Canadian court allows Chinese miners with temporary work visas to stay

The Federal Court of Canada has ruled that a company that employed 200 Chinese miners under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) in 2012 was acting lawfully.


Two Canadian unions had challenged the decision by the Canadian government to allow HD Mining, a 55% Chinese-owned company, to employ Chinese workers in its operations in British Columbia when there were unemployed Canadian miners who could have done the job.


The unions argued that the Canadian government should never have granted temporary work permits to the company under the TFWP because there were plenty of Canadian workers who were both qualified and available. 300 Canadian miners applied to work at the mine.

Unions alleged Chinese workers were underpaid

The unions; The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 115 and the Construction and Specialized Workers Union, also alleged that HD Mining was paying its Chinese workers $10 less per hour than the going rate for a miner in Canada and failing to pay them any of the benefits that a Canadian miner would receive. They also alleged that HD Mining had insisted that miners should be able to speak Chinese in order to work at the Murray River Coal Mine near Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia.


The Unions went to court to challenge the decision of a federal government official to grant temporary work permits to the company arguing that to do so when there were Canadians who were available to do the job was against the rules of the TFWP. The unions had asked the court to declare the work permits issued to the Chinese miners invalid and to quash the Canadian government decision to grant them in the first place.


At the time that the unions lodged their legal challenge in November 2012, Diane Finley, the Canadian Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development announced a review of the TFWP. She said that she and her department were 'not satisfied that sufficient efforts were made to recruit or train Canadians interested in these jobs'.

Canadian workers were not properly qualified

But Justice Russel Zin found that the official had acted reasonably in granting the company the right to employ the Chinese workers. He found that the company had made reasonable efforts to find Canadian workers to work at the mine, as the law requires, but had found that there was a labour shortage in the mining industry He said that the 300 Canadian miners who applied for the 200 available positions were not properly qualified for the job because they were not familiar with the mining method used at the Murray River mine.


The judge reasoned that the Canadian official involved therefore acted reasonably in providing a 'positive labour market opinion' to HD Mining. A Labour Market Opinion is an assessment of the impact that granting a temporary work permit for a certain job will have on the Canadian job market. If it is positive or neutral, then the Canadian government can allow the employer to employ a temporary foreign worker.


HD Mining intends to extract coal using a mining method known as 'long wall mining' which involves cutting the coal into large brick-shaped blocks and then removing these by conveyor belt. HD argued that there are no other mines in Canada that use this mining method. Consequently, they argued, there are no skilled long wall miners available. The judge accepted this argument.

'This is a complete vindication' – HD Mining

After the ruling, HD Mining issued a statement saying 'This is a complete vindication of our company but it has come at a great cost and has raised significant questions in the international investment community'.


Ms Finney issued a statement saying that her department respected the court's decision. However, since the HD Mining case, another high profile case involving the Royal Bank of Canada led the government to announce immediate reforms to the TFWP. The statement read 'Our government is taking decisive action for Canadian workers by reforming the TFWP and making sure that Canadian workers are always put first'.


Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in Canada. Please visit our Canadian page for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/canada.html

Advisor to Australian immigration minister says 457 visa abuse is 'limited'

Michael Easson, an immigration advisor to the Australian government has said that claims by government ministers that there is widespread abuse of the Temporary Work (Skilled) Visa (Subclass 457), better known as the '457 visa' are false.


Mr Easson, the chairman of the ministerial advisory council on skilled migration, told journalists that there had been 'unhealthy rhetoric' on the subject. This appears to be a reference to the immigration minister Brendan O'Connor who announced in February that the government would crack down on abuse of the system or 'rorting'.


Mr O'Connor has said that about 10% of 457 visas are 'rorted'. There are currently some 105,000 people in Australia with 457 visas so this would mean that over 10,000 457 visas were obtained by 'rorting'.

457 temporary work visa lasts for up to four years

The 457 visa is a temporary work visa that allows Australian employers to employ workers skilled in occupations which are on the Australian government's Consolidated Shortage Occupation List (CSOL). An Australian employer has to apply to sponsor an overseas worker then nominate the particular worker for a visa. Foreign workers with 457 visas can stay in Australia for up to four years and enter and leave the country as often as they wish.


