New Estimate: 72,000 USA Births Annually to Tourists, Foreign Students and Other Visitors (CIS)

2019/12/16 Leave a comment

Bit of an overly simple methodology to use given that it assumes similar behaviours and natality rates between groups. Much more comfortable on the Canadian data despite its limitations, available from CIHI:

Two new analyses by the Center for Immigration Studies estimate that there are 39,000 births a year to foreign students, guest workers and others on long-term temporary visa, plus an additional 33,000 births annually to tourists – 72,000 in total. Those born to these “non-immigrants,” as the government refers to them, are awarded U.S. citizenship because they were born in United States and not because a parent was a U.S. citizen or a Lawful Permanent Resident (green card holders). These births are in addition to the nearly 300,000 births each year to illegal immigrants.

Our analysis does not address the controversial question of whether the U.S. Constitution actually requires “birthright citizenship,” as it is often called, to anyone born in the United States regardless of the parents’ immigration status. Rather, our estimates inform that discussion by estimating the scale of births to non-immigrants, which is one part of the birthright citizenship controversy that is seldom considered.

“Our analysis makes clear that the number of children born to visitors is not trivial; and over time the numbers are substantial,” said Steven Camarota, the report’s lead author and the Center’s Director of Research. “It seems doubtful that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment could have anticipated that tens of thousands of people each year would automatically be granted citizenship simply because their parents were on a temporary visit to the United States at the time of their birth.”

Births to Long-Term Temporary Visitors

  • The government estimates that in 2016 there were 800,000 women age 18 to 44 in the country on long-term non-immigrant visas, primarily foreign students, guest workers, and exchange visitors.
  • Based on a comparable population of women in Census Bureau data, we estimate there are 49 births per thousand to these women for a total of 39,000 births annually or 390,000 each decade.
  • The birth rate for non-immigrants aged 18-44 is relatively low compared to the 77 births per-thousand for immigrant women generally. However the total number of births to temporary visitors is still large because so many foreign students, guest workers and exchange visitors have been allowed into the country.
  • We estimate that at least 90 percent of the fathers of children born to non-immigrant women were not U.S. citizens, almost all them on temporary visa themselves or illegal immigrants. This means at least 35,000 children were born to a non-immigrant mother and were awarded U.S. citizenship at birth solely because they were born on U.S. soil and not because their parents were citizens or Lawful Permanent Residents (green card holders).

Birth Tourism

  • Many news stories in recent years have focused on “birth tourism,” which describes the phenomenon of pregnant women coming to America shortly before their due dates so their children are born in the United States and are awarded U.S. citizenship.

  • Based on a comparison of birth records and Census Bureau data, we estimate there were 33,000 births to women on tourist visas in the second half of 2016 and the first half of 2017. This translates to perhaps 330,000 such births each decade.

  • While there is significant uncertainty around this number, our new estimate is very similar to our prior estimate for second half of 2011 and first half of 2012.

  • It should be emphasized that the small number of mothers who provide a foreign address on birth documents are probably not birth tourists, as those engaged in birth tourism likely list a U.S. address so they can receive birth certificates and passports before returning to their home countries. These addresses are typically a relative’s or a residence arranged by those “selling” birth tourism services.

Source: 372000 Born to Illegal Aliens and Visitors Every Year, 33000 to ‘Birth Tourists’

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This Is What Racism Looks Like in the Banking Industry

2019/12/12 Leave a comment

Good long read and good to see that this was documented:

Jimmy Kennedy earned $13 million during his nine-year career as a player in the National Football League. He was the kind of person most banks would be happy to have as a client.

But when Mr. Kennedy tried to become a “private client” at JPMorgan Chase, an elite designation that would earn him travel discounts, exclusive event invitations and better deals on loans, he kept getting the runaround.

At first, he didn’t understand why. Then, last fall, he showed up at his local JPMorgan branch in Arizona, and an employee offered an explanation.

“You’re bigger than the average person, period. And you’re also an African-American,” the employee, Charles Belton, who is black, told Mr. Kennedy. “We’re in Arizona. I don’t have to tell you about what the demographics are in Arizona. They don’t see people like you a lot.” Mr. Kennedy recorded the conversation and shared it with The New York Times.

