Swallowing Hook, Line and Sinker
Reporters and editors who have written on two recent important immigration events have failed to see the crucial issues in the stories.
The first of the events involved a failed refugee applicant, Laibar Singh, who has taken refuge in a Sikh temple in order to avoid deportation. Reporters and editors who have dealt with this event have presented Mr. Singh, who allegedly suffered an aneurism and is now paralyzed, as a persecuted David fighting against a horrible Goliath. The Goliath is Canada's Department of Citizenship and Immigration and the Canadian Border Services Agency. The reporters and editors fail to reveal important background information about Canada's refugee system. Intentionally or by accident, they mis-inform their readers
A key fact in any refugee claimant story should be the enormous number of people who have made refugee claims in Canada. Around 600,000 have done so in the past 18 to 20 years. Most Canadians do not know this because they depend on information from reporters and editors who write about refugees. The problem is that these people seem to know almost nothing about the refugee or immigration issue.
Most reporters and editors seem to think that their job is finished when they have finished interviewing a failed refugee claimant and his supporters. Little attention is given to non-immigration industry viewpoints or to the bigger picture. Many reporters and editors seem unaware that the refugee claimant process has turned into a second and relatively easy way of getting into Canada. Many claimants have abused this process which was originally intended for people who have a genuine fear of political persecution.
A very large proportion of the 600,000 claims made in Canada probably would have never been considered by any other refugee receiving country. Most refugees get here by using fraudulent documents to board planes in their country of origin. Most refugee applicants are male and most are young. Mr. Singh is not young. He entered Canada four years ago when he was 44, but he fits the pattern of most refugee applicants in that most have relatives in their country of origin and most intend to bring in as many of these relatives as possible. Mr. Singh has four children.
Time will tell if he is given approval to stay and, if so, whether he tries to sponsor these children who, in turn, traditionally attempt to sponsor as many relatives as they can. If only 400,000 fraudulent, but successful refugee applicants sponsored 2 relatives, the number of people who then entered Canada through the Family Class process would be 800,000. If 400,000 sponsored 3 relatives each, the number who entered Canada through the Family Class would reach 1.2 million. This sponsoring has occurred and it continues today. It is an unending story referred to as chain migration.
In other words, the general truth is that the Canadian public, who have to put up with the crowding of its cities, the endless subsidizing of these people, and the ongoing deceit, is the victim in this story, not Mr. Singh.
The second major truth is that the acceptance rate for refugee claimants in Canada is far above that in any other refugee accepting country. In 2006, Canada approved over 50% of refugee applicants, compared to an average approval rate of 16% in the major refugee-accepting countries. Many refugee claimants who fail to get approved in Canada are later admitted under the Humanitarian Class of immigrants, so the real acceptance rate of refugee claimants in Canada is much higher than the 50%.
Some Canadians think Canada has a high acceptance rate because we are more generous and compassionate. A more accurate answer would probably be that Canada's immigration industry has bullied, intimidated and abused Canada's refugee administrators (civil service and elected officials). It has also assaulted Canadians with absurd claims that Canada has a sinful past which it must compensate for with a walk down endless Absolution Avenue. The situation has not been helped by Canada's media which is poorly informed about the refugee and immigration issue. As a result, our media gets regularly duped by the country's immigration industry.
The third major truth is that, contrary to what the media have broadcast (that Mr. Singh and other refugee claimants have no course of action when they are denied refugee status), Mr. Singh and all refugee applicants can get leave to appeal to the federal court to review their failed cases on procedural grounds. They can also get a pre-removal risk assessment (PRRA) and they can get a review of a negative decision on humanitarian grounds. Many of these courses of action go on for years. One of the most notorious of the cases of unending appeals (in this case, around 20 years)is that of Mahmoud Mohammed Issa Mohammed. Several years ago, it was estimated that this man's case had cost Canada over $3 million. A good many other refugee claimants have also dragged their cases on for years and together have cost Canada enormous amounts of money. Canada's own homeless and many other needy are obviously deserving of much more attention than fraudulent refugee claimants.
