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Finding Commonalities Amidst Increasing Differences in Canadian and U.S. Immigration Policies

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Canada–US Relations

Part of the book series: Canada and International Affairs ((CIAF))

Abstract

Although Canada and the United States share a many-centuries long tradition of receiving the world’s migrants, since the 1960s they have, in fact, moved along differing immigration policy paths. These differences have existed for a long time, but have become more obvious and pronounced since 2017, under the Trump administration. This paper compares immigration policy in the two countries, and finds the similarities to be few and the differences more numerous and substantive. As the United States moves towards clamping down on undocumented migration and, for the first time in decades, reducing legal immigration, Canada is accepting increasing numbers of refugees and raising annual immigrant admissions by over fifty percent. Finding common ground is likely to be more difficult than in the past. One commonality that exists, and is unlikely to diminish, is an increased concern about uncontrolled border crossings on each country’s southern border. Like it or not, Canadian policymakers will find themselves dealing with a number of repercussions as the result of the United States becoming less welcoming to foreigners.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Trudeau government has made a commitment to increase the number of immigrants arriving in Canada so as to deal with an aging population. Annual averages for the past 5 years have been 250,000 and the goal is 310,000 in 2018 and 340,000 by 2020. This is in effect an increase of almost 40% (Scotti 2017).

  2. 2.

    One exception was the first major law restricting immigration into the United States—the racially driven Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which prohibited all immigration of Chinese laborers,  even though, at the time, the Chinese comprised only 0.002% of the American population (Epps 2018).

  3. 3.

    When measuring foreign born as a share of the total population, Canada is not the most open country in the world. For example, among OECD countries, it ranks sixth after Luxembourg, Australia, Switzerland—all with immigrants above 28 of the population, and Israel and New Zealand—with immigrants above Canada’s 22%. The United States, on the other hand ranks fourteenth (OECD 2018).

  4. 4.

    Presently, the Canadian points system requires that an immigrant earn at least 67 of a potential 100 points. These points can be acquired according to the following six categories (with maximum points for each and specifics noted): Education (25 points with an assessment of institution attended), Language (28 points with a test), Experience (15 points), Age (12 points with preference to those who are 18–35), Arranged Employment (10 points with a labor market impact assessment included) and Adaptability (10 points–including more points if previous employment or schooling in Canada). For several decades, Canada was the only country implementing a points system. Eventually, other countries would follow Canada’s lead, with Australia doing so in 1989, New Zealand in 1991, and a number of EU countries after 2001. Even the United States included the adoption of a points system in a major immigration reform proposal in 2013, which however was never passed by Congress (United States Senate 2013).

  5. 5.

    Today, economic class immigrants can obtain entry to Canada through three specific programs: the Federal Skilled Workers category, where the points system is applied, the Federal Skilled Trades Program—if they have particular trade skills required by Canada or a particular province, or through the Canadian Experience Class—if they have prior work experience in Canada.

  6. 6.

    In the period 2014–2016, economic class immigrants accounted for 14% of admissions in the United States, while in Canada this number was 64%. Family class accounted for 65% in the United States and 24% in Canada. Refugees were 14% in the United States and 12% in Canada. Finally 7% of U.S. admissions were under the Diversity Lottery Program, a unique program that has no preference based on family or economic criteria (U.S. Department of Homeland Security 2017: Table 6; Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2016).

  7. 7.

    Reasons for this include a deterioration in U.S. job prospects following the 2008 economic crisis, tighter U.S. border enforcement, less working age Mexicans due to an earlier decline in Mexican birth rates, as well as improvements in the Mexican economy.

  8. 8.

    For the past decade, researchers, including this author, have adhered to the principle that while the act of entering a country without authorization is illegal, the person doing this is not. Therefore, one has typically seen the usage of ‘undocumented’ or ‘unauthorized’ in addition to ‘illegal’. In July 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice, under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, ordered its officials to use the term ‘illegal alien’. In this paper, our preference is to use the term ‘undocumented’ rather than ‘illegal’.

  9. 9.

    While it is difficult to separate illegal and irregular immigration for cross-country comparisons, due to different data gathering methods, the undocumented population is estimated to be significantly less than 1% of the total population in Canada and most other EU countries, except for Greece where it is has been estimated to have increased recently to 3% (ProCon.org 2013).

  10. 10.

    In particular, we refer to the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) and the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) both passed in 1996, as well as the 2006 Secure Fence Act, which was not the first physical barrier, since the United States had begun constructing such barriers at the San Diego border in the early 1990s. President Obama increased targeted removals as a message of good faith in negotiation with Republicans so as to give legal status to young adults who had been brought to the United States as children. When it was clear that the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM Act) was not going to be passed, he cut back on deportations.

  11. 11.

    U.S. government statistics from the Department of Homeland Security have clearly indicated for a number of years that roughly half of the unlawfully present population in the United States is made up of visa over-stayers (Arthur 2017).

  12. 12.

    In 2017, 47,425 total claims were processed. Total claimants for January to July 2018 alone were 30, 405 (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2018a). While asylum claims have been as high as 44,540 in 2001, they have averaged 23,000 in 2010–2013 and 15,000 in 2013–2015 before increasing to 23,894 in 2016. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/refugees/canada-role/timeline/asylum-infographic.html.

  13. 13.

    The United States introduced birthright citizenship in 1868 with the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, primarily to grant citizenship to former slaves who had been freed after the Civil War. Canada included it in the first Canadian Citizenship Act in 1947.

  14. 14.

    For example, one may be entitled to Irish citizenship based on parents, grandparents or even great-grandparents. See http://www.inis.gov.ie/en/INIS/Pages/citizenship-by-birth-descent. In the case of the United States, a parent is obliged to have had a U.S. residency before birth. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-legal-considerations/us-citizenship/Acquisition-US-Citizenship-Child-Born-Abroad.html.

  15. 15.

    Specifically, the immigrant share of total population in Toronto is 46%, Vancouver 43% and Montreal 23%. For U.S. cities, this share for Miami is 36%, Los Angeles 35% and for New York 28%. See https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/171025/t001b-eng.htm and (Florida 2015) https://www.citylab.com/equity/2015/09/americas-leading-immigrant-cities/406438 respectively.

    It is also noted that in order to diversity the regional distribution of immigrants, Canadian immigration policy has attempted to decentralize immigrant selection, by giving priority to immigrants who are willing to settle in specific provinces that might not have as many immigrants, Today, almost 25% of economic class immigrants in Canada are arriving through this program, the Provincial Nomination Program (Canadian Citizenship and Immigration Resource Center 2018). The United States has no such decentralized policies in place.

  16. 16.

    The highest share of the Latino vote that has gone to a Republican candidate in U.S. Presidential elections was 40% to George W. Bush in 2004. http://latinovotematters.org/stats/ Asians, who make up a lesser proportion of total immigrants, have tended historically to vote Republican, but recent patterns suggest this is changing. Asian voters also have lower than average voter participation (Ramakrishnan 2016).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC, USA

    Tamara M. Woroby

  2. Towson University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Tamara M. Woroby

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  1. Tamara M. Woroby
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Correspondence to Tamara M. Woroby .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. NPSIA, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    David Carment

  2. Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC, USA

    Christopher Sands

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Woroby, T.M. (2019). Finding Commonalities Amidst Increasing Differences in Canadian and U.S. Immigration Policies. In: Carment, D., Sands, C. (eds) Canada–US Relations. Canada and International Affairs. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05036-8_7

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