The reasons why Countries allow immigrants.

Posted by: Rukhsana Khan

Sometimes it amazes me that people can look past other people’s differences and see the humanity behind them.

I find it fascinating that as societies, communities, we develop a certain collective consciousness, where, even though we might have some conflicts, we’re a cohesive whole.

Along come some outsiders, ‘others’, and at first they’re viewed with mistrust and suspicion. And yet, there always are some people who are willing to buck convention and be nice to the newcomers.

Speaking for Canada, there was a strong reason that Canada opened its doors to immigration in the early 1900’s. A lot of native Canadians don’t know this, but there’s a strong reason why we’re such a multicultural nation.

Canada is a vast land mass, with a huge, very powerful neighbour to the south, Canada was afraid of being overwhelmed. They needed more people! And so they opened the doors to immigration to settle the west. But they didn’t want just anyone. They wanted people who could blend in, assimilate, basically they wanted white people.

Right after the second world war, even though they’d fought with Germans, German nationals were quickly considered non-threatening and allowed into the country. Even before Jewish refugees from Europe were allowed in, the Germans were allowed in.

At one point the prime minister Mackenzie King even announced that they wanted people who would assimilate. They couldn’t allow people from non-white countries in because they ‘couldn’t take the climate’.

But the immigration wave was slowing down. People don’t emigrate from their country unless there are strong reasons. There are three basic reasons: economics, security and opportunity for their children. Now that Europe was stabilized, there was less immigration from the white countries and so Canada had to open the door to other less desirables.

It wasn’t until 1963 that Canada opened the door to non-white immigrants.

There is a reason for this. The only ones who were allowed into the country were skilled labourers, people who’d work hard. Assimilation was assumed. And in return these labourers would contribute taxes to the national coffers.

Then along came Lester B. Pearson with his ideas of human rights. And following him, in the sixties, came a charismatic leader named Pierre Elliot Trudeau, from Quebec.

I remember Trudeau. He was the first prime minister who said that we, as a country, would be multicultural.

People didn’t have to assimilate. We’d recognize all cultures and they’d all be part of Canada. This was in part a gesture to pacify Quebec, a province that clung to their French roots and long refused to assimilate.

I remember listening to speeches by Trudeau on our old black and white T.V. My father found him fascinating.

As immigrants, we could stand a bit taller, not so humble. And in time, we could appreciate the fact that we were Canadian, just like almost every other Canadian whose family had come to this land somewhere in the distant past.

I think a lot of people don’t realize how much immigrants contribute to the prosperity in the West. There are very good reasons why Western countries continue to allow the influx of people from other countries.

It’s a way of maintaining the status quo.

Before, immigrants provided cheap labour for nation building.

Now, immigrants are often highly-skilled people looking for opportunity. (The exception would be refugees from war-torn countries) When immigrants arrive they have to set up homes, they buy stuff, and they often bring in wealth from their homelands. This stimulates the local economy.

And the taxes they pay, help pay for services.

These immigrants actually represent a ‘brain drain’ from their home countries, because the brightest and most educated are often the first to leave for greener Western pastures.

And right now, with the advent of the birth control pill, the local populations of Western countries are not having enough children. Without immigration, the aging population and the social security entitlements that go with them, would have no tax base to support them, so immigration is necessary to keep the tax machine oiled smoothly.

Too often people in the West see this as a one-way relationship. That immigrants should be darn well grateful to be here when it is really a mutually beneficient relationship.

One of the few times that the social situation gets rough is when there is a recession and then local people start grumbling that the immigrants are taking away all the jobs.

What people don’t realize is that immigrants will often work harder and for less money than any of the locals.

There are many a taxi driver that has a Phd., in fact multiple Phd’s. I met one in Vancouver who told me his life story, how he’d hopped around from country to country and finally settled in Vancouver. He liked the climate there, but still wished he could use his education.

I’m not sure why I blogged about this. I guess I just wanted to talk about things that are not often understood over here.

Will a new bill save the refugee mess?

Nicholas Keung Immigration Reporter
Source: The start

Jaime Carrasco Varela came to Toronto from Nicaragua on a refugee claim in 1991. It took 19 years for the asylum seeker, once allegedly part of a death squad, to exhaust legal avenues for staying in Canada.

While Varela's case is a complex rarity, it illustrates what some say are the real problems plaguing Canada's refugee system: It is too slow for legitimate claimants and doesn't weed out ineligible ones quickly enough.

