The Media Roundup provides links to recent and archived articles, in both English and French, on immigration and diversity appearing in the national and local news. Some international content is also included. Articles are updated weekly.
CBC News – Government Should Look at Bringing Rohingya Refugees to Canada, Minister Says
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland says Canada needs to look into bringing Rohingya refugees here to reunify families. While she said the majority of people she spoke to while visiting the refugee camps in Bangladesh expressed a desire to return to their homes in Myanmar, many Rohingya in Canada have told her they want their family members to be able to come here. Freeland is in Bangladesh on a four-day tour focused on the Rohingya refugee crisis.
Global News – Feds Ordering Tents for the Border in Anticipation of More Illegal Migrants
The federal government’s plan to deal with a new influx of asylum seekers is to install enough tents at the border to house up to 520 people at a time. Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has put out a call for tender for tents that will be set up in St-Bernard-de-Lacolle, the same border crossing that has seen most of the 26,000 illegal crossings over the last 15 months. The contract says the tents must have “sleeping areas, space for reception, security space and distribution centre.”
CBC News – Immigration Minister Says He’s Not Worried About a ‘Wave’ of Hondurans Hitting the Border
Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen says he doesn’t believe that tens of thousands of Hondurans losing their temporary protected status in the U.S. will make up the next wave of asylum seekers crossing into Canada. “The fact that these individuals will have until the year 2020 to regularize themselves gives them a lot of opportunities to regularize themselves or leave the United States. It’s much different than the decision that was made with respect to Haitian nationals,” Hussen said in an interview Friday.
Global News – Number of Irregular Border Crossings Spikes Again in April, Dwarfing Last Year’s Total
The flow of people crossing the Canada-U.S. border between legal checkpoints is continuing to increase, a parliamentary committee heard on Thursday, with the number coming to Canada in the first four months of 2018 dwarfing the total for the same period last year. Officials with the immigration department struggled to come up with an exact number of RCMP interceptions at the border for April, but say they expect it was “somewhere around” 2,500. If that’s accurate, it would bring the total for the whole year so far to about 7,550.
Chronicle Herald – Immigration Numbers Growing Under Pilot
Interest in the Atlantic Immigration Pilot Program in Nova Scotia has more than doubled in the past six months. According to data provided by the Nova Scotia Department of Immigration, as of April 30 the province had designated 406 employers and endorsed 448 candidates through the pilot program since it launched in March 2017. So far in 2018, 247 new candidates have been endorsed. Nova Scotia’s Immigration Minister Lena Diab said word is spreading among employers and the province is on target to meet its 2018 allocation.
CIC News – Canada Ranked Fourth Most-Accepting Country in the World for Immigrants
Canada scored 8.14 out of a possible 9 in Gallup’s Migrant Acceptance Index, which put it fourth out of 140 countries in terms of how accepting each country’s population is of newcomers. Gallup says it created the index to assess people’s acceptance of immigrants based on what it calls “increasing degrees of proximity.” This is assessed through three questions that ask respondents whether immigrants living in their country, becoming their neighbours and marrying into their homes are “good things or bad things.”
