Highly skilled workers rush to Canada

Canada’s bid to attract foreign high-tech workers from the United States by offering them visas was so successful that Ottawa had to close the application process after 48 hours.

Immigration Minister Sean Fraser announced the Tech Talent Strategy at a tech conference in Toronto last month, offering highly skilled workers in the US — H-1B visa holders — the chance to live in Canada.

The uptake was dramatic, with 10,000 applicants flooding the system. Forbes reports that the response is “likely a warning sign to U.S. policymakers that many highly sought foreign-born scientists and engineers in the United States are dissatisfied with the U.S. immigration system and seeking other options.”

Polling shows that Canadians are becoming concerned about record levels of immigration, worrying that newcomers are putting pressure on a tight housing market. But the political tension around the issue is nothing like in the United States, where Republicans have made it the centerpiece of their challenge to Joe Biden, linking it to rising concern over crime.

Crossings at the southern US border are down significantly this year, but the issue remains a top-of-mind headache for the Biden administration, and numbers could soon rise. On Tuesday, a California judge blocked Biden’s asylum policy, which has been credited with helping slow irregular crossings. On Monday, meanwhile, the Biden administration launched a lawsuit to force Texas to remove a floating barrier to immigration on the Rio Grande on humanitarian and environmental grounds.