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.
Guardian – UK Gains £20bn from European Migrants, UCL Economists Reveal
European migrants to the UK are not a drain on Britain’s finances and pay out far more in taxes than they receive in state benefits, a new study has revealed. The research by two leading migration economists at University College also reveals that Britain is uniquely successful, even more than Germany, in attracting the most highly skilled and highly educated migrants in Europe. The study, the Fiscal Impact of Immigration to the UK, published in the Economic Journal, reveals that more than 60% of new migrants from western and southern Europe are now university graduates. The educational levels of east Europeans who come to Britain are also improving with 25% of recent arrivals having completed a degree compared with 24% of the UK-born workforce. It says that European migrants made a net contribution of £20bn to UK public finances between 2000 and 2011. Those from the 15 countries which made up the EU before 2004, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain, contributed 64% – £15bn more in taxes than they received in welfare – while east European migrants contributed 12%, equivalent to £5bn more.
Global News – Deaths in Detention: CBSA’s Fatal Failure to Learn From its Mistakes
Canadians know the story of Lucia Vega Jimenez, the Mexican woman who hanged herself in a Canada Border Services cell in Vancouver’s airport. But not because of the people responsible for her wellbeing: We know her story because members of the Mexican-Canadian community came forward and made it impossible to ignore. Until recently, Canada’s Border Services Agency did not tell anyone when people – refugee claimants, immigrant detainees – died in its custody. […] At least nine people have died in immigration detention since 2000, most of them while held in a provincial jail or non-CBSA facility. In its efforts to learn more about people who have died while being held in immigration custody, Global News contacted CBSA, Ontario and Quebec’s coroners’ officers, Ontario’s Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, the Immigration and Refugee Board and an American police department, as well as filing several Access to Information requests and researching media reports.
Global News – Canada’s Unwanted: Non-Citizens Paid to Leave, Jailed Without Charge, Die in Secret
As a country we’ve crafted a narrative of welcoming persecuted persons. A federal government website, “A History of Refuge,” showcases centuries of asylum-seekers, from Quakers to Rwandans, and Canada’s Nansen Refugee Award in 1986. And we rely more than ever not only on immigrants, but on people who leave their home countries to work here for short periods of time under strict restrictions and with limited rights. But thousands of non-citizens deemed undesirable find a very different Canada than that advertised. […] We wanted to find out how Canada treats those it doesn’t want – or those whose fate and right to be in this country remain undecided. We found systems rife with arbitrary opacity and questionable practices. Canada’s detention practices violate multiple guidelines issued by the UN High Commission on refugees. This Global News investigation illustrates multiple questionable practices in Canada’s treatment of asylum-seekers and immigration detainees.
Global News – Canada Pays Thousands of Roma to Abandon Refugee Appeals, Leave Country
More than 3,600 people Canada paid to abandon their refugee claims and leave the country since July, 2012, federal statistics show. And data Global News obtained under federal access-to-information laws indicates most of these refugee claimants are Roma. Citizens of Hungary, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia make up 61 per cent of the total of people in the program – more than 1,800 by March of this year. Immigration and Refugee Minister Chris Alexander refused to speak with Global News for this story. “The [Canadian Border Services Agency] will not speculate on why these are the top five countries of return,” CBSA spokesperson Line Guibert-Wolf said in an e-mail. […] Under the Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration Program, unsuccessful refugee claimants who agree to abandon the appeal process are given airfare home, which on average costs $1,500, and “in-kind reintegration assistance” to a maximum of $2,000. […] The payments are administered by the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration, which describes the program as “politically more palatable and less sensitive than the return of émigrés in shackles.” Since Canada began the program in 2012, it has spent a total of $7.5 million paying would-be refugees to leave.
CBC – Temporary Foreign Worker Program Too Bureaucratic, Say Quebec Farmers
A group representing Quebec agriculture workers says some farms risk shutting down because of the bureaucracy surrounding the temporary foreign workers program. FERME, an organization that represents 800 farms and 8,000 agriculture workers, claims the lack of workers has directly contributed to the loss of $53.7 million for Quebec farmers in the 2013-2014 season. The agriculture industry was exempt from sweeping changes made to the temporary foreign worker program in June of this year. However, FERME takes issue with the amount of red tape surrounding the program. The group said because the program has changed so frequently, it has been an unreliable source of labour for this year’s farming season. More than 150 workers were unable to come to Quebec farms because of visa problems.
Globe and Mail – WHO Asks Canada to Justify Visa Ban for Residents of Ebola-Affected Countries
The World Health Organization has asked Canada to justify its decision to limit travel to this country from the West African countries combating Ebola. The federal government announced Friday it would not issue new travel visas for residents or citizens of countries with widespread and persistent Ebola transmission. As well, it has put a halt on the processing of permanent residency visas for people from those countries. […] Canada’s move contravenes the International Health Regulations which stipulate that in infectious disease outbreaks, countries should not impose trade or travel sanctions against affected countries beyond what the WHO has recommended. Under that treaty, countries which take measures that are stronger than those approved by the WHO must present the global health agency with the scientific and public health rationale for their actions. […] Some observers have noted that in 2003, Canada railed against travel restrictions. A delegation from the Ontario government — headed by then health minister Tony Clement, who is now an influential member of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet — traveled to Geneva to demand the WHO rescind Toronto’s travel advisory.