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When U.S. Citizenship Starts Looking Like a Bad Deal

2019/12/09 Leave a comment

Of note:

When Donald J. Trump was elected president in 2016, some people, many of them Democrats, talked about renouncing their United States citizenship and moving abroad as a political protest. But now, a different group of Americans say they are considering leaving — people of both parties who would be hit by the wealth tax proposed by two senators seeking to oppose Mr. Trump in his race for re-election, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

Wealthy Americans often leave high-tax states like New York and California for lower-tax ones like Florida and Texas. But renouncing citizenship is a far more permanent, costly and complicated proposition.

Many who do so to save on taxes and free themselves from American financial regulations and filing requirements are also making a larger statement.

“America’s the most attractive destination for capital, entrepreneurs and people wanting to get a great education,” said Reaz H. Jafri, a partner and head of the immigration practice at Withers, an international law firm. “But in today’s world, when you have other economic centers of excellence — like Singapore, Switzerland and London — people don’t view the U.S. as the only place to be.”

According to the United States Treasury, which publishes figures on expatriation, 231 Americans renounced their citizenship in 2008; the next year, 742 did. By 2016, the number hit 5,411, up 26 percent from 2015. It was roughly the same in 2017 before dropping to 3,983 last year.

Immigration lawyers said the numbers would be higher if embassies had the staff to accommodate the volume of requests. David Lesperance, a Canadian immigration lawyer living in Poland who specializes in helping American citizens expatriate, said many embassies around the world had backlogs in making appointments.

“The current reality is that an American who wants to renounce needs to first book an appointment in a processing system that has reached capacity — as evidenced by the significant backlogs in the granting of interview slots,” Mr. Lesperance said in an email. “In fact, the backlogs have grown so bad (up to and sometimes over a year) that most of the U.S. missions no longer publish the appointment date information online and haven’t been doing so since the system appeared to reach capacity a few years ago.”

Once that appointment is secured, the process seems to have sped up. Mr. Jafri said he had clients who waited over a year for the letter confirming they were no longer American citizens. Now, he said, that letter can come in two weeks.

“Somewhere in the system, the decision has been made to issue these more quickly,” he said. “We haven’t seen any slowdown in renouncing.”

Historically, the bulk of expatriates fell into two categories: older, wealthy people hoping to save on taxes and the “accidental Americans,” who were born in the United States but lived and worked abroad or who were born abroad but lived in the United States long enough to come under the Internal Revenue Service’s taxing authority.

Now many inquiries are also coming from younger entrepreneurs upset about the political situation in the United States and from people who want to operate their businesses overseas and not be subject to American financial reporting requirements.

“That younger person is also thinking of it as impact citizenship, like impact investing,” Mr. Jafri said. “They don’t want to be American. They’re not happy with how we’re perceived overseas.”

Mr. Jafri said he had been hearing of several other reasons, too. There are people motivated by fear. “We have people who are totally spooked about the prospect of a Warren presidency and a wealth tax,” he said. “And there are people who are equally spooked about a Trump re-election.”

There are also businesspeople who either don’t want to be subject to I.R.S. scrutiny or believe that the annual Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts has become too time-consuming or costly.

“I’ve never seen this before,” Mr. Jafri said. “People used to say, ‘If so-and-so becomes president, I’m moving to Canada.’ Well, no one did.”

But now, the price may be right to leave. While the cost of expatriating varies depending on a person’s assets, the wealthiest are betting that if a Democrat wins next year, leaving now means a lower exit tax.

For anyone with assets below $2 million or an average salary over five years of about $165,000, there is no exit tax. For everyone else, the exit is calculated on a person’s assets, as if they were sold on the day of expatriation. Someone with a portfolio of appreciated stock, for example, would be taxed at the capital gains rate.

Where it gets tricky is when people own private businesses that have to be valued. Even if they’re not selling the business, they have to come up with tax money to pay the I.R.S. But as with the tax on estates, there are ways to reduce the value of the business, including the argument that a closely held family business lacks marketability.

Mr. Jafri said he had a client who just paid a $58 million exit tax, though it had been 40 percent higher before a valuation company took various deductions.

