immigrantscanada.com

Independent topical source of current affairs, opinion and issues, featuring stories making news in Canada from immigrants, newcomers, minorities & ethnic communities' point of view and interests.

foreigners: They are arrogant and they don't know how to talk to people especially Nigerians, it said, according to CTV. Resentment against foreigners has sometimes turned deadly in South Africa amid accusations that they take jobs from locals in a country where unemployment is above 25 per cent. A petition the protesters handed to the foreign ministry, seen by The Associated Press, suggested that the government teach foreigners to speak properly. Others are blamed for drug-dealing and other crimes. In 2008, similar violence killed about 60 people. In 2015, anti-immigrant riots in and around the city of Durban killed at least six people. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

irvin abuser: Her federal public defender on Wednesday filed a petition for her immediate release, saying in court documents that a Border Patrol agent perjured himself when he wrote in an affidavit that Gonzalez was arrested outside the building when surveillance shows agents conducting the arrest inside, according to Metro News. Gonzalez, 33, is transgender and began transitioning two years ago, according to one of her attorneys, Melissa Untereker. Advocates say Irvin Gonzalez's abuser tipped off authorities about her court hearing, resulting in her Feb. 9 arrest by a task force composed of Border Patrol agents and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who surrounded the exits of the courthouse until she was detained. Gonzalez is distraught and suffering from the side effects of stopping her hormone therapy, which she hasn't been able to get in jail, she said. She's very emotionally fragile right now, Untereker said. Gonzalez is in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service while she faces a federal charge of illegal re-entry into the United States. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

limitations: However, there are a few key elements also at play that I believe have greater resonance with a more pervasive Canadian narrative, according to Huffington Post Canada. Amongst those elements is the idea that you are not defined by your past, but by how you choose to build and live out your future. Metaphysics undoubtedly played a hand in Tyler and I crossing paths, falling in love, and choosing to spend the rest of eternity together. The notion that you alone can elect not to play into the statistics or stigmas that pervade ever more nowadays within traditional and social media. The belief in the power of the sacrifices, struggles, and victories of those who first dared to break free of societal limitations. The concept founded in drawing on the richness and nobility that your ancestors established as your birthright, long before anyone stole or sold it away, stripping your entire people for 400 years of their history and identity. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

marginalized voices: The first thing I always say to any people who are the dominant group is the only way that marginalized voices or people ever thrive is if mainstream voices step aside and create that space, and so instead of speaking for others or advocating for others, actually give them the room and allow them to speak for themselves, she said, according to CBC. Individual pieces in the cultural mosaic puzzle Geer, who is the guest speaker at the Caribbean and African Multicultural Association of Thunder Bay banquet on Saturday, which raises money to cover the cost of educational resources for immigrant and refugee students from elementary school all the way to college and university, said when she talks about diversity she means all the individual pieces in the puzzle of the mosaic. Society as a whole must create a protective environment where people feel safe sharing their own opinions, challenges and solutions, she said. Things changed because those marginalized groups changed it. Geer points to February as Black History Month as a good opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the contributions made over the past 400 years by people of African descent, many who arrived here originally as slaves. It was the people who suffered those laws that actually made change and made a better culture and community for everyone.- Dreeni Geer, director office of human rights and equity, Lakehead University We shouldn't really see the world as binary, meaning white and non-white, but recognize that diversity means there's going to be different groups within that non-white paradigm who have different lived experiences, different challenges, she said. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

nominee program: Applicants complained that ontarioimmigration.ca crashed almost immediately as they scrambled to compete for one of the 6,000 spots open for 2017, according to Toronto Star. Once the annual quota is met, the system automatically stops taking applications. Bowen Yang By Nicholas Keung Immigration reporter Fri., Feb. 24, 2017 Ontario's immigration website has experienced a tenfold increase in visits since the province reopened its popular Provincial Nominee Program on Tuesday. Even those who were lucky enough to get a confirmation number and were invited to complete the online application in seven days said they have been unable to log onto the website. The program was suspended last year while it was under review. According to the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration, its website has received more than 117,000 visits since Tuesday when the so-called PNP program started accepting applications. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

anti-immigrant riots: Resentment against foreigners has sometimes turned deadly in South Africa amid accusations that they take jobs from locals in a country where unemployment is above 25 per cent, according to Brandon Sun. Others are blamed for drug-dealing and other crimes. They are arrogant and they don't know how to talk to people especially Nigerians, it said. In 2015, anti-immigrant riots in and around the city of Durban killed at least six people. Police on Friday tried to keep protesters apart from foreigners who gathered to express alarm about recent attacks. In 2008, similar violence killed about 60 people. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