Australian unions have complained for some time that employers have used the 457 visa to employ foreign workers on low wages to undercut native Australian workers. They claim that workers have been given 457 visas to work in a skilled occupation, such as office administrator, but are then employed in unskilled positions, for example as security guards.


This year, the Australian Labor Party government has made similar claims. The Australian opposition says that the Labor government is motivated by electoral politics rather than a desire to reform the 457 visa system and is trying to win union votes in the Australian general election which will be held in September.


The Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard gave a speech in March in which she said that she wanted to 'put Aussie workers first' and backed Mr O'Connor's plan to legislate to cut abuse of the 457 visa system.

Only 2% of 457 visa holders paid less than $51,400 per annum

However, a report by the Migration Council of Australia (MCA, a pro-immigration think-tank and pressure group), says that only about 2% of 457 visa holders are paid less than the AUS$51,400 minimum annual salary for 457 visa holders.


The Australian government has countered that 25% of 457 visa holders refused to tell the MCA what their salary was. A further 7% said that their working conditions were worse than Australian colleagues and 5% complained that their employers were not abiding by the 457 visa rules.


Mr Easson said that the MCA report showed that there were some problems with the system but said that was only to be expected. He told The Australian newspaper 'The current debate on the program is healthy because it calls attention to what has been one of the most remarkable changes in immigration policy and practice since the war. But what has been unhealthy has been some of the rhetoric and suggestions the program is out of control. It isn't.'


He said 'at most there's a 3 to 4% highlighting of problems of various kinds, all within the margin of what could be expected with a major program. We need to keep nailing down the loose planks, not nailing down the floorboards.'


Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in Australia. Please visit our Australian page for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/australia.html

UK's chief independent immigration inspector to stay in post until 2015

John Vine, the UK's Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, has agreed to renew his contract. Mr Vine was first appointed in 2008 and has been credited by MPs with exposing many failings of the UK's former immigration authority, the UK Border Agency (UKBA) which was abolished in March 2013.


Mr Vine placed an announcement on the chief inspector of immigration's website saying that he had accepted an offer from the Home Secretary to renew his contract. He will remain in post until July 2015.


Mr Vine was a top police officer before taking over as chief inspector of immigration. He began his career with West Yorkshire Police in 1981 and served as chief constable of the Tayside Police in Scotland for eight years between 2000 and 2008.

Inspector responsible for finding 'The Migration Refusals Pool'

In July 2012, Mr Vine and his inspectors exposed the existence of a hidden cache of 180,000 cases known as the migration refusals pool. These were cases where the applicant had applied for the right to remain in the UK but had been refused. Thereafter, the UKBA had made no effort to remove the applicants from the country.


In November 2012, Mr Vine issued an extremely critical report about the UKBA which said that it had failed to deal with a backlog of 450,000 cases which it inherited when it was founded in 2008. Mr Vine said that the UKBA was a chaotic organisation which failed to deal systematically with applications but instead moved cases from one archive to another without dealing with them.


He revealed that UKBA staff had left 150 boxes of mail containing over 100,000 letters unopened in a storage room at its Liverpool office for months. The letters contained vital court papers and passports.

UKBA failed to meet visa processing targets

Another report by Mr Vine revealed that the UKBA was failing to meet its service standard targets for processing UK visas such as those for Tier 1 (High Value Migrant) visas, Tier 2 (Highly Skilled Migrant) visas and Tier 4 student visas.


He exposed failings in every part of the UKBA's operations and it must be partly because of his work that, on March 25th 2013, Theresa May announced that the UKBA was to be abolished because it was 'not good enough'.


Mr Vine's investigations also led MPs on the Home Affairs Committee, which oversaw the work of the UKBA, to call its former chief executive Lyn Homer to come before the committee in December 2012 to explain why she had 'misled' the MPs for years about the progress that the UKBA had been making in dealing with the immigration backlog.