The wealthy who are considering renouncing their citizenship fear a wealth tax less than the possibility that the tax on capital gains could be raised to the ordinary income tax rate, effectively doubling what a wealthy person would pay, Mr. Lesperance said.

“I have a client, a relatively young guy, who made a lot of money as a founder and is just not bullish on the U.S. long term, but the thing that is getting him to lock in and renounce now is he did the numbers,” he said. “He said if the least of the Democratic plans come in — taxing capital gains like ordinary income — it makes sense to renounce now.”

Regardless of wealth, anyone looking to give up their American citizenship needs to have fully complied with all tax forms for the past five years. That is one of the main stumbling blocks, said Jerald David August, chairman of the international taxation and wealth planning groups at the law firm Fox Rothschild.

“The prototype is a U.S. citizen living overseas who is tired of paying worldwide tax twice,” Mr. August said. “The specter of this five-year look back and the awareness there wasn’t total compliance can be intimidating. I’ve had situations where clients, after they’ve been fully advised, have decided not to push forward with an expatriation.”

Had they done so, without having spotless tax returns, they could have been forced to amend tax returns or, worse, be audited for tax evasion.

Even if their returns are compliant, any money they leave to their children who are still citizens will be subject to a 40 percent inheritance tax.

“If someone never stepped foot in the U.S. and died and left $100 million to someone’s children who moved to the U.S., the children wouldn’t pay the tax,” Mr. August said. “But if they left with $10 million, the U.S. retains jurisdiction to tax the person who migrated.”

Those who leave also need to consider their reputations since the Treasury Department publishes a list of people who are expatriating.

When Eduardo Saverin, a founder of Facebook who was born in Brazil but educated in America, renounced his United States citizenship shortly before the social network went public, he was criticized for avoiding taxes. But his spokesman said he had been living in Singapore for several years. Either way, several estimates said that renouncing his citizenship before Facebook went public saved him $700 million in taxes.

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Suddenly, the Chinese Threat to Australia Seems Very Real

2019/11/30 Leave a comment

Australia has always been the cautionary tale for Canada and others, with comparable challenges:

A Chinese defector to Australia who detailed political interference by Beijing. A businessman found dead after telling the authorities about a Chinese plot to install him in Parliament. Suspicious men following critics of Beijing in major Australian cities.

For a country that just wants calm commerce with China — the propellant behind 28 years of steady growth — the revelations of the past week have delivered a jolt.

Fears of Chinese interference once seemed to hover indistinctly over Australia. Now, Beijing’s political ambitions, and the espionage operations that further them, suddenly feel local, concrete and ever-present.

“It’s become the inescapable issue,” said Hugh White, a former intelligence official who teaches strategic studies at the Australian National University. “We’ve underestimated how quickly China’s power has grown along with its ambition to use that power.”

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Judge rules woman who joined ISIS is not US citizen based on birthright citizenship exception

2019/11/18 Leave a comment

Child of a diplomat. Clear cut case:

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled from the bench Thursday that an Alabama woman who joined the Islamic State group and traveled to Syria is not a U.S. citizen because of an exception to the Constitution’s grant of birthright citizenship.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton ruled in the case of Hoda Muthana, who is with her 2-year-old son in a Syrian refugee camp. Her father filed the lawsuit before Walton in a bid to bring Muthana and her son home and to obtain a declaratory judgment that she is a citizen.

The New York Times, the Guardian and BuzzFeed News have coverage.

Muthana had at one time advocated terrorist attacks in social media posts, but she since said she was young and ignorant and she wants to return to the United States. She surrendered to Kurdish forces after fleeing ISIS-controlled territory in December 2018. She says she is willing to face prosecution here.

Muthana’s father, Ahmed Ali Muthana, had been a United Nations diplomat from Yemen. Under federal regulations and international law, children born to diplomats in the United States aren’t subject to the 14th Amendment’s citizenship requirement because they are under the jurisdiction of another country, according to BuzzFeed News.

The 14th Amendment partly reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

Ahmed Ali Muthana was fired from his diplomatic post shortly before his daughter was born in 1994. He did not notify the United Nations of his firing, however, until after the birth. The U.N. then notified the United States, which now contends that diplomatic status applied until it received the notice.