openness approach: MAHMUD SALEH / AFP/GETTY IMAGES FILE PHOTO By Nicholas Keung Immigration reporter Fri., Feb. 24, 2017 U.S. President Donald Trump's plans for extreme vetting of migrants may seem a stark contrast to Ottawa's openness approach, but the two countries' systems are more closely aligned than many people would like to believe, according to Toronto Star. Trump's stance on immigrants and refugees cannot be more different from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's. Canada and the U.S. have similar measures for screening refugees before they come to North America. That contradiction was on full display at their joint news conference at the White House after the two leaders' recent first meeting in Washington. It's much more than toughness. We cannot let the wrong people in and I won't, Trump told to reporters, vowing a program of extreme vetting for migrants. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

operation kelly: He told CEOs at the White House the deportation push was a military operation, according to CTV. Kelly, speaking in Mexico's capital, said all deportations will comply with human rights requirements and the U.S. legal system, including its multiple appeals for those facing deportation. Only hours earlier, President Donald Trump suggested the opposite. He said the U.S. approach will involve close co-ordination with Mexico's government. There will be no -- repeat, no -- mass deportations. There will be no use of military forces in immigration, Kelly said. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

police: The man is described as disturbed, unruly, unstable, and, most importantly, dangerous, according to Rabble. Concerned police plead with the man to drop the weapon, but their cries are ignored. Police are called. Finally, they shoot him. In 2015 the man was Andrew Loku, a refugee from South Sudan, killed holding a hammer. He dies. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

police: Resentment against foreigners has sometimes turned deadly in South Africa amid accusations that they take jobs from locals in a country where unemployment is above 25 per cent . Others are blamed for drug-dealing and other crimes, according to Metro News. In 2015, anti-immigrant riots in and around the city of Durban killed at least six people. They are arrogant and they don't know how to talk to people especially Nigerians, it said. In 2008, similar violence killed about 60 people. Police Commissioner Khomotso Phalane said 136 people had been arrested in the past 24 hours. Police on Friday tried to keep protesters apart from foreigners who gathered to express alarm about recent attacks. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

pride world: The episode is titled The Trump Effect and was broadcast throughout Canada, including Alberta, according to Huffington Post Canada. It remains as a monument to our public broadcaster's colossal ignorance on the CBC You Tube channel. On January 20, 2017, producers for the CBC program Marketplace printed t-shirts containing racist logos and mottos, including white power and white pride world wide sic and hired a middle-aged white man to stand on a Toronto street to peddle the t-shirts and yell racist slogans. Shortly after the episode aired, an American journalist inquired in a tweet if this is what passes for journalism in Canada. I couldn't finish it. The tweet piqued my interest, so I tried to watch the show. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

rights program: Using internal documents from the Canada Border Services Agency, the study shows that an average of at least 48 Canadian children were housed in Toronto's immigration detention centre each year between 2011 and 2015 because their non-Canadian parents were being detained, according to CTV. It feels like a prison, Samer Muscati, director of the University of Toronto's International Human Rights Program, said of the Toronto Immigration Holding Centre. But a new study entitled Invisible Citizens Canadian Children in Immigration Detention from the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law paints a grimmer picture. It has a concrete feel, with barbed wire all around you and bars on the windows. Like in prison, detained children are searched regularly and allowed outside for only one hour a day. Dozens more have been held at detention centres in Laval, Que. and Vancouver, B.C. Those records, however, are not public. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

shelter system: The City of Toronto said it's already seen a sharp increase in the number of would-be refugees winding up in its shelter system at the beginning of 2017, according to CBC. Refugees fearful of U.S. immigration orders seek sanctuary in Toronto shelters Maya Roy, the executive director of Newcomer Women's Services Toronto, which helps refugees learn English while also connecting them with employment opportunities and healthcare, blames the Trump administration's immigration policies as well as its perceived instability. Those who run shelters or provide medical care for newcomers say they're keeping a close eye on the situation, as more and more people leave the U.S. for Canada. This is people responding to a president making policy via Twitter, Roy told CBC Toronto. Those who arrive in southern Ontario border towns, she said, often spend several days in the area in small motels before making a connection in this city and making their way here. Roy said she expects the rising tide of asylum seekers to subside, but she also anticipates those arriving in small towns like Emerson, Man., to come to this city, where there are bigger social networks and more services available to them. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

sponsorship deals: Orange was the colour of choice for founder Bruce McLaren in the 1960s, according to Hamilton Spectator. The team's first victory in F1 came in an orange car in 1968. The British team unveiled its car for the season on Friday The MCL32, in distinctive orange and black. Sponsorship deals meant McLaren's cars were red and white from the 1970s to the '90s. Nice to see some McLaren colour, said McLaren driver Fernando Alonso. It was most recently dark grey. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

