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.
Toronto Star – Canada’s Asylum System Re-Victimizes LGBTQ Refugees
Val Kalende doesn’t understand why Canada’s refugee system is more interested in her sex life than the persecution she experienced as a lesbian in her native Uganda. “They wanted the names of my girlfriends and all of my previous relationships and their support letters to prove that,” said Kalende, a Ugandan gay activist who made an asylum claim in Canada in July for persecution on the grounds of sexual orientation. “It made me feel horrible. They just focused on these private, intimate things about my partners, sex life and breakups, instead of the way I was persecuted back home. There’s something about the (asylum) process that breaks you down, that breaks your emotions down.” The Toronto woman’s experience was echoed by the participants of a groundbreaking study to be released Tuesday by the Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights research team based at York University. “Is Canada a safe haven for LGBT refugees?” asked the 59-page report by the same title. “We can answer a qualified yes — however, the study identifies serious obstacles.” One of those obstacles, it said, is the Canadian asylum system’s disproportionate emphasis on “credibility” in the claims process, which places the onus on LGBT claimants to produce highly personal evidence to substantiate their sexual orientation or gender identity.
CBC – Express Entry Gives First Dibs to Temporary Foreign Workers
A new immigration system designed to attract highly skilled workers from around the world to meet Canada’s labour needs isn’t living up to its promise, say businesses and prospective immigrants nearly 10 months after it was implemented. […] Jason Kenney, who was responsible for the Harper government’s transformation of Canada’s immigration system during his time as immigration minister, on Friday touted express entry as “a system that’s fast, that connects people to the labour market so they can realize their dreams and fulfil their potential upon arrival in Canada.” […] While that may be the goal, express entry has opened the door to very few new economic immigrants. To date, it has favoured a large number of temporary foreign workers and other foreign nationals already in the country. Over 85 per cent of the foreign nationals who were selected for admission under express entry in the first six months of the year — 11,047 out of 12,304 — were already in Canada, according to a report published by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration in July.
Radio-Canada – Manitoba : un programme d’aide juridique aux réfugiés manque d’argent
Le Conseil multiconfessionnel d’aide à l’établissement des immigrants au Manitoba (CMAEIM), organisme qui aide les réfugiés à naviguer à travers le processus complexe de demande de statut de réfugié au Canada, n’aura plus aucun financement à partir du 30 septembre. Auparavant, le CMAEIM recevait 250 000 $ annuellement du gouvernement provincial dans le cadre du Programme des candidats des provinces. Cependant, en 2012, le gouvernement fédéral a pris la relève du programme et a supprimé le financement des programmes pour réfugiés parrainés par des particuliers.
CBC – Refugee Intake has Limits, Germany’s President Warns
Germany’s president has warned that there are limits to how many refugees his country can absorb as it prepares for as many as 800,000 arrivals this year. The comments from the head of state, who has a largely ceremonial role but whose words carry moral authority, were set to fuel a raging debate about how so many newcomers can be integrated into German society. […] Gauck appeared to be striking a more cautious tone than Chancellor Angela Merkel who has said Germany can cope with the record influx. It came amid signs of tensions among asylum seekers, part of a wave of mass migration into the European Union from the Middle East and parts of Africa. Fourteen people were injured on Sunday when a brawl broke out between two rival groups in a refugee centre in the western German town of Calden, police said. The refugees were being housed in tents set up on a disused airfield. A union representing German police officers has suggested that refugees should be divided according to their religion to try to reduce the risk of conflict.
Toronto Star – How the UN Determines Who is a Refugee – and Who Isn’t
How many refugees are resettled every year? Of the close to 15 million refugees worldwide, only about 100,000 a year are ever resettled. Only about 100,000 a year return to their country of origin. That means most refugee situations are protracted. They’ve been going on for a long time. […] The 1951 Refugee Convention spells out the technical definition of a refugee. But what is the process of analysis on the ground that turns a migrant into a refugee? Most countries rely on the UNHCR to do the initial screening. We put teams on the ground with mobile technology and we speak to each person. Our systems are automated and interconnected, often through iris identification. This helps to prevent fraud and to ensure the integrity of the process. We ask to see a person’s identity documents and they tell us their story. We have a full battery of questions. It can take up to an hour or it could be as quick as 20 minutes.
Medical Xpress – Rather Than Screen All Immigrants for TB, Developed Countries Could be More Focused
While Canada screens all immigrants for tuberculosis, the vast majority of active cases of the disease are found in people arriving from a handful of countries where TB is prevalent, new research suggests. The findings are relevant to other developed countries with large numbers of immigrants, such as the United States, Australia and some Western European countries, which have TB screening processes similar to Canada’s. “While the pre-immigration chest X-ray identifies active TB in some new immigrants, the risk of disease varies widely by the immigrants’ country of origin,” said Dr. Kamran Khan, an infectious disease physician at St, Michael’s Hospital who specializes in treating TB. “When we screen every new immigrant in precisely the same way, we unnecessarily consume valuable resources looking for active TB in populations where the probability of disease is essentially zero,” said Dr. Khan, who is also a researcher in the hospital’s Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute. Dr. Khan today published a one-of-a-kind study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal that linked the Citizenship and Immigration Canada records of nearly 1 million people who arrived in Ontario between Jan. 2, 2002, and Dec. 31, 2011, with the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care’s reportable disease database for the same 10 years.