Ahmed Ali Muthana stayed in the United States after his firing, and he and his wife obtained permanent residency. Although he applied for naturalized citizenship for his other children born overseas, he did not make out an application for Hoda Muthana because he thought she was a citizen.

Hoda Muthana had received a passport in 2005 after her father supplied proof of the date of his firing. The U.S. government revoked the passport in January 2016.

Walton expressed sympathy for Ahmed Ali Muthana, but he ruled that there was enough evidence that Hoda Muthana was born while her father still had diplomatic status, according to BuzzFeed News.

“Kids do crazy things,” and parents don’t quit loving their children no matter what they do, Walton said. But that perception can’t influence his decision, he said.

Walton also said he was not intimidated by messages that he had received that were “spewed with hate” and threatened consequences if he was to rule for Hoda Muthana. Walton said his office received at least 6,000 communications, and most were hateful.

Muthana’s lawyer, Christina Jump, said she thought there was a likely basis for appeal, but she would wait until she sees Walton’s written decision.

Source: Judge rules woman who joined ISIS is not US citizen based on birthright citizenship exception

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How many undocumented immigrants are in the United States and who are they?

2019/11/15 Leave a comment

Good overview:

Ascertaining the size of the undocumented population is difficult. Estimates vary according to the methodology used. While anti-immigrant groups maintain that the flow of undocumented immigrants has increased, estimates show that over a longer period the number has declined. An often-overlooked fact is that many illegal immigrants pay payroll taxes and sales taxes.

  • Estimates of the number of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. range from 10.5 million to 12 million, or approximately 3.2%–3.6% of the population.
  • Immigrants from Mexico have recently, for the first time, fallen to less than half of the undocumented population.
  • In evaluating the cost of illegal immigration, both benefits consumed and taxes paid must be counted.

A Closer Look

The issue of undocumented immigrants has been front and center in American elections since 2016; it has elicited passionate responses from all parts of the political spectrum. Here are a few facts voters need as they wade through the thicket of rhetoric on this issue.

How do we count people who are here illegally?

Ascertaining the size of the illegal population is difficult because, as is obvious, people who are here illegally don’t always want to tell pollsters their legal status (or absence thereof.) The first step estimators use is to take data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, or ACS, which interviews over 2 million households a year. This survey asks people where they were born and whether they are U.S. citizens, but it does not ask if they are here illegally. This yields a total number for the “foreign-born” population.

The next step is to subtract from that total the number of foreign-born residents who we know for certain are here legally. Among them are naturalized citizens, people who have permanent resident status (green cards), and people who have been admitted as refugees. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) keeps careful records of the first two groups and the Department of Health and Human Services keeps careful records of the third. By subtracting the number of people who we know for certain are here legally from the overall number of foreign-born in the ACS survey we can estimate the number of undocumented residents.

Of course, not all undocumented people take part in surveys, and for good reason—they do not want to be found out. So, most estimates assume that there is an “undercount.” The Pew Research Center relies, in part, on survey and census data from Mexico. They estimate the undercount to be somewhere in the range of 5 to 15 percent, which is then added to the number of undocumented immigrants. DHS believes that the undercount is 10% and adjusts its estimates accordingly.

The size of the undercount is a matter of controversy. Opponents of illegal immigration such as FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) argue that the undercount is in fact much bigger. To get to their estimates they analyze other data such as the percentage of migrants who failed to show up for their immigration hearings and those who have overstayed their visas.

So, what are the numbers?

The numbers of undocumented vary according to the methodology used, and there’s also a lag in the estimates because it takes time for accurate data to become available. The last estimate released by the Office of Immigration Statistics at DHS came in December 2018: As of January 1, 2015, there were 11.96 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. The most recent Pew Research estimate puts the total number of unauthorized immigrants at 10.5 million in 2017. Overall, this represents a minority of the foreign-born population, which in 2017 numbered 44.5 million—45% of whom are naturalized citizens, and 27% of whom are lawful permanent residents.