This week, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney introduced Bill C-11 to overhaul the system. Among its most controversial provisions: borrowing from the British model, it would have bureaucrats pre-screen candidates based on whether their country of origin is deemed to be safe (the "White List") or unsafe.The government plans to expedite the hearing process for applicants from safe, democratic countries deemed to have human rights, since it expects almost all of them would fail.

Those rejected claimants would not have the right to a full appeal before the new appeal division that's to be created. They could still, however, go to the federal court to have negative decisions reviewed over arguments of law (rather than the merits of the case for their refugee status).

That is currently the only appeal process available to failed applicants. The best outcome from a federal court review, however, is a reassessment.

C-11 has had mixed reviews from refugee advocates and lawyers.

Many experts welcome the creation of an appeals process to reassess the merits of a case and with the power to reverse decisions and grant status, but some are strongly opposed to preventing refugee claimants from appealing a negative decision if they're from countries deemed safe. They also detest the idea of allowing civil servants – as opposed to members of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, an independent tribunal – to decide on initial claims.

Canada's refugee system is often seen as too generous and ultimately dysfunctional because close to half of all claims are rejected, withdrawn or abandoned – and thus deemed fraudulent. Kenney has said this about claimants from Mexico and the Czech Republic.

"We will take the political risk," Kenney told the Star Wednesday during a whirlwind day in Toronto packed with 16 meetings and interviews with editorial boards and broadcast outlets.

The proposed changes would speed the process, but some parties ask if they also would compromise the fairness of a system that's won Canada international acclaim.

Under the new legislation, decisions would be made on new claims within 60 days. Currently, the Immigration and Refugee Board takes an average of 19 months to determine claims. Outstanding cases have tripled from fewer than 20,000 in 2006 to 63,000 last year, largely because the Conservative government left board vacancies unfilled for two years.

But critics of the new legislation do not believe the new safe/unsafe country system is an acceptable solution. They fear that politics will affect which nations the government deems to be democratic, and that a legitimate applicant from a supposedly "safe" country might not get a fair hearing.

Critics also argue that Canada needs to deal seriously with the backlog of cases sitting in the system long after a negative decision from the refugee board. They say there haven't been enough resources to process pre-removal risk assessment (PRRA) applications, humanitarian/compassionate applications and federal court reviews.

According to Peter Showler, who teaches refugee law at the University of Ottawa, it can take a long time for the Canada Border Services Agency to deport failed claimants after they exhaust their legal options in federal court.

"During that dead space of two to three years, nobody takes responsibility for that file," says Showler, who chaired the refugee board from 1999 to 2002. "The longest period of delays is at the back end of the system. From a refusal decision by the federal court to the actual removal of the person, it can be a matter of years."

When they're interviewed in preparation for deportation, failed claimants can apply for PRRA, which determines whether it's safe for them to return home. That job falls to Citizenship and Immigration Canada. A government report this year found the average time between a removal order and the day the person actually leaves the country has jumped to 611 days. Before 2002, it was 437 days.

Kenney's solution is to not allow failed refugee claimants to apply for pre-removal risk assessment or humanitarian/compassionate relief until a year after their claim is rejected – by which time they may have been deported. The minister also said he would offer a $2,000 removal incentive to failed refugees.

Gulsum Koca's life has been in limbo since August 2002, when she says she fled persecution in Turkey. Koca, 37, is a member of the Alevi Muslim minority. The refugee board rejected her claim in April 2004, and the federal court refused to review her case; the federal court process allows reviews only on errors made in the administration of justice, not the actual evidence for her asylum claim.

More than two years later, Koca was contacted for a pre-removal risk assessment. Last April, immigration officials decided it was safe for her to return to Turkey and rejected her application to stay on humanitarian grounds. Another judicial review followed.

Raoul Boulakia, former president of the Refugee Lawyers' Association of Ontario, said a practice of designating countries such as Turkey to be "safe and democratic" would allow room for diplomatic pressure and political manoeuvring in the system. It could also exclude from consideration people who have a legitimate fear of persecution by states or by a third menacing party, such as drug lords.

The latest figures show that, in Britain, with its safe/unsafe country system, the average refugee processing time was just 127 days. Only 19 per cent of the 19,400 claims were accepted at the initial stage. But 34 per cent of appeals of rejected refugee claims were granted. In Canada, the refugee acceptance rate hovers around 50 per cent.

"The implication is that there is often poor decision-making at the initial stage and that there is a systemic culture of disbelief (of the claimants) by bureaucrats," says Colin Harvey, head of the school of law at Queen's University Belfast. "This does not recommend itself as a model to follow. There is also the risk that decision-making itself can become broadly politicized."