walter mondale: Reagan had done particularly well with those who would come to be known as Reagan Democrats white, working-class voters, particularly in the Rust Belt, whom a New York Times contributor would later describe as blue-collar, ethnic voters, who were drawn to Reagan's messages of economic growth and nationalistic pride, according to Hamilton Spectator. But just like Donald Trump's path to victory, Reagan's was strewn with racial hostilities and prejudicial lies. After Ronald Reagan, a carried 49 states in his devastating defeat of Walter Mondale in 1984, Democrats were whining and moaning, shuffling their feet and scratching their heads. While Trump's tropes involved Mexicans and Muslims and that tired euphemism of disastrous inner cities, Reagan used the welfare queen scare, as far back as his unsuccessful bid for president in 1976. Her tax-free cash income alone has been running 150,000 a year. As I have written before, Reagan explained at nearly every stop that there was a woman in Chicago who used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social Security, veterans' benefits for four nonexistent, deceased veteran husbands, as well as welfare. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

wartorn syria: Feb. 12, 2014 was when Hamilton was dubbed a sanctuary city, following a council vote that meant it would be the second Canadian city to declare it would provide to refugees services such as emergency shelters, recreation, public transit, libraries, food banks, and police and fire services without asking questions about their status, according to Hamilton Spectator. That's how we started at the immigrants centre because of that need 30 years ago, for people asking for protection. The vote at Hamilton City Hall came before savage terrorist attacks in France, before Canada accepted refugees from wartorn Syria, and 16 months before reality TV show character Donald Trump declared his candidacy for president. Ines Rios Director, Immigrants Working Centre We want to embrace people who come here to make a new life. Hamilton Police Service It's an open question if the measure which did not use the phrase sanctuary city but rather Access to Services for Undocumented Individuals has carried much weight. Fred Eisenberger Hamilton mayor We will continue to provide policing services to all members of our community regardless of status. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

art exhibit: They include The Coalition of Muslim Women of K-W will get 10,000 to curate an art exhibit called Celebrating Identity in partnership with Themuseum, according to The Waterloo Record. The exhibit will celebrate Muslim women artists. The grants were announced by Kitchener Centre MPP Daiene Vernille at KW Counselling Services on Friday. Neruda Arts will receive 22,000 to enhance its 2017 Kultrun World Music Festival. Homer Watson House and Gallery will get 24,999 for its year-long arts and culture exhibition and workshops Celebrating the Colours of Canada Literally and Contextually. This year's festival will showcase First Nations and immigrant stories. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

broadcaster enca: Police Commissioner Khomotso Phalane said 136 people had been arrested in the past 24 hours, according to The Waterloo Record. Resentment against foreigners has sometimes turned deadly in South Africa amid accusations that they take jobs from locals in a country where unemployment is above 25 per cent. We don't have hate! We don't have hate! one foreign man shouted in video posted by local broadcaster eNCA. Police tried to keep protesters apart from foreigners who gathered to express alarm about recent attacks. Others are blamed for drug-dealing and other crimes. In 2008, similar violence killed about 60 people. In 2015, anti-immigrant riots in and around the city of Durban killed at least six people. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

diploma mill: I come from Cuba and want to be an architect, according to Brandon Sun. Their favourite subjects are math, English and science. I come from Tanzania and want to be a teacher. Yet how to help these 17- to 21-year-old high schoolers pursue the American dream even as the country debates broader immigration issues is a question dividing advocates in several federal lawsuits. But the practice of sending the ones who are over 16 and have no school records to Phoenix, an alternative school in a former YMCA across town, has rattled critics who see it as a diploma mill. The Lancaster community, steeped in centuries of religious tolerance, runs an international school on its main high school campus to help the waves of new arrivals sponsored by local resettlement agencies learn English and adjust to American schools. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

sponsorship deals: Orange was the colour of choice for founder Bruce McLaren in the 1960s, according to The Waterloo Record. The team's first victory in F1 came in an orange car in 1968. The British team unveiled its car for the season on Friday The MCL32, in distinctive orange and black. Sponsorship deals meant McLaren's cars were red and white from the 1970s to the '90s. Nice to see some McLaren colour, said McLaren driver Fernando Alonso. It was most recently dark grey. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

support: More concerned about the safety of refugees than their own safety, a random polling of people in downtown Brandon showed support for increased refugee supports, according to Brandon Sun. The support backs Premier Brian Pallister's funding announcement of the day, which will see the introduction of 14 emergency housing units for refugee claimants, the hiring of a refugee response co-ordinator and 110,000 in funding for Welcome Place to support services for refugee claimants. It's too much hassle going across the border already. Enlarge Image Melanie Noah -- Yes, I think they should. TYLER CLARKE/THE BRANDON SUN Enlarge Image Jing Wang -- No. It seems like every day people are coming in. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