While anti-immigrant groups maintain that the flow of illegal immigrants has increased, estimates show that over a longer period the number of undocumented immigrants has declined, from 12.2 million in 2005 to 10.5 million in 2017 according to Pew’s estimates. DHS figures don’t go beyond 2015, but they estimate that the population of undocumented immigrants increased by 70,000 people per year between 2010 and 2015, compared to increases of 470,000 per year between 2000 and 2007.

Who are the undocumented?

Immigrants from Mexico have recently, for the first time since 1990, represented less than half of the undocumented population. According to Pew, in 2017, about 4.95 million of the 10.5 million undocumented population were from Mexico, 1.9 million from Central America, and 1.45 million from Asia. About two-thirds of undocumented immigrants have been in the U.S. for 10 years or longer. In 2017, just 20% of undocumented, adult immigrants had lived in the U.S. for 5 years or less.

In contrast to the President Trump’s rhetoric about building a wall at the Mexican border, illegal migration has shifted since 2010 from border-crossing to visa overstays—the latter share has been greater than border crossings since 2010. The Center for Migration Studies estimates that in 2016, 62% of the undocumented were here because they overstayed their visas versus 38% who crossed the border illegally.

Another controversy is over how much illegal immigrants cost the system. An often overlooked fact is that illegal immigrants are taxpayers. The anti-immigrant lobby tends to ignore the money the immigrants often pay in payroll and sales taxes while counting the money spent on educating children born in the United States to immigrants. Numbers vary widely depending on the source, but undocumented immigrants are not eligible for most federal benefit programs, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. In evaluating the cost of illegal immigration, the voter has to make sure that the argument takes in both benefits consumed and taxes paid.

What about the Dreamers?

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was implemented by President Obama to allow many undocumented individuals who came to the U.S. before their 16th birthday to work in the U.S. and defer any action on their immigration cases for a renewable two-year period. About 800,000 immigrants have been covered by DACA at some point since it was implemented; 690,000 are currently in the program. According to Pew, the gap consists of approximately 70,000 who were rejected for renewal or opted not to renew, and 40,000 who were able to obtain a green card. At present no new applications are being accepted by USCIS, so the number of Dreamers is not likely to grow.

What are the candidates saying?

In the 2020 campaign, President Trump has continued his push for a wall at the southern border, on top of increased enforcement both at the border and in the interior. On the Democratic side, all the candidates support a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, which would require getting legislation through Congress. There are also shorter-term proposals that a new president could enact on their own, like Elizabeth Warren’s plan to reinstate DACA and to expand deferred action to include more than the Dreamers. Kamala Harris has said she would reinstate DACA and implement DAPA, the shelved policy to protect the Dreamers’ parents. Pete Buttigieg has stated that he would restore the enforcement priorities set by the Obama administration. A number of the Democratic candidates have voiced support for repealing the law that makes it a crime to cross the border without authorization.

As we have seen during the Trump administration, the president can do a great deal even absent legislation to affect the situation of those seeking to come to the United States.

Source: How many undocumented immigrants are in the United States and who are they?

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Study: Diversity is Shaping Pet Owner Population

2019/11/14 Leave a comment

Part of integration may be getting a pet:

Pets live in 67 million U.S. households, a statistic that is being driven by the increase in multicultural pet owners, according to a new report by market research firm Packaged Facts. Compared to a decade ago, pet owners are now more likely to be a member of a multicultural population segment, 28 percent in 2018 versus 22 percent in 2008, the report further noted.

“Between 2008 and 2018 the increase in the number of Hispanic, African American, Asian and other multicultural pet owners was five times higher than the increase in the number of non-Hispanic white pet owners,” said David Sprinkle, research director of Packaged Facts, which is headquartered in Rockville, Md.

Pet Population and Ownership Trends in the U.S: Dogs, Cats and Other Pets, 3rd Edition also revealed the following findings:

  • The number of Latinos owning pets increased 44 percent from 15 million in 2008 to 22 million in 2018, a growth rate vastly greater than that experienced among non-Hispanic white pet owners, according to the researchers.
  • Although a much smaller population, the number of Asian pet owners grew at the same rate (45 percent), between 2008 and 2018.
  • During the same period, the number of African American pet owners increased 24 percent.