Ms Homer, who was promoted to run the UK's tax collection authority Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC), in 2011, claimed that Mr Vine had probably come to his conclusions because he had failed to understand the complex nature of the UKBA's work. She claimed that he was mistaken in some of his findings.

Incredible that person responsible for running UKBA should have been promoted

At a later committee session, Mr Vine said that he stood by his evidence. The Committee clearly preferred the chief inspector's evidence to that of the former chief executive because Keith Vaz MP (Labour), the chairman of the committee, stated that it was incredible that Ms Homer should have been promoted to run HMRC having made such a mess of running the UKBA.


In 2012, Mr Vaz suggested to Mr Vine that he should apply for the then vacant post of chief secretary to the Home Office. This post was later taken on by former UK ambassador to Afghanistan Mark Sedwill but Mr Vaz will no doubt be pleased that Mr Vine has chosen to extend his contract.


Mr Vine issued a statement saying 'I am pleased that I will be continuing as Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration until July 2015. Since 2009 the Inspectorate has carried out over 40 inspections and made over 450 recommendations to the Home Office regarding the UK's border and immigration functions. ... We will continue to shine a light in the areas of borders and immigration that are not otherwise visible.'


Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in United Kingdom. Please visit our UK page for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/uk.html

UK's doctors and dentists criticise government's immigration reform plans

The British Dental Association has joined the Royal College of GPs in expressing concern about the UK government's proposed immigration reforms.


On May 8th 2013, the UK's Coalition government announced its intention to pass a law that would limit the access of recently arrived migrants to use the UK's free medical care system the National Health Service (NHS). The government stated that its proposed law would require doctors and dentists to check that patients are eligible for free health care before treating them. The law would also require visitors to the UK to pay a contribution towards any NHS treatment.


In fact, some foreign nationals are already legally required to pay for their NHS treatment though the following people are already entitled to free NHS care

• Those who are 'ordinarily resident' in the UK
• most people who have resided legally in the UK for over 12 months
• People who have come to the UK to work
• People who are normally resident in the UK but have moved abroad for work reasons for less than five years

NHS is failing to make non-residents pay for treatment

However, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt says that hospitals routinely fail to make patients who are legally obliged to pay for their treatment do so. He told the BBC's World at One programme that if hospitals ' treat someone who is not entitled to NHS care – if they declare that person is a foreigner who is not entitled to that care then they have the responsibility to collect the money from that person. Whereas if they declare that person as a UK national then the money is paid for by the NHS'.


The details of what changes the government will introduce and how they would work have not been revealed but the Royal College of General Practitioners, the professional organisation for doctors working in 'general practice' immediately issued a statement saying that the proposals would turn them into 'de facto border guards'. The College's chairman Dr Clare Gerarda told UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph 'GPs must not be a new border agency in policing access to the NHS'.


More recently, Dr Judith Husband of the British Dental Association has said that 'any decisions must be underpinned by the principle that clinicians' obligations to treat patients requiring urgent care or who are not able to pay for it are not undermined.

Doctors need guidelines on how to act

Dr Husband has also said that, if the government does intend to introduce this change, it must issue medical practitioners with guidelines to allow them to carry out their duties correctly. She said 'It is important that clinicians are provided with clear guidance about what is required so that any policy changes can be understood, implemented and communicated clearly and that they are fully supported in introducing and enforcing any change.


UK government sources have said that the new law will not be in place until mid 2014 at the earliest. However, it is possible that the changes will not be introduced at all. The Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt was unable to tell journalists how the proposed system of checks would work when asked. He has said that the government will announce the details 'when the time is right'.


Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in United Kingdom. Please visit our UK page for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/uk.html

US immigration bill is approved by Senate Judiciary Committee

Comprehensive immigration reform came a step closer for the US on Tuesday when the US Senate's powerful Judiciary Committee voted 13-5 in favour of a bill that would radically alter almost every aspect of the US's immigration system.


The Judiciary Committee voted 13-5 in favour of the bill which will now be voted on by the whole Senate. Both Republicans and Democrats voted in favour of the bill after Democrat Senator Patrick Leahy withdrew his proposed amendment that would have allowed same-sex partners the same rights under the law as husbands and wives. Senator Leahy withdrew his amendment to prevent right-wing and religious Republicans from voting against the bill, which some would have done if his amendment had been included in it.

