an alliance of university, community, and government partners dedicated to fostering welcoming communities and promoting the integration of immigrants and minorities across Canada
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.
Edmonton Journal – Edmonton Woman Charged with Fraud After Allegedly Working as Immigration Consultant
An Edmonton woman allegedly worked as an unauthorized immigration consultant and forged nearly 200 work permits. Janet Chen Macaulay faces two charges under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and two charges under the Criminal Code. The Canada Border Services Agency received a complaint in 2011. During its investigation, it discovered a woman allegedly represented corporate and individual clients for a fee on up to 190 work permit applications, even though she wasn’t authorized to do so. The woman was paid to complete and submit the applications, but failed to do so, the agency said. She also provided her clients with forged documents, it said. The offences allegedly occurred between 2006 and 2012. Most of the work permits were approved. For each of the permanent resident applications, Macaulay is accused of providing clients with forged government documents from Citizenship and Immigration Canada. In one case, she allegedly provided a client with a fraudulent letter stating they were authorized to work, when in fact they were not.
Toronto Star – Prospects Not Entirely Rosy for Foreign-Trained MDs, Says Fairness Commissioner
Ontario’s Fairness Commissioner Jean Augustine says things are anything but rosy for foreign-trained doctors trying to break into Ontario. Augustine on Wednesday took particular exceptions to an overly “rosy and glowing portrait” in a report earlier this week by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario bragging that a record number of international medical graduates (IMG) were either being accepted into residency programs or being certified to open up their own practices. Augustine said a further look at the numbers show that a small percentage of foreign-trained doctors are being accepted into 200 government-funded IMG residency positions. Instead, many are being given to Canadians who have trained offshore and want to return to Ontario, which, she says, belies the original intent of the program. According to 2011 StatsCan figures, she said there are 6,540 IMGs living in Ontario, many of whom are left without a hope of ever practicing medicine in the province. […] A Fairness Commission report from 2013 reported that in recent years a disproportionate number of the residency positions designated for IMGs were granted to Canadians who study medicine abroad (CSAs).
Ottawa Citizen – Canadians in the Dark About Immigration Numbers: Survey
Most Canadians don’t seem to have the foggiest notion of how many immigrants and refugees this country admits every year. When asked the question, during Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s 2013-14 annual tracking survey, 43 per cent of the Canadian adults polled wouldn’t even hazard a guess. Fully one third thought the number was less than 100,000 a year. In fact, for the past decade, Canada has opened its doors to about 250,000 immigrants and refugees a year. (Only nine per cent of those surveyed suggested a number remotely close to that.) Ignorance of the facts, however, didn’t stop most of the 3,016 participants polled by Harris/Decima from answering when asked whether there were too many, too few or about the right number of immigrants coming to Canada every year. Twenty-six per cent said there were too many, 10 per cent said too few and 52 per cent said the number was about right. The rest said they didn’t know. After they were told the actual number admitted each year, the number who said there were too many jumped to 36 per cent. Nine per cent said too few immigrants were admitted, while 48 per cent thought the number was about right.
Al Jazeera – US Embrace of Cuban Refugees Underscores Hypocrisy on Immigration
The surge of unaccompanied minors from Central America arriving in the U.S. slowed down in July. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson attributed the decline to “an aggressive campaign to counter the rise of illegal migration.” More than 50,000 children, mostly from Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua, have sought safe haven in the United States since January. […] Thousands of undocumented Cubans each year are welcomed as soon as they set foot on U.S. soil. The special preference afforded them stems almost wholly from the United States’ Cold War–era fear of communism. The “wet foot, dry foot” policy, grounded in the 1965 Cuban Adjustment Act, allows Cubans to be protected (fed, registered, given work permits and health care) once they enter the United States; they are not even required to prove eligibility for asylum. They do not have to belong to a specific, persecuted social group or show that their lives are in danger. They need only to set one foot on U.S. territory. A year later, they can become permanent legal residents. […] In 2013 the U.S. admitted 26,407 Cubans as refugees or asylees. That is nearly one-fourth of the refugee and asylum seeker total admitted that year.
The Now – Surrey Father of Two Set to be Deported Despite Family’s Fears
Osman Fernando De Leon Reyes, 29, was kidnapped and severely beaten in Guatemala in January 2006 after his mother, a government auditor, revealed multiple instances of corruption, according to de Leon’s wife, Heidy Pinto. Several months after his release from hospital, he came to Canada to be with Pinto, now 24, a permanent resident who had immigrated the year before and was pregnant with the couple’s first child. In 2009, the two married. De Leon Reyes applied to stay in Canada as a refugee on the basis of his kidnapping. But at that time, he didn’t have the medical report and the government found he could not prove he was in danger if he returned to Guatemala. His claim was rejected and he was deported on June 30, 2010, leaving behind his four-year-old daughter. […] Soon after, he was almost shot to death by a gang of men who arrived looking for him. […] De Leon Reyes left the country again, escaping first to Mexico and then sneaking back to Canada, where he was disqualified from making another claim because he was a failed refugee claimant.
Burnaby News Leader – Immigrant Canadians Stuck in Catch-22 When ID Lost
Immigrant Canadians will want to hold onto their wallet-sized Canadian citizenship cards for dear life. Or at least keep them in a safe deposit box. That’s because the federal government is no longer issuing the photo identification. And it’s caused no end of grief for people who have had all their ID lost or stolen. Burnaby-New Westminster NDP MP Peter Julian says it’s all because Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) switched to a photo-free, paper certificate in February 2012. “It was done without really consulting the provinces,” said Julian. “In B.C.’s case particularly, there was a real balking of ‘this isn’t a valid identification.’” With no photo, ICBC won’t accept it as a form of primary identification when issuing driver’s licences. Since 2013, people without driver’s licences can get a new BC Services Card, the new, more secure version of both the Carecard and BC Identification, also without a photo or signature. But that, in turn, is not accepted by Passport Canada when applying for a passport. […] People born in Canada are able to simply get a new birth certificate to get the ball rolling on replacing ID. But that’s not possible for immigrants whose first step would be to get a new Canadian citizenship card.