The impact of Latinos on dog or cat ownership has been especially pronounced, the researchers also noted. Over the past decade, the number of Hispanic dog owners increased 59 percent. Likewise, the number of Latino cat owners increased 50 percent.

Overall, the report found that out of the more than half (54 percent) of American households that have a pet, dogs and cats are the most popular, coming in at 39 percent and 24 percent, respectively. One in eight households has other pets, including fish, birds, reptiles or small animals such as rabbits, hamsters or gerbils.

Source: Study: Diversity is Shaping Pet Owner Population

Filed under Integration, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Trump wants to nearly double US citizenship application fees

2019/11/11 Leave a comment

Yet another deliberate barrier to citizenship. Hard to see how the processing costs could be that high (over twice Canada’s, which, of course, the re-elected Liberal government has promised to eliminate):

The Trump administration is considering raising the cost of U.S. citizenship applications, according to a Department of Homeland Security rule filed on Friday.

The fee for the U.S. citizenship application would increase to $1,170 – from $640, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

A number of other cost increases were proposed, as well as the addition of a $50 fee for asylum applications.

According to the document, a biennial fee review determined that current fees “do not recover the full costs of providing adjudication and naturalization services” at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. Without an increase in funding, the government predicts the agency would experience an average annual shortfall of $1.2 billion.

The Department of Homeland Security has proposed adjusting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration fees “by a weighted average increase of 21 percent,” in addition to adding fees for some benefit requests. U.S. immigration services is primarily funded by fees charged to applicants and petitioners.

Written comments must be submitted within 30 days from the date the rule is published in the federal register, which will be on Thursday.

The last time the fee schedule was adjusted was at the end of 2016.

Source: Trump wants to nearly double US citizenship application fees

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Asylum seekers turned away by Canada at the border will get the chance to explain why they feel U.S. is unsafe for refugees

2019/11/05 Leave a comment

A case to watch given its implications for both asylum seekers and the government:

She knocked on Canada’s door and begged for protection. Instead, she was turned away, handcuffed and jailed — and no one even cared to ask her why she fled her native Burundi.

Then, in a cold cell at Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York, she was handed a flimsy prison jumpsuit and put in solitary confinement while waiting for the results of a mandatory TB test. Behind two panes of glass, she ate, slept and used the toilet in plain sight of the guards and anyone walking by. She was held for 51 days.

More than four years after the “horrific” detention experience she said still haunts her, this asylum seeker and others like her who were turned away by Canada at the Canada-U.S. border will finally have their day in court to explain why they feel the United States is not a safe country for refugees.

Starting Monday in Toronto, the Federal Court of Canada will hear a constitutional challenge to the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement, under which both countries consider themselves a safe haven for refugees and agree to block would-be claimants from attempting to enter either country at official border crossings. Arguments will be heard over five days before Justice Ann Marie McDonald.

The Burundian woman, who cannot be named but spoke to the Toronto Star, will be one of the witnesses.

“I preferred death in my country than this treatment like a criminal in the U.S. If I were to die, I should die at home,” she said.

The bilateral pact, implemented in 2004, was originally touted by both Canadian and U.S. officials as a way to curb “asylum shopping.” However, critics have long argued that the U.S. asylum system is cruel and inhumane, especially now under President Donald Trump.

Trump’s anti-migrant policies have spurred an influx of so-called irregular migrants skirting asylum restrictions by crossing outside of Canada’s official ports of entry, where restrictions apply. More than 50,000 asylum seekers have come here that way via the U.S. over the past two years. Once here, after passing initial medical and security screenings, refugees can work and access health care pending a decision on their asylum claims.

In 2007, three advocacy groups — the Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International and the Canadian Council of Churches — took Ottawa to federal court and successfully had the U.S. declared unsafe for refugees, but the decision was later overturned on appeal, largely on the grounds that the groups failed to find a lead individual litigant who was directly impacted by the policy.

After Trump’s election in November 2016 with an anti-immigration agenda, Canadian and American non-governmental organizations and refugee lawyers renewed their effort to challenge the legality of the asylum restrictions.

In 2017, they connected with a Salvadoran woman in the U.S. who sought asylum after she was raped and threatened by the notorious Mara Salvatrucha gang in El Salvador, and agreed to be the lead litigant.