Bill will require support from both houses of Congress

In order to become law the bill will have to be passed by the Senate, which is the upper house of the US Congress and also by the House of Representatives, the lower house. To be passed by the Senate, it will require support from at least 60 of the 100 Senators who comprise the Senate. There are currently 53 Democrats and 45 Republicans as well as two independents in the Senate which means that the bill will require some support from Republicans in order to become law.


If it does pass, the law will have far-reaching effects. The most controversial measure is the establishment of a 'pathway to citizenship' for many of the estimated 11m illegal immigrants currently living in the US but the bill goes much further than that, seeking to reform the entire system which politicians in both major US parties accept is 'broken'.


Other measures include

• A further $4.5bn to be spent on border security along the Mexican border
• A significant increase in the number of work-related permanent resident visas available to skilled migrants. Permanent resident visas are also known as 'green cards'
• An increase in the number of H-1B (temporary work) visas from 65,000 to 110,000 immediately with a possibility that this figure could rise to 180,000 annually. H-1B visas last for three years and allow university level graduates to work in a 'specialty occupation'
• The creation of a new 'w-visa' for low-skilled workers to enter the US legally

Obama welcomes progress

President Obama welcomed the vote in favour of reform. The President made immigration reform one of the main priorities for his second term in office. The bill which is currently before Congress; The Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act 2013, was drafted by a group of eight Senators known as 'The Gang of Eight'.


The Gang of Eight comprised four Republicans and four Democrats. It was hoped that the bipartisan authorship of the bill might encourage bipartisan support for the bill in Congress but many Republicans have spoken out against the proposed law. The main criticism of the Act from Republicans is that it does not provide adequate border security. Republican congressmen have proposed amendments that increase border security measures.

Bill is 'still largely consistent with principles of common sense' – Obama

President Obama said on Tuesday 21st May that the proposed law was still 'largely consistent with the principles of common sense reform I have proposed and meets the challenge of fixing our broken immigration system'.


Now that Senator Leahy has dropped his proposed amendment on rights for same-sex partners, the bill is expected to pass through the Senate when the vote is held. Campaigners for lesbian and gay rights were said to be 'extremely disappointed' at the omission.


If the bill is passed with the necessary majority in the Senate, it will then move to the House of Representatives where it is expected to have a much more difficult passage. In the House, there are 232 Republicans and 206 Democrats. The bill will require 60% support to become law and so will require considerable Republican support.

Many Republicans ideologically opposed to the Act

This is by no means assured. Many Republicans are ideologically opposed to the Act because it offers a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Some Republicans have claimed that this would be wrong because it would be rewarding criminal behaviour (entering the US illegally or staying in the US when their visas expire).


Some Republicans also say that it would be poor politics for the Republicans to support this law because Hispanic voters, and it is estimated that around 80% of illegal immigrants in the US are of Hispanic ethnicity, tend to vote for the Democrats.


Nonetheless, this is a necessary step if the bill is ever to become law. Both parties say they support reform. Time will tell if they mean it.


Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in United States. Please visit our USA page for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/usa.html

UK announces fall in net immigration figure

The latest figures show that there has been a significant drop in the net level of immigration into the UK. The net immigration figure is reached by calculating the number of immigrants over a given period and then subtracting the number of people leaving the country permanently. In the year to September 2012, 500,000 people immigrated and 347,000 left so the net immigration figure was 153,000. This is 89,000 lower than the 242,000 figure for the year to September 2011; 242,000.


At the UK's last general election in 2010, The UK's current Prime Minister David Cameron promised that he would cut immigration if he was elected. Mr Cameron did become the Prime Minister at the head of a Coalition government. The Coalition said it would reduce the UK's net immigration figure from its then level, about 260,000 per year, to 'tens of thousands' annually. This was taken to mean 'fewer than 100,000'. These latest figures show that the government has made some progress towards that goal. The net immigration figure is the lowest since 2003.


