Immigration Laws: January, 2002 - Number #6

In November 2001, Canada approved the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Protection Act of 2001, which makes it easier to detain and deport illegal immigrants. As the new law was being implemented (full implementation will occur in June 2002), critics complained that it would make it harder for foreigners without a BA to enter Canada as immigrants. About 60 percent of Canada's immigrants enter under the point system, and they will have to obtain at least 80 of 100 points, up from the current 70.

There are more than 500,000 immigration applications in the backlog, and 60 percent are for economic-employment visas which will be processed under the point system with the higher cut off.

There are an estimated 20,000 to 200,000 unauthorized foreigners in Canada. Many find jobs under legitimate tax (social insurance numbers or S.I.N.) numbers that belong to someone else.

Security. In December 2001, Canada and the US signed an agreement to tighten asylum procedures. Under the new procedures, foreigners will have to seek asylum in the first country they reach, thus ending the current pattern, in which 60 percent of asylum seekers in Canada arrive from the US. If a refugee claim is denied in the US, Canada will also deny asylum.

Canada also promised to make it easier to detain asylum seekers and deport them if their applications are denied, and to require legal immigrants to carry photo identity cards.

Canada has often been accused of being soft on terrorists. A court ruling in early January is expected to signal whether the government will deport suspected foreign terrorists to their homelands. The case involves Manichavasagam Suresth, a Toronto-based fundraiser for the Tamil Tigers. He was arrested in 1995 for purchasing supplies with a military application and ordered deported. An appeals court judge later ruled that those who raise funds for terrorism bear as much guilt as those who plant bombs.

Canada's federal budget proposal includes C$7.7 billion ($4.4 billion) in security spending designed to keep terrorists out of Canada, thus permitting the Canada-US border to remain open to trade. This increased security spending marks the first steps in the creation of a North American security area. The 4,000-mile US-Canada border has 100 crossing points. Since September 11, all are manned 24 hours a day. Two-way trade across the border totals US$1.3 billion a day, with 30 percent of that related to the auto industry.

The Canadian government announced that it will require visas from citizens of Dominica, Grenada, Kiribati, Nauru, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu, as well as Hungary and Zimbabwe. These countries issue passports in exchange for investments, which makes them attractive to those laundering money and to those using false passports. There has been a 600 percent increase in non-Zimbabweans arriving at the Canadian border carrying Zimbabwean passports.

Labor. The federal budget also included C$24 million to enable the Department of Human Resources to work with specific industry sectors to facilitate the entry of temporary foreign workers.

Federal employer sanctions were included in Canada's Immigration Act (1976/77) in Part IV, Section 96 (1): "Every person who knowingly engages in any employment of any person, other than a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, who is not authorized under this Act to engage in that employment is guilty of an offence and liable: (a) on conviction on indictment, to a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to both; or (b) on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to both."

Knowingly engages is defined in paragraph 2: "For the purposes of subsection (1), a person knowingly engages in any employment a person who is not authorized to engage in that employment where, by the exercise of reasonable diligence, he would have known that the person was not so authorized."

The key identification number in Canada is the Social Insurance Number, which can be issued to allow the employment of foreigners: (3) The Minister may by order direct the Canada Employment Insurance Commission continued by the Department of Human Resources Development Act to issue to persons, other than Canadian citizens or permanent residents, Social Insurance Number Cards whereby the holders of such cards are identified as persons who may be required by or under this Act to obtain authorization to engage or continue in employment in Canada."

Employer sanctions laws are enforced by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.