Immigration

Canadian Press NEWS: Special immigration measures will help Canada resettle thousands of Afghans who worked with military, embassy

Recently released figures show the rejection rate for permanent residency applications on humanitarian and compassionate grounds has risen sharply over the past couple of years.
"These decisions were done quietly behind closed doors and there is little public accountability in this opaque and discretionary process," said NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan.
Canada allows some people who would not usually meet the criteria for permanent residency to apply on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, which are considered on a case-by-case basis according to factors such as how settled someone is here or the best interests of children.
According to data the Immigration Department provided in response to an order paper question from Kwan this spring, the rate of applications refused after processing ranged from 35 to 41 per cent between 2016 and 2019. Those figures do not include applications that were withdrawn.

IN THE NEWS: Montreal Gazette - Rejections for permanent residency requests in Canada doubled since 2019

The data comes from an access to information request filed by the New Democratic Party.
“The Liberal government must explain why there is such a surge in denials of humanitarian requests and take immediate action to rectify this,” said NDP MP Jenny Kwan in a statement. She is accusing the Liberals of having “discreetly made decisions behind closed doors” concerning an already “opaque and arbitrary” immigration process.
“We don’t understand what’s going on,” Hussan said. “There has been no policy change, no announcement.”  Hussan added that by doubling rejections, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is doubling the exploitation of migrant workers without status. The change of direction “condemns the migrants already here” by “depriving them of the possibility of having rights,” he said.

IN THE NEWS: CBC - Citizenship study guide remains outdated in its ‘simplistic’ account of Indigenous history, critics say

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan says the time it took for the bill to pass is an example of how slowly the Trudeau government is moving when it comes to reconciliation.

"It is slow as molasses and, frankly, it's inexcusable. This call to action is what is deemed to be a really low-hanging fruit," Kwan said. She also criticized the time the Trudeau government has taken to compile the new Discover Canada guide. 
"The new citizenship guidebook has been in the works for more than five years now," she said. 
She added that she has asked the office of the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship about the timeline of an update but has yet to receive an answer. 

IN THE NEWS: CBC - For many young Hong Kong graduates, Canada’s new routes to immigration have turned into a dead end

The crackdown has seen dozens of former lawmakers and pro-democracy activists arrested.
NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan is part of the parliamentary committee that published a report this month on pathways to Canadian permanent residency for Hong Kong residents. She argues that the Liberal government should eliminate all education and work experience limitations on people who wish to come to Canada before Hong Kong's exit ban takes effect. 
"If the government doesn't take further action to support the people of Hong Kong, I fear that it would be too late," she said.  "Unfortunately, the humanitarian component is not part of the package — the government is only thinking about what economic benefit can we get from the people of Hong Kong."

IN THE NEWS: CBC - Ottawa mom fed up with immigration delay to children stuck in Gaza

Qunoo has received support from MP Jenny Kwan, the NDP critic for IRCC, who has sent a letter to the minister urging Qunoo's temporary resident permit application be granted immediately.

"It is simply unacceptable that there is no process in place to allow a parent to not be separated from children while going through the asylum process," wrote Kwan.

Kwan is also advocating for a six-month limit on applications that involve children, instead of the current delay she now estimates at 39 months for permanent resident status applications of family members of refugee applicants.

IN THE NEWS: Globe & Mail - Immigration Minister open to raise permanent residency caps

However, migrant groups have criticized the program, saying program exclusions and requirements shut out many refugees, undocumented people and thousands of migrants, with caps in application streams meaning few will be able to get their applications in before spots are filled.
In a statement, NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said Wednesday that the rollout of the new pathways to permanent residency for the 90,000 applicants has been problematic, adding it excludes many essential workers and does not recognize those who have lost status.
Also Wednesday, Mr. Mendicino called for moving toward a paperless immigration system that would offer prospective new Canadians more opportunities to file claims online and even be sworn in virtually.

Ms. Kwan said that while digitizing the immigration application process is “long overdue,” the Liberals have been using this as an excuse to avoid talking about current delays.  “The process to move to a new system could take years and the government has failed to present a plan or provide resources to address current backlogs in a reasonable timeline,” she said.

HANSARD: Why Canada let our visa application centre in China operated and run by the CCP?

Madam Speaker, it has been brought to light that Canada's visa application centre in China has been subcontracted to a Chinese state-owned company run and operated by the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau. The company that was awarded the contract, VFS Global, has confirmed at the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration that the Canadian government knew right from the beginning that services were being subcontracted and that it was informed of the ownership structure of the company.

Parliament Video: Jenny introduces Bill C-291 to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act

On April 29, 2021, MP Jenny Kwan tabled a Private Member's Bill, C-291: An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act:

OPEN LETTER to Immigration Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister - Follow-up on immigration measures for Sikh and Hindu communities in Afghanistan

As noted by the WSO, on March 25, 2020, ISIS-K terrorists attacked Gurdwara Sri Guru Har Rai Sahib in Kabul and murdered 25 Sikhs, including four-year-old Tania Kaur. At the funeral for the victims of this attack, a second attack was initiated involving the detonation of an explosive device. Earlier, in July 2018, the senior leadership of the Sikh and Afghan communities was assassinated in a suicide bombing that took 19 lives in Jalalabad. In June 2020, an Afghan Sikh, Nidan Singh Sachdeva, was abducted from a gurdwara and tortured for weeks. That was followed on July 17 by the abduction of 13-year-old Salmeet Kaur who was kidnapped from a Kabul gurdwara where she was living with her blind mother and younger brother. Salmeet’s father was killed in the March attack. ISIS-K has sworn to exterminate all Afghan Sikhs and Hindus if they do not leave Afghanistan.

Afghanistan’s Sikh and Hindu communities face a threat to their very existence. The minority communities which once numbered over 200,000 have now dwindled to less than 800, due to decades of persecution. Only those families remain that do not have the means to relocate elsewhere. The majority of the community is forced to reside in gurdwaras and face discrimination in accessing education, employment and housing. As ISIS-K continues to attack civilians and international troops continue to withdraw from Afghanistan, Sikhs and Hindus are likely to face more violence.

OPEN LETTER to Immigration Minister on long processing delay

I am writing to you to echo the concerns I’ve been hearing from families who are experiencing long delays for spousal sponsorship applications and urge for your government to adjust the program to allow conditions for spouses to obtain temporary resident visas as part of the spousal sponsorship application process.
Immigration is an exercise in nation building, and I have always seen family reunification as a pivotal component of Canada’s immigration system. During the last 5 years as the NDP Critic for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, I have heard far too many heart wrenching stories of how families are kept apart due to long delays in processing. Indeed, the issue of long delays in processing for permanent residence applications is a longstanding one and I share the concerns experienced by families who remain separated while they wait on the spousal sponsorship application process, which has worsened under COVID-19.