Immigration Canada

Sask. needs wide welcome mat

BY MURRAY MANDRYK, THE STARPHOENIX JANUARY 6, 2012

If one didn't know better, one might think that the Saskatchewan Party has a strange obsession with the Irish.

Long before the party took power in 2007, former leader Elwin Hermanson and others in the party virtually campaigned on the idea that Saskatchewan could follow Ireland's model and become Canada's Celtic Tiger. Now that the Irish economy has gone bust, Premier Brad Wall's government seriously is considering a "jobs mission" to Ireland in the hopes of wooing displaced Irish workers to join Saskatchewan's booming economy.

There's certainly nothing wrong with wanting to attract people from Ireland, or from anywhere else for that matter, who want to come here and help address Saskatchewan's shortage of skilled labour.

If the goal is to attract newcomers who provide an immediate contribution to the economy and will make a long-term commitment to staying, there's even an argument that the transition would be easier for white, English-speaking Europeans with similar job training and educational backgrounds as we find in Canada. This might be especially so in the case of less diverse, smaller Saskatchewan communities. Currently, about 70 per cent of new immigrants wind up in Regina or Saskatoon.

But the lesson we should have learned 100 years ago, during the province's first great immigration wave, is that if you open your doors to the world, you forfeit control over who you are inviting. And the notion that you can, or even would want to, micromanage your immigration policy to the extent of having politicians travel across the ocean to find specific skilled workers for a few specific employers seems wrong-headed.

Saskatchewan's foremost statistician Doug Elliott, who was in the United Arab Emirates this fall to provide its government with help on its job-related immigration issues, wonders about the Wall government's strategy in targeting Ireland. He acknowledges the downturn in the Irish economy, particularly in its housing market that has seen entire subdivisions of new homes left empty (similar to hard-hit parts of the United States such as Phoenix).

While Elliott notes that it made sense to recruit tradespeople and truck drivers from Russia and Ukraine, and nurses from the Philippines - whose policy is to train more nurses than it needs so they can work abroad and send support money home - it makes less sense to target Irish workers.

Immigrants who come from traditionally depressed areas are more likely to remain, he notes, while those coming from places such as Ireland are more likely to return to their homelands when things improve.

Of course, this would make this a good recruitment policy if the only objective is to meet short-term needs. But that's certainly not what the Wall government is saying about this exercise.

Immigration Minister Rob Norris said in an interview Wednesday that construction companies are one group interested in Irish employees. However, the Saskatchewan delegation, expected to go to Ireland in March, also will be seeking health sciences workers and engineers at the Irish job fairs. Norris also emphasized the desire to have these immigrants become permanent Saskatchewan citizens.

Certainly, one can appreciate the government's eagerness to lend assistance when it also can address a local problem of some degree. But Norris is only talking about 75 to 100 jobs he hopes the delegates can offer.

Is a government trade mission really necessary for that, and is it even the government's role in our free market economy?

Does a government need to spend valuable public resources on an immigration recruitment project that sounds as if it's mostly about meeting the niche needs of some construction companies?

With First Nation unemployment far exceeding 14 per cent in Saskatchewan, one might think the government needs a grander view of this issue. Shouldn't First Nations people with bleak employment prospects be its foremost priority?

There's certainly nothing wrong with politicians doing what they can to help with what clearly is a problem of some degree. But this government especially finds itself getting into trouble when it starts focusing on the problems of like-minded supporters without first considering broader-based policy issues. Its recent foray into more financial support for private Christian schools at the potential expense of the public education system is a good example.

The welcome mat should be there for everyone.

The changing face of Canadian diversity

By Douglas Todd, Special to the Sun January 6, 2012

The common wisdom, from Italy to the United States, is that resistance to immigration magnifies in direct correlation to how much a country’s citizens struggle economically.

There are increasing signs that hard thinking is beginning to play out in Canada, which has the highest immigration rate per capita in the world — and which is now, along with the rest of the globe, undergoing financial strains.

Polls have long shown that Canadians, more than residents of any other country, believe that high immigration is “good for the economy.”

But signs of wariness are appearing. A recent Nanos poll found four out of five Canadians either want immigration levels to stay the same or decrease.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, since the May election, has been responding by acting tougher. He’s banned face-covering veils during citizenship ceremonies, required more thorough knowledge of English or French among prospective immigrants, spoken out against marriages of convenience and frozen immigration applications from parents and grandparents.