The other litigants include a Syrian family of four and a young Ethiopian woman, all of whom were denied access to asylum in Canada. The three Canadian rights groups also enlisted nine other witnesses, including the Burundian woman, to provide evidence in support of the litigants’ arguments.

“This litigation is significant because this is a way for us to collectively take a position on the human rights abuses and violations against refugees and migrants in North America,” said Janet Dench of the Canadian Council for Refugees.

“Canadians are horrified by what’s been happening in the U.S., with (migrant) children separated from their families, refugees turned away at the Mexico border, the Muslim travel ban and all these measures in the U.S. The litigation is a way of standing up against these policies we don’t and can’t approve of.”

The litigants are expected to present evidence of human rights violations and Canadian Charter breaches in U.S. detention and asylum practices, and highlight the impact of the Safe Third Country Agreement on the most vulnerable refugees fleeing gender-based persecution and gang violence, who are singled out by the Trump administration to be excluded from the U.S. refugee definition.

“Refugee claimants that Canada turns away at our borders are exposed to grave risks of detention and mistreatment in the U.S.,” the litigants claim in their court submissions. “Refugee claimants are being detained indefinitely, in conditions that are nothing short of cruel and unusual, simply for seeking protection.”

In response to the claim, the Canadian government said the Canada-U.S. agreement is no different from similar deals in other refugee-receiving countries in response to rising global migration and forced displacement. Ottawa conducts regular reviews of the pact in order to ensure fair access to asylum, it said in a written response to the litigants’ claims.

“Claimants are returned to a highly developed asylum system that grants protection to large numbers of persons every year, and is subject to both administrative and judicial checks and balances,” it argued. “The U.S.A. complied with its international refugee protection and human rights obligations, notwithstanding debate both in the U.S.A. and internationally with respect to certain aspects of American policies and practices.”

However, the Burundian witness, who is only identified as “Morgan” because her identity is protected by the court, told the Star in an interview her experience in the U.S. tells a different story.

“With their accents, and English not being my first language, I had tremendous difficulty understanding them. They were treating me like I was trying to commit a crime,” recalled Morgan, 28, who said she had been threatened by government militia in Burundi after she and the civilian group she belonged to reported voter registration fraud in the 2015 election. Her cousin, also a member of the group, was shot and killed, she said.

“(American officials) were accusing me of fraud because my visa was for students. But I never intended to lie. All I wanted to do was leave a country where I could die any time,” added Morgan, who said getting a student visa was the only way she could get to the U.S. as a pathway to Canada.

Morgan, who has a degree in business administration back home, said she wanted to flee to French-speaking Canada, but since Ottawa does not have a visa post in Burundi she went to the U.S. consulate instead. She arrived in Pittsburgh in May 2015, before taking an overnight bus to Plattsburgh, N.Y., and from there to the official Canadian border post at Lacolle, Que.

She said she did not know about the asylum restrictions and was denied entry to Canada and detained in the U.S.

In addition to the lack of privacy in detention, Morgan said U.S. officials were “aggressive and rude” and did not help her fill out forms. She said with the one call she was allowed from jail she contacted a friend of a friend in the U.S., who found her a lawyer.

After 51 days behind bars, including 10 days in solitary confinement, she was released and had to couch-surf at the homes of people she barely knew while waiting for an asylum hearing to be scheduled. She said she was unable to support herself because immigration officials held her ID and she couldn’t get a work permit.

More than a year later, Trump won the U.S. presidential election, leaving Morgan to wonder if she would ever get asylum south of the border. When she learned people were bypassing the asylum restrictions at Canadian border crossings, she followed in the footsteps of those “irregular migrants” by crossing at Roxham Rd. in Quebec in August 2017.

However, she is still deemed inadmissible and ineligible to seek asylum in Canada because she had already been denied entry once — in 2015. Meanwhile, Canada cannot deport her to Burundi because of the current humanitarian crisis there.

“I am a victim who needs protection. It doesn’t make sense to call the U.S. a safe country,” she said. “I see how bad the consequences of this agreement are. I still can’t apply for refugee status in Canada because of this. This has to stop.”

