Immigration newsletter 05 Nov 2008

For the first time in America's history, an African-American has been elected as President of the United States. Senator Obama of Illinois won the election, with 349 electoral votes compared to his opponent John McCain's 162 electoral votes.

Obama's incredible mandate with the American population may have had a significant boost from voters, particularly immigrant voters, that the opposition Republican party previously under-estimated. Obama has voiced his support for US immigration reform in the past, both with regard to helping the growing Hispanic population and on the issue of increasing skilled immigration to help the U.S. economy maintain its global competitiveness.

Whilst his opponent John McCain had similar personal views on immigration reform, this opposed directly with the views held by most of his own party.

Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper has reshuffled his cabinet after being re-elected, with Jason Kenney replacing Diane Finley as immigration minister.

The first order of business for the new immigration minister will be ushering in Canada's new immigration reforms that will change the way the nation selects its skilled migrants. Kenney's close ties to urban ethnic communities should help to sell the new changes, which give the minister broad powers in choosing skilled immigration applicants based upon their qualifications and experience and the current needs of Canada's labour market. 

His predecessor, Diane Finley, will take over the position of Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development. During her tenure as immigration minister, efforts were made to improve a number of immigration-related policies, including schemes such as the Provincial Nominee Program and the Off-Campus Work Permit program. In addition, the Canadian Experience Class -- a new immigration scheme that allows certain temporary foreign workers and foreign graduates of Canadian universities to remain in Canada permanently -- was introduced during Finley's stint as immigration minister.

The Ontario food industry has been lobbying the provincial government to allow them to bring more foreign workers to Canada on work permits.

According to Justin Taylor, a vice-president at the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association, 38 percent of restaurants and fast-food outlets couldn't fill positions during the summer of 2008. Two years ago, the CRFA told the federal government that immigration was vital in rescuing the food service industry which is currently worth some CAD $50 billion. 

Their report expressed a need for the targeted training of temporary workers already in Canada, the creation of an immigration policy aimed at labour shortages, and a general increase in the number of temporary foreign workers.

The UK Border Agency will implement Tier 4 of the new immigration system in March next year. The new tier will be an "Australian-style" points based system for students from outside the European Union to enter into the UK for the purpose of higher education. Universities wishing to bring foreign students to the UK will be required to obtain a sponsorship license. Students applying under Tier 4 will be required to obtain a certificate of sponsorship from their university. The sponsorship system is part of an effort to crack down on "bogus colleges", whose’ only role is to facilitate entry for work related and other purposes.

The European Union has started discussions with Ukraine on a possible visa free travel regime for Ukrainian citizens. The country’s government is hoping to have visa free travel in place by 2012 for its citizens visiting the EU. However, EU Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot would not set a deadline for an agreement between the 27-member bloc and Ukraine. He stated the meeting would concentrate on issues such as illegal immigration and document security. 

Visa arrangements between both countries have eased in recent years: In 2005, Ukraine abolished visa requirements for citizens of the EU. In response, Ukrainians have enjoyed lower visa fees, though Barrot did acknowledge that some member states still set their visa fees too high.