What’s behind the shift in the social wind? Numerous surveys are showing average Canadian families are taking a financial hit. It now takes two parents to match the pay packet of a single working person three decades ago. The gap between rich and poor keeps expanding, with young B.C. couples especially seeing a drop in their incomes since 1976.

In this context, Canadians, especially Metro residents, can expect to see certain immigration issues gain extra attention in the next year and beyond. Just as Europeans and Americans are becoming more outspoken about immigration issues, expect Canadians to become openly animated about the five following topics:

1. Ethnic enclaves expanding

The history of Canadian immigration is predominantly urban. The vast majority of immigrants move to Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, in that order.

In each of these major cities immigrants have increasingly been creating ethnic enclaves, which Statistics Canada defines as neighbourhoods in which more than 30 per cent of the population is a visible minority.

Tens of thousands of Metro Vancouver residents are among those who each year quietly make their housing choices based in part on whether they will feel comfortable with the cultural and ethnic makeup of a particular neighbourhood.

Canada had only six ethnic enclaves in 1976. Now Metro Vancouver alone has more than 110. Many neighbourhoods in Richmond are more than 70 per cent Chinese, while others in north Surrey are 70 per cent South Asian. Meanwhile, many neighbourhoods in Tsawwassen, south Surrey and the North Shore remain predominantly white.

Metro Vancouver residents continue for the most part to get along. But the noted Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam is among many researchers who are finding, to their regret, that trust levels tend to decline when a city is composed of enclaves.

Optimists, however, maintain that mono-ethnic neighbourhoods break down over generations, as the offspring of immigrants gain the emotional strength to move into more diverse areas.

Whatever the case, expect the subject of ethnic enclaves, once only whispered about, to be discussed more overtly in coming years.

2. Canadians will heighten debate over the “limits of tolerance”

When Canada’s immigration minister heard in December that some Muslim women were refusing to take off their niqabs or burkas at citizenship ceremonies, he immediately declared they must reveal their faces if they want to become Canadians.

Except for some Muslim activists, few Canadians complained. Even though Kenney has spent years wooing Canadian immigrants to vote Conservative by attending hundreds of ethnic and religious banquets, the devout Catholic was likely aware his move would be applauded in a country where polls show Muslims are not as popular as Christians, Jews or Buddhists.

Similarly, many Canadians are suspicious about some forms of arranged international marriages. Kenney is being praised for taking a rhetorical hard-line against marriages of convenience, those difficult-to-prosecute frauds in which would-be immigrants jump to the front of the queue by pretending to be committed to a Canadian citizen.

Although arranged marriages often stand the test of time, expect Canadians to become more critical of immigrants who try to bring certain illiberal customs to this northern nation — including in some cases institutionalized homophobia, genital mutilation, domestic abuse, polygamy and gender inequality.

3. More economic anxieties will boil to the surface

Kenney is not the only politician publicly worrying about immigration. Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson this year openly lamented how wealthy new immigrants were making city housing unaffordable for his children and countless others.

But housing prices are responsible for only one of many immigrant-related economic problems. For instance, studies show new immigrants are, on average, not doing as well as they were two decades ago.

University of B.C. economist Thomas Lemieux is among those warning that the declining financial fortunes of new immigrants are spilling over to the entire population.

For all Canadians, says Lemieux, the gap is growing between the financially well-off and those with low incomes. The wealthiest Canadians, Lemieux says, “have doubled their share of the pie” in the past 15 years.

Both new Canadians, and homegrown ones, would most benefit from easier access to education, Lemieux maintains. But that will require major policy reforms.

“What’s getting the most expensive in Canada?” Lemieux asks rhetorically.

“In the past 15 years it has not been TVs or cars. It's actually education. It may be discouraging lots of people from going to school.”

4. Temporary foreign workers will be spotlighted

Metro Vancouver’s 80,000 diligent Filipinos form the centre of a growing concern over temporary foreign workers. Since taking office in 2005, the Conservative government has hiked the numbers of these short-term foreign workers from 160,000 in 2006 to 283,000 in 2010.