Source: Asylum seekers turned away by Canada at the border will get the chance to explain why they feel U.S. is unsafe for refugees

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Why Do Immigrants Outperform Native-Born Americans?

2019/11/01 Leave a comment

Some similarities in Canada:

Despite the hatred directed at immigrants and refugees coming to the United States and other western nations, a new report suggests that children of migrants are the ones realizing the upward mobility of the American dream, rising out of poverty at higher rates than the children of parents born in the US. Similar trends can be found in other parts of the world too, like Canada.

While the rich continue to get richer, and their offspring enjoy the advantages of an easy start in life, it is the people at the economic bottom where a parent’s migration history makes the real difference. A study by researchers at Stanford, Princeton, and the University of California at Davis is challenging pre-determined bias towards immigrants.

The team used millions of father-son pairs drawn from census data over 100 years of U.S. history to show that the children of immigrants are just as likely today as in the past to move out of poverty and into the middle-class. Further, the researchers report finding that, “both in the past and today, children of immigrants had greater chances of moving up in the income distribution relative to the children of US-born parents with comparable family income or occupation score. Second generation immigrants growing up in the 25th percentile end up 5–8 percentiles higher in the income rank than the children of the US born.”

It is not, as some ill-informed politicians have suggested, immigrants from Nordic countries who are most likely to experience this success. In fact, the sons of immigrants from China, India, and Vietnam are the ones mostly likely to be doing well, with even families that trace their roots back to Mexico, El Salvador and the Philippines showing better and steadier progress up the economic ladder than native-born Americans. Those Norwegians and Swedes are outflanked by their visible-minority peers.

At a time when we hear that the American dream is being threatened, we should celebrate that there are so many people experiencing the opportunities that come with education, strong social networks and parents who push their children to seek a better life. These young people are, if the data is accurate, much like the great grandparents of today’s less upwardly mobile populations who trace their roots back to Italy, Ireland and Portugal, all fair-skinned people that experienced the very same economic advantages of upward mobility decades ago.

What explains the difference? Why do the impoverished children of migrants outperform the impoverished children of native-born parents generation after generation?

The researchers attribute it partly to geography. Immigrants are more likely to settle in areas of their host country where there are more jobs and better educational opportunities. That is really no different than the ancestors of many native-born Americans who went to the coal mines of Virginia, the farms of Nebraska and the oil fields of Texas looking for work, only these days those places are experiencing job losses as a push towards less carbon-intensive industries and automation changes employment patterns. It is now Silicon Valley and the financial districts on the east coast that attract ambition.

While geography is one explanation, it is only one reason for the way immigrants find and exploit resources to enhance both their financial and mental wellbeing. Strong affiliations with other members of their diaspora has always been a way to ensure a cohesive economy where one member of a migrant community helps another find work, housing and navigate the intricacies of college applications and mortgage loans. The tighter the ex-pat community, the more resources are exchanged and the more success everyone enjoys.

Of course, grit, too, plays a role. Immigrants show a great deal of drive to succeed, and far more willingness to sacrifice for their children. While it is well-documented that migrants are often working in jobs where they are under-employed, the same is not true of children who are raised by families that value education and expect their children to study hard and graduate. These value systems distinguish any population that has had to struggle to survive. They are also the same characteristics that would have been found historically in the family trees of many of today’s native-born Americans who are, at least for the moment, securely anchored in the middle-class.

Before we demonize immigrants, it would be best if we looked at the science. As studies elsewhere in the world have shown, such as those by Daniel Hiebert in Canada, after just 20 years, immigrants and their children tend to match median incomes for their host countries and reach levels of home ownership and employment that are equal to, or above, the rates found among native-born populations.

Indeed, western nations like Canada that are now considering dramatic increases in immigration are ensuring that they enjoy the economic benefits of an upwardly mobile population with the personality traits and social skills to keep their GDP growing. Countries that resist immigration are forgetting lessons from the past and the spark of growth and innovation that immigrants brought to their economies. These psychological blinders, based on prejudice and a misunderstanding of economics, ignore the resilience of immigrant populations. If they are succeeding it is because they are adept at exploiting resources and exhibiting the ruggedness needed to rise out of poverty.

Source: Why Do Immigrants Outperform Native-Born Americans?

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