But educationalists expressed concern that a more detailed analysis of the figures shows that much of this drop has been caused by a fall in the number of overseas students coming to study in the UK with Tier 4 student visas. The number of students arriving in the UK to study with Tier 4 student visas fell by over 50,000 from 246,000 to 190,000.


In the past, the government has claimed that its attempts to crack down on immigration have forced 'bogus colleges' to close down but have not harmed the UK's university education sector. In April 2013, immigration minister Mark Harper told an online education magazine, The Pie, last month that the government had closed down colleges that sold 'immigration not education' but said that the numbers of university students coming to the UK had actually risen slightly.

University sector is being 'slowly strangled'

However, Jason Pitman of educational company Study Group told The Politico website that the government's policy was damaging the university sector and that the fall in students coming to the UK was a great concern. He said 'Even conservative estimates suggest 40% of international students arrive at universities through further education and independent pathway routes. This supply is being slowly strangled and is a catastrophe waiting to happen for UK higher education'.


Commenting on the latest figures, Mr Harper told The Independent newspaper that they showed that the government was 'continuing to bring immigration back under control'.


As well as a sharp fall in the number of students there was also a drop in the number of people admitted on family visas. There were 18,000 fewer family admissions in the year to September 2012. The figure fell from 80,000 to 62,000.


But Sarah Mulley of the Institute of Public Policy Research says that the headline figure is unlikely to fall much further as there is little more that the government can do to limit numbers. In fact, she has predicted that the number of immigrants is likely to rise again from now on. She said: "The Government's progress towards its target of reducing net migration to less than 100,000 by 2015 is being driven by falling numbers of international students. This decline comes at considerable economic cost.


She added "In any case, falling student numbers will not help the Government meet its target in the medium term. Because most students stay in the UK only for a short time, reduced immigration now will mean reduced emigration in the future, which by 2015 could partially reverse the falls we are seeing now."


Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in United Kingdom. Please visit our UK page for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/uk.html

New Zealand attracts immigrants from around the world

New Zealand is looking for workers from the UK to help with the reconstruction of Christchurch. The city, which is situated on New Zealand's South Island, was destroyed by an earthquake in 2010. The New Zealand government has undertaken to rebuild the city. It estimates that the cost of the rebuild will be NZ$8.5bn (£4.7bn).


Immigration New Zealand is keen to attract workers with the skills to help with the rebuild; At a time when New Zealand needs more immigrants the number of migrants leaving the UK for New Zealand has fallen by 5,000 a year over the last six years. The New Zealand Herald says that New Zealand is seeking British workers because they would be 'an easy fit' in New Zealand because of the similarities of culture and because the two countries share a common language.


The government plans to rebuild the city as an environmentally friendly community full of low-rise buildings. On current projections, there will be 20,000 homes built in the next five years as well as a redevelopment of the city centre. There are vacancies for

• Civil engineers
• Carpenters
• Builders
• Decorators
• Plasterers
• Scaffolders
• Electricians
• Road workers
• Digger drivers
• Pipe layers
• Foremen and managers

New Zealand welcomes migrants from around the world

New Zealand is seeking to attract workers from anywhere in the world, not just the UK. There are many migrants from Asia who have already made the move to New Zealand and many more are needed. Not only are there labour shortages in the construction industries, there are also shortages of medical professionals and agricultural workers.


The New Zealand Herald reports that there was considerable interest from British workers at a recent recruitment event in Newcastle. New Zealand hopes that the attractions of a less stressful lifestyle, higher average wages and a lower cost of living will attract skilled workers to make the move to the other side of the world.


Recent statistics from the New Zealand government show that the Christchurch rebuild already seems to be attracting international workers. In six of the last seven months New Zealand's population has grown due to net immigration (the number of immigrants has exceeded the number of emigrants), bucking the trend of recent years which have seen many young New Zealanders leaving to work elsewhere, particularly in Australia.


Immigration experts say that they expect strong immigration to continue for the next couple of years at least.


Global Visa Support offers a variety of programs in New Zealand. Please visit our New Zealand page for more information: http://www.globalvisasupport.com/nz.html