Although temporary foreign workers have traditionally been brought into fill short-term skills shortages, they are increasingly being welcomed into the country to do unskilled, low-wage jobs like farm labour.

In a rare display of agreement, economists from both the centre-left Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and centre-right Fraser Institute have come out against the rise in temporary foreign workers, many of whom are from the Philippines.

Both sides of the spectrum say the over-use of temporary foreign workers is lowering overall wages, hurting productivity and, perhaps most importantly, discouraging Canadians and landed immigrants from upgrading their skills.

University of B.C. planning specialist Prod Laquian, who has Filipino heritage, adds another dimension to this thorny issue. He is among those who points out it is often devastating for developing countries to lose their more industrious citizens to richer countries such as Canada.

5. Inter-ethnic relationships are growing

Ending on a positive note, it is becoming ever more common to see couples of mixed ethnicity holding hands, dining out or playing with their offspring in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.

Canadians’ boast of building a true multicultural society — characterized by creative dialogue and a new synthesis of cultures — will not occur through just our legendary niceness, which can sometimes mask distance and superficiality.

Authentic inter-ethnic bonding occurs when people can honestly face real social tensions, including some of those outlined here. Inter-ethnic relationships, which continue to be on the rise, may be the best way to help us cross these cultural boundaries.

As Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam has discovered, fondness between people of different backgrounds, religions and world views is most likely to swell when we take the risk of getting to know others — as friends, lovers, teammates or family.

dtodd@vancouversun.com

Blog: www.vancouversun.com/thesearch

Twitter:@douglastodd

Elite Asian students cheat like mad on US college applications

Competition fuels boom in brokers offering fake transcripts, essays and SAT scores.

Patrick WinnJanuary 4, 2012 06:00

BANGKOK, Thailand — From sleep to social lives, there is little Asia’s most upwardly mobile students won’t sacriﬁce for education. Though they belong to the so-called “Asian Century,” American colleges remain the premier destination for the elite from Shanghai to Singapore to Seoul.

The path to US college acceptance, however, increasingly compels students to sacriﬁce their integrity. For the right price, unscrupulous college prep agencies offer ghostwritten essays in ﬂawless English, fake awards, manipulated transcripts and even whiz kids for hire who’ll pose as the applicant for SAT exams.

“Oh my God, they can do everything for you,” said Nok, 17-year-old Thai senior in her ﬁnal year at a private Bangkok high school. (She asked GlobalPost to alter her name for this article.) “They can take the SAT for you, no problem. Most students don’t really think it’s wrong.”

Among Asian high society, and particularly in China, parents’ obsession with sending their offspring to US colleges has given rise to a lucrative trade of application brokers. Depending the degree of assistance, families can expect to pay between $5,000 and $15,000.

“The parent says, ‘My kid needs this GPA but, frankly, his scores aren’t that strong.’ Then the unscrupulous agent says ‘Don’t worry. We’ll ﬁgure that out,’” said Tom Melcher, chairman of Zinch China and author of a Chinese-language book on choosing American colleges.

A 250-student survey by Zinch China, a Beijing wing of the California-based Zinch education consultancy, suggests college application fraud among Chinese students is extremely pervasive. According to the survey, roughly 90 percent of recommendation letters to foreign colleges are faked, 70 percent of college essays are ghostwritten and 50 percent of high school transcripts are falsiﬁed.

“For the right price,” Melcher said, “the agent will either fabricate it or work with the school to get a different transcript issued.” Admission into a top 10 or top 30 school, as deﬁned by the US News & World Report, can bring a $3,000 to $10,000 bonus for the agent, he said. The magazine, Melcher said, is commonly confused in China for an official government publication.

Demand for such agents is high and getting higher. Rapid economic growth across China and other parts of Asia has sparked an explosion in foreign students hoping to secure their ascent with a Western diploma.

Chinese citizens currently account for more than one in ﬁve foreign students studying at US colleges.

Nearly 158,000 Chinese students are enrolled at any given time, a full 300 percent jump over mid-1990s

numbers, according to the Institute of International Education.

Chinese, Indian and South Korean students comprise roughly half of America’s foreign college student

population. Vietnam has sent 13 percent more students to the US within the last year, and Malaysia

has added 8 percent, the institute reports.