The crucial general point is that the background of the entire refugee issue is seldom told. Instead, the iconoclastic media presents the refugee issue as single-person, human interest stories. In the course of a year, Canadians hear about a few people, as if these were the only refugee cases that were occurring. The stories are presented with abundant sentimental references to the claimants. In Mr. Singh's case, reporters have referred to Mr. Singh's tears and hardship. What harm could ensue, the stories imply, if Canada allowed him to stay? After all, the stories suggest, he is only one person. Little is said of how the $150,000, supposedly offered by Sikh donors, could provide Mr. Singh with ample healh care in India, his country of origin.
The point is that the reporters and editors have not looked at the thousands of other claimants (in 2006, over 29,000 refugee claimants) which result in billions of dollars being diverted from Canada's own social problems. To the writers, dealing with the tears and hardship of fraudulent refugee claimants such as Mr. Singh demands our attention. Dealing with the tears and hardship of Canadian citizens does not count.
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The second story deals with the richest man in the world, Microsoft Chair Bill Gates. Mr. Gates has just announced that Microsoft will open a major office in Canada, just outside of Vancouver.
This time, presumeably dazzled by the magnitude of Mr. Gates' wealth, the media have been extolling the potential benefits of this decision for Canada.
Well, as Rob Sanchez of VDARE.com suggests, Canadians should slow down and take a more careful look at this.
Through a lottery system, the U.S. allows a number of employers to hire professional level foreign employees. These workers receive a temporary work permit (commonly referred to as an H-1B visa) which is good for 3 years and which can be extended for another 3 years. The number of H-1B visas issued each year is subject to a cap that is determined by Congress. The cap for 2007 was 65,000, but exceptions allow the cap to go much higher. At the start of this decade, the cap was close to 200,000 professional level work permits (H-1B visas) per year.
In spite of government attempts to protect American workers, critics have described the H-1B visa programme as a way to import cheap labour from such countries as India and China. This year, Bill Gates and other employers did not get approval for all the foreign workers they wanted. The number of requests for visas was much higher than the number available. According to Mr. Sanchez, Mr. Gates' purpose in opening a Canadian office is to get what the American government would not allow him to do. It is also a way that the richest man on Earth has of ignoring the unemployment, under-employment and poverty among a number of American IT workers.
In other words, coming to Canada is not a charitable act of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And it probably will be of very limited benefit to Canadian IT workers, contrary to the promotion of this move that is being reported in the Canadian media. According to Mr. Sanchez, it is a way of using Canada's immigration system as a way of getting around American immigration restrictions. Gates will use Canada's Temporary Worker system, in particular, to import workers from other countries to work in his Canadian operation.
Currently, employers bring around 120,000 temporary workers to Canada under Canada's Temporary Worker programme. Last year, close to 100,000 arrived. Currently, Canada allows these workers to stay for 2 years. Last year, and in previous years, Canada allowed them to stay for only one year.
Mr. Gates may hire a token number of Canadians, but his intent in moving to Canada, in Mr. Sanchez's view, is quite brazen. He intends to abuse Canada's Temporary Worker programme. We point out that his action is similar to that of fraudulent refugee claimants who have abused Canada's refugee programme. Canada's new government and Canada's Labour Unions should nip these Microsoft efforts in the bud by making it clear to Gates that employers have a responsibility to Canadian workers.
Canada's media obviously has a responsibility to see through the smoke screen created by Gates and others.
But, as matters stand, Canada's media, with noteable exceptions, has swallowed hook, line and sinker the propaganda created by Mr. Gates (and that generated by the supporters of Mr. Singh).
It doesn't have to be this way.
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The VDARE.com column “Has Microsoft Found A 'Temporary Worker' Loophole In Canada?” is available on the Immigration Watch Canada.org web site under “News Articles-Canadian”.