american workers: He's vowed to punish companies that bend the rules to replace American workers with cheaper foreigners, but he's also said he welcomes talented innovators to America's shores, according to Hamilton Spectator. In fact, he can and should find a way to do both. His views on high-skilled, legal immigrants are more complicated. The H-1B visa program that's used to bring high-skilled temporary workers to the U.S. has suffered from fraud and abuse, as Trump has said. A draft executive order reportedly under consideration seeks to scale back H-1B visas and other programs for foreign workers. Too many of the visas go to software services companies that underpay their foreign workers. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

asylum: Drew Angerer / GETTY IMAGES By The Canadian Press Thu., Feb. 23, 2017 OTTAWA The United Nations refugee agency is keeping a careful eye on the situation at informal crossings along the Canada-U.S. border where dozens of people have been arriving in recent weeks in search of asylum, according to Toronto Star. But it's the perception of what's happening rather than the reality that troubles Jean-Nicolas Beuze, the agency's representative in Ottawa, who spent a day this week observing people making their way through one such crossing in Quebec. In the past month, hundreds of people have crossed Quebec land border crossings in attempts to seek asylum and claim refugee status in Canada. The border crossings are orderly and officials are following all the appropriate laws, said Beuze, who described seeing compassion demonstrated by police and border guards some of whom even gave asylum seekers additional clothing. The Canadian population may have some perception of what's happening in Canada which may not be matching the reality, Beuze said. Read more Canada-U.S. border the final frontier for those seeking refuge Article Continued Below RCMP say 21 refugees arrested for crossing border in ManitobaENDManitoba premier urges Ottawa to act as province shifts resources to U.S. border There's not really any concern on this side for the Canadian authorities to be able to provide the protection which is necessary to those people, Beuze said Thursday in an interview with The Canadian Press. react-empty 156 Nonetheless, there's a risk that a false public narrative could form around whether Canada has the capacity to deal with an influx of new refugees, he warned. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

canada: RICK EGLINTON / TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO By Nicholas Keung Immigration reporter Thu., Feb. 23, 2017 Canada has placed more than 200 Canadian children in immigration detention with their non-status parents since 2011, alongside hundreds of formally detained non-Canadian children, says University of Toronto study, according to Toronto Star. Based on data obtained from the Canada Border Services Agency, the U of T International Human Rights Program found at least 241 Canadian-born children an average of 48 a year were held in the immigration holding centre in Toronto between 2011 and 2015. Their story was documented by the Star at the time. The data do not cover detention facilities in other parts of Canada. Two-thirds of the detained children were housed there for longer than a week and about 31 per cent were held for longer than a month. On average, they spent 36 days at the detention centre with their incarcerated parents, with one boy spending 803 days over two years in the detention facility. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

canadian centre: Fleeing the U.S. in the back of a truck, refugees find help in Toronto Dr, according to CBC. Paul Caulford said the number matches what he's seeing in person, as desperate newcomers arrive in the city, sometimes hidden in the back of transport trucks, sometimes shielding young children from frostbite. In January, some 810 people seeking refugee status, including men, women and children, used a city shelter, according to statistics from Toronto's Shelter Support and Housing Administration SSHA . That's an 80 per cent increase from January 2016. It's been unprecedented to see this, said Caulford, who works with the Canadian Centre for Refugee and Immigrant Healthcare in east Toronto. There are reports from front-line staff that they are seeing some people of West African origin who are coming to Canada having first intended to seek refugee status in the U.S., she wrote. Many asylum seekers have told Caulford they were planning to head to the U.S. but opted to restart their lives in Canada instead, owing to concern raised by the Trump administration in the U.S. Patricia Anderson, an SSHA manager, confirmed in an email to CBC Toronto that her staff is hearing the same thing. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.

cindy lamoureux: Lamoureux said she spent the night in a sleeping bag on the marble floor outside Wishart's office, awaiting written answers to a series of requests she posed, according to Metro News. The requests include knowing how many applications for the nominee program are currently under review and when their decisions are expected; and getting status updates on files already in the system, with the applicant's consent. Cindy Lamoureux, the MLA for Burrows and the provincial Liberal Party's immigration critic, staged a sit-in outside Minister for Education and Training Ian Wishart's office starting Wednesday at 8 30 a.m. Lamoureux said she has spoken with nearly 100 Manitobans who are concerned about the nominee program, many of whom have waited two to three years for decisions to be made in their cases. I've asked questions in question period. This is the only option they've given me. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.