But many American college officials are oblivious to the application ﬁx-it men these foreign students

may have paid back home. Worse yet, remaining blind to the deception is often ﬁnancially incentivized.

America’s economic downturn has drained the state tax coffers that provide a funding lifeline to many

US colleges. Many schools have resorted to unpopular tuition hikes. But many are also courting wealthy

foreign students whose families gladly fork over money for housing and tuition along with out-of-state or

even out-of-country fees.

“International students are seen as a source of revenue ... and the trend has exploded in the past two

years,” said Dale Gough, international education director for AACRAO, the American Association of

Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.

Foreign students, through tuition and living expenses, contribute $2.1 billion to the US economy,

according to the US Commerce Department. “In short,” Gough said, “they help the bottom line.”

Excuses abound for ignoring fraudulent applications, Gough said. Some assume that kids who cheat will

inevitably ﬂame out anyway and never score a degree. Some admissions officers, he said, contend that

“that’s just the way it’s done over there.”

Many schools also make sloppy attempts to translate foreign transcripts, calculated by an “indigenous”

and unfamiliar methodology, into America’s GPA or “grade point average” system, Gough said.

His association publishes a guide to deciphering foreign scores, the only one of its kind, but fewer than

500 of the 3,500 institutions represented by AACRAO bother to buy a copy.

“Translating foreign grades into a GPA system is meaningless,” Gough said. “They attempt to do it

anyway.”

Gough fears that universities’ lax standards, and focus on big foreign tuition payments, will eventually

undermine the pedigree of an American diploma. The damage, he said, would be nearly impossible to

undo.

“This scenario spells disaster,” Gough said. “Even if a lot of the students who cheat are bright, and they

go on to succeed, is this fair to American students? Or [to] the foreign students who play by the rules?”

While America has ceded manufacturing power and foreign inﬂuence to China, an American degree

remains the gold standard of educational prestige. Nok, who is currently applying for colleges abroad,

never considered applying to universities in Asia.

“Students who study in America are elite, the privileged,” said Nok. “It shows you’re smarter than the

others.”

But like most Asian students, Nok has felt baﬄed and overwhelmed by America’s complex application

system.

“Here, you take a big test one day and report the score. That’s how you ﬁgure out where you’ll go to

college,” she said. “The Americans are different. They want to know the big picture. All these essays.

All this stuff about your life.”

America’s liberal arts application system is “fundamentally more confusing,” said Joshua Russo,

director of Top Scholars, a college prep and tutoring agency in Bangkok.

Asian families unfamiliar with the process, he said, are justiﬁed in seeking an agency’s help with

application strategies and tutoring to build the skills US colleges demand. But Russo’s refrain to parents,

he said, is that kids who can’t write their own essays are likely to burn out once enrolled in America.

“Some consultants will promise the world ... and they’re fundamentally preparing students to fail,” Russo

said. “Beyond fabricating an essay, they’re fabricating a whole life story. Students will start to believe in

the lie. It’s wrong.”

The allure of America’s universities, and the pressure-cooker drive to succeed among Asia’s expanding

upper class, will continue to propel Asian students into American schools. Many Chinese teenagers

applying abroad, Melcher said, are the sort of highly motivated students colleges desire.

“Chinese kids are typically great,” Melcher said. “They’re not at the tailgate parties drinking. They’re

busting their butts. Failure is not an option.”

But college application fraud will continue, he said, so long as the risks are low and the rewards are so

high. His consultancy suggests interviewing all Chinese students via online video chats, conducting spot

tests in English, and hiring a mainland Chinese staffer in the college’s home office.

“Frankly, I feel really bad for Chinese families who are trying to be honest,” he said. “They’re driving 55

while everyone’s zooming past them. After a while, they throw up their hands and say, ‘Fine, I’ll speed up

AEI study: Immigrants boost employment for U.S. natives Read more: AEI study: Immigrants boost employment for U.S. natives

Immigrants with advanced degrees and temporary foreign workers boost employment for U.S. natives, and the United States should adjust its policies to bring more of them, according to a Dec. 15 study (.pdf) from the American Enterprise Institute and the Partnership for a New American Economy.

