live or under what conditions,” she said. These Ukrainians are deprived of “any access to communications” that would enable them to talk to those back in Ukraine.

She could not provide an estimate on how many thousands of Ukrainian soldiers such as Kirillo Zaitsev have been taken as prisoners to Russia.

Ms. Zaitseva, who was a French teacher before the war, still copes with post-traumatic stress disorder as well as a concussion from a blast caused by Russia’s bombardment of the steel plant. She was caught in one attack while in a makeshift kitchen one floor above the bomb shelter where she was mixing baby formula for her son and heating it by candle.

Ms. Zaitseva says her breast milk stopped from the stress of the siege and she believes her son would not have lived through the ordeal if soldiers hadn’t discovered a cache of infant formula.

After leaving the steel plant in late April, she and her son and parents were taken to a Russian “filtration camp” where she says she was forced to stripped naked and interrogated by agents from Moscow’s Federal Security Service because she was a wife of an Azov Regiment soldier. The unit has a history of far-right leanings but is now part of the Ukrainian army.

“They told me to take off all my clothing and they were touching me everywhere,” Ms. Zaitseva said.

“They took our phones and downloaded all of the data. They told me to tell the truth otherwise I could be killed.”

She said she believes the only reason she was allowed to go free from the Russian filtration camp was because representatives of the Red Cross and United Nations had accompanied her there.

Ms. Zaitseva said civilians hiding in the labyrinthine steel plant were chronically short of food and forced to use rain and melted snow for water. A lack of sufficient power meant they had to live in complete darkness for 12 hours a day. The Soviet-era bomb shelter was plagued by high levels of humidity and she had bedsores from sleeping on makeshift beds.

People were hungry all the time. Some played games related to food, pretending they were in cafés or supermarkets. Many lost weight. Ms. Zaitseva lost 10 kilograms and her father lost 20. When they emerged after more than two months their skin was pale.

She worries for Ukrainian children forcefully taken to Russia. “Russians are taught to hate Ukrainians and nobody will adopt a Ukrainian child.” Ms. Zaitseva fears these parentless-children will end up exploited for human trafficking or worse.

Her story is also part of a new documentary, Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight For Freedom by Israeli-American director Evgeny Afineevsky, which was screened at the Halifax forum, a gathering of Canadian, American and European leaders, as well as military and security experts from NATO and its allies.

Source: The disappeared: Ukrainians plead for answers on family members forcefully taken to Russia

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