Samantha Power, Vue Weekly, Apr. 20 2011
While the Conservative party campaign boasts of the highest rates of immigration in 50 years, the facts aren’t quite supporting the claim, though that hasn’t stopped the Conservatives from launching an aggressive campaign attempting to secure the votes of Canada’s diverse ethnic communities.
New America Media, Photo Essay, David Bacon, Posted: Apr 18, 2011
TIERRA DEL SOL, Calif.—The tiny towns that line the U.S.-Mexico border in east San Diego County—Campo, Boulevard and Tierra del Sol—mark the road north for hundreds of migrants as they cross the border, and travel on. Hardly any of those migrants stay – only those who die in the crossing. But for the people who live here, some with roots going back generations, these tiny communities are home to growing hunger and poverty. The border fence features prominently in the landscape of Tierra del Sol, snaking through the desert, two miles south of Campo. A sprawling Border Patrol station – spanning several acres – sits just outside town. Every month, hundreds of migrants risk crossing the border by trekking though the mountains here, and many die during the attempt. The graveyard in Holtville, a few hours away, is filled with hundreds of graves, marking those found dead in these hot, dry hills.
By Frank Appleyard, Postmedia News March 29, 2011
The number of people arriving on Canada’s shores in search of protection has fallen to its lowest level since 2006 -a trend one expert is blaming partly on political intervention. A United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees report released Monday indicated that the number of applications for asylum in Canada fell 30 per cent in 2010, part of an overall decline in asylum claims in developed countries. The UN study of 44 Western countries noted a five per cent drop in asylum claims filed last year, extending a 42 per cent slide in applications since 2001.
By Kim Pemberton, Vancouver Sun March 25, 2011
Ninety per cent of the more than 1,000 asylum seekers arriving each year in Metro Vancouver are on their own when it comes to finding a place to live, and many of those end up in housing that is too expensive for their incomes and below national standards for occupancy, experts say. “One of the problems is their temporary status. Their social insurance number begins with a nine and all employers know that means they are temporary so while they can be legally entitled to work they often can’t get a job. If you can’t get a job you can’t get decent housing,†said University of B.C. research assistant Jenny Francis, who authored a paper entitled Precarious Housing and Hidden Homelessness Among Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and new Immigrants in Metro Vancouver. Her paper will be presented at the four-day National Metropolis Conference, which starts today at the Sheraton Wall Centre and focuses this year on immigration.
Mon Mar 21 2011. Nicholas Keung Toronto Star Immigration Reporter
A “colour code†is keeping visible minorities out of good jobs in the Canadian labour market, a new study says. Based on 2006 long-form Census data, researchers found visible minority Canadian workers earned 81.4 cents for every dollar paid to their Caucasian counterparts. That’s according to a report by two major think tanks, the Wellesley Institute and Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Researchers compared earnings of first-generation immigrants of visible minority and Caucasian backgrounds and found that earnings by male newcomers from visible minorities were just 68.7 per cent of those who were white males.