The data shows that an additional 100 foreign-born workers in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields with advanced degrees from U.S. universities is associated with 262 more jobs among U.S. natives. There are 86 more U.S. native jobs for every 100 foreign-born workers in STEM fields with advanced degrees from U.S. or foreign universities, and there are 44 more U.S. native jobs when those 100 foreign-born workers have advanced degrees regardless of field or where they obtained them.

As for temporary foreign workers, states with 100 more workers in the H-1B visa program had 183 more jobs among U.S. natives, and 100 more H-2B visa workers resulted in 464 jobs for U.S. natives.

The author, Madeline Zavodny, an economics professor at Agnes Scott College, adds that these results occur even in a system that prioritizes family reunification over employment-based immigration and has millions of unauthorized workers.

Zavodny also notes that the study may underestimate the positive effects of immigration. Since the study examines data on a state-by-state basis, it does not account for when immigrants create jobs in other states, like if a business in one state that benefits from immigration adds jobs at a subsidiary in another state.

And since research tends to show that the economy benefits from immigration more in the long-term, the study underestimates the effects because it only covers the period from 2000 to 2010, Zavodny says.

Because immigrants tend to be more mobile than natives and are likely to go to states that already have strong job opportunities, the study was designed to determine the effect of immigration independent of employment opportunities.

Additional benefits that the study finds include that, on average, immigrants pay more in taxes than they receive from major federal programs like welfare, unemployment benefits, food stamps and Medicaid. Zavodny notes that this does not factor in indirect economic impacts of immigration like increased economic activity, which leads to higher tax revenues in general.

She recommends that the United States prioritize immigration of workers in STEM fields who hold advanced degrees from U.S. institutions, increase the number of green cards for highly skilled workers and expand temporary-worker programs.

The study notes that only 7 percent of U.S. green cards are allocated based on employment needs, compared to 25 percent in Canada, 42 percent in Australia and nearly 60 percent in the United Kingdom and Germany.

Zavodny adds that this inaction has a price, because other countries compete for talent. "Every major developed country is more focused than the United States on admitting immigrants to meet economic needs," she says.

For more:
- download the report (.pdf)

Canadian Man Uses iPad As Passport At US Border

By Guardian on January 4, 2012

This article titled “Canadian man passes US border using his iPad” was written by Ben Quinn, for The Guardian on Wednesday 4th January 2012 01.12 UTC

A Canadian man who realised that he had left his passport at home as he approached the US border managed to cross over by using his Apple iPad.

In a novel deployment of the tablet that may have come as a surprise even to the late Steve Jobs, Martin Reisch said that a mildly annoyed US border officer made an exception after he was handed the iPad displaying a scanned copy of the forgotten passport.

Reisch was a half hour from the border between the US and the Canadian province of Quebec when he decided to try to gain entry rather than turn back and make a two-hour trek back home to Montreal to fetch his passport.

He told the officer he was heading to the US to drop off Christmas gifts for his friend’s kids. He said that the true story, the scanned passport and his driver’s license helped him get through last week.

“I thought I’d at least give it a try,” said Reisch, according to reports by the Associated Press.

“He took the iPad into the little border hut. He was in there a good five, six minutes. It seemed like an eternity. When he came back he took a good long pause before wishing me a Merry Christmas.”

US Customs and Border Protection says it only accepts a passport, an enhanced driver’s license or a Nexus pass from Canadian citizens entering at land crossings. The list doesn’t mention facsimiles, like scans and photocopies.

Reisch, 33, said he took a scanned photo of his passport years ago in case it was ever lost or stolen while travelling. He said he also successfully used the passport on his iPad to get through Canadian Customs on the way home later that day.

However, the 33-year-old said he doubted that he would get away with it again and would take his passport next time, although he hopes border officials will eventually make digital identification an official form of travel document.

“I see the future as 100% being able to cross with your identity on a digital device it’s just a matter of time,” he said.

via PSFK: http://www.psfk.com/2012/01/man-passport-ipad.html#ixzz1iYubZKv4

Immigration Canada

Sask. needs wide welcome mat

The changing face of Canadian diversity

Elite Asian students cheat like mad on US college applications

Competition fuels boom in brokers offering fake transcripts, essays and SAT scores.

AEI study: Immigrants boost employment for U.S. natives Read more: AEI study: Immigrants boost employment for U.S. natives

Canadian Man Uses iPad As Passport At US Border

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