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Why are Canadians turning against immigration?
Canada has long been pro-immigration — so proudly so that harsh talk about limiting immigrant numbers has been a nonstarter for the public and politicians alike. That is changing.
A recent Leger poll found that 65% of Canadians believe the government has set immigration targets too high and will admit “too many” immigrants under its current plan. More than 75% say the number of newcomers is raising the cost of housing and health care, at 78% and 76%, respectively. And a June poll by Research Co. found that 44% of Canadians viewed immigration negatively — a 6% increase from last October — with nearly half wanting fewer immigrants.
Now, thanks to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s aggressive immigration plan — with rates that have outpaced housing starts, doctor availability, and job growth — the decades-old consensus is starting to fray, and American politics and policy may exacerbate the matter.
Temporary foreign worker backlash
The government’s temporary foreign worker program, or TFW, which brings in non-permanent residents to work, has stirred controversy for depressing wages. This is adding more stress to the pro-immigration consensus as Canadians are worried about the country’s capacity to welcome newcomers while facing crises in health care, housing, and, in some cases, employment.
Canada admitted nearly a quarter of a million temporary workers in 2023, almost double the number from five years ago. The immigrant unemployment rate was nearly 12% this spring, nearly double the 6.4% general rate.
Last week, Employment Minister Randy Boissonnaultannounced that as of Sept. 26, Canada would not allow businesses to apply for temporary foreign workers through the low-wage stream — jobs paying below the provincial median wage — in any big city where unemployment was above 6%. It allows exceptions for several industries, but employers will be limited to 10% of their workforce being filled by temporary foreign workers. The employment term is reduced from two years to one, and visitors may no longer apply for work permits inside Canada — a pandemic-era policy adopted in response to travel restrictions — but must apply from abroad.
The changes are expected to lower the number of temporary foreign workers by roughly 65,000.
Asylum-seeking on the rise
The TFW program isn’t the only concern in Canada — or the US. A rise in asylum-seekers moving south to the US from Canada caught the attention of the Biden administration. In February, the Canadian government reinstated a policy requiring visitors from Mexico to obtain a visa before entering the country. It had lifted the requirement in 2016, which led to an increase in asylum-seekers and irritated the White House.
The 2023-24 fiscal year has seen record-breaking numbers of irregular crossings from Canada into the US, with a high of over 18,600 encounters between American officials and migrants in May and nearly as many in June and July. US Customs and Border Patrol has already had nearly 127,000 encounters this year and is on track to surpass last year’s 147,666 encounters.
In the US, immigration and border policy are top ballot issues. Some voters are looking north and growing concerned about security along the world’s longest undefended border. The Biden administration has adopted stricter controls, lowering the number of asylum-seekers along the northern border through a series of deterrence measures and aligning northern border policy with its stricter southern counterpart.
Last year, Republicans talked about building a northern border wall, a silly notion that nonetheless prompted then-presidential hopeful Nikki Haley to claim that while the southern border is a routine concern, the northern border doesn’t get enough attention. In 2023, House Republicans created a Northern Border Security Caucus focused on human and drug trafficking.
Border politics shape US and Canadian elections
Republicans are attacking Democratic nominee Kamala Harris on the issue, though southern border encounters have declined. Harris has made getting tough on the border a key component of her campaign, promising “strong border security and an earned pathway to citizenship,” as the Democrats move right on immigration and border security.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump routinely talks about his ill-defined mass deportation plan, which involves mobilizing the whole of government, including the National Guard, to round up migrants and return them home.
The “plan” has been criticized as unworkable, but even the possibility of mass deportations could lead to fear and panic. As Evan Dyer reports, the idea of the plan could generate a rush to the Canadian border, further complicating Canada’s tenuous immigration consensus.
Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, whose party is up in the polls, says he would cut immigration and tie the number of newcomers to trends in housing, health care, and employment. He alleges the Liberals have “destroyed” the country’s immigration system. A July poll found that 27% of Canadians see it as a top issue – and 54% of those who do prefer the Conservative Party over Liberals.
Delicate balancing act
Pressure from several sources will make life difficult for the governing Liberals as they try to navigate the intersecting issues of immigration, the border, housing, health care, security, and foreign relations.
Graeme Thompson, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group’s global macro-geopolitics practice, says the political problem for the government is a need to navigate between those who worry immigration is too high, “primarily for economic reasons,” and constituencies that want to see more newcomers, including industry and universities, who rely on foreign nationals for labor and tuition fees.
Trudeau must manage the current and future US administration and a growing focus on border security, Thompson says, echoing that a Trump win “could result in a major problem on the Canadian border with increased numbers of irregular migrants being forced out of the United States.”
“The government is going to make somebody very unhappy here,” he says.
On Wednesday, the stakes for the Liberals got higher as the NDP, which is heavily pro-immigration, ended their parliamentary deal to back the governing party, raising the odds of an early federal election — and an end to what’s left of Trudeau’s sunny ways.Attendees of Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD) campaign event for the Saxony state elections leave, as counter protestors stand in the background, in Dresden, Germany, August 29, 2024.
Immigration backlash to boost populists in Germany’s local elections
Populist opposition parties of the right and the left are set to make big gains in local elections in two key eastern German states this Sunday.
The far-right Alternative for Deutschland party is the front-runner in Saxony, eastern Germany’s most populous and prosperous state, and is expected to lead in neighboring Thuringia as well.
The staunchly anti-immigrant party — which is under investigation for ties to right-wing extremists — has surged in popularity over the past decade, especially in the former East Germany, where incomes continue to lag behind the former West. Meanwhile, the newish hard-left Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, which also seeks to reduce immigration, is also positioned to do well.
This weekend’s election comes as the national coalition government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s establishment, center-left SPD faces a growing backlash over immigration. The recent stabbing rampage by a Syrian refugee in the western German city of Solingen has exacerbated those concerns.
No “Alternative” path to power: Even if it comes in first, the AfD would need a coalition partner to govern, and there is no obvious match. The mainstream center-right CDU — currently in opposition nationally — is polling second in both states and has ruled out a tie-up. But a CDU alliance with Wagenknecht Alliance remains possible in Saxony. In Thuringia, the Left Party, which currently oversees a minority coalition government, is likely to suffer a defeat but could still be a kingmaking coalition partner for either Wagenknecht or the CDU.
The bigger picture: Misgivings over immigration continue to be a major factor in the slow-motion erosion of Germany’s centrist establishment parties.The logo of the Australian National University (ANU) is seen at the campus in Canberra, Wednesday, September 16, 2020. The Australian National University (ANU) says COVID-19 will force it to shed hundreds of jobs from its workforce. Estimates put the total job losses at 465, including 250 voluntary redundancies.
Australia to cut number of foreign students
Next year, Australia will allow in only 275,000 foreign students. The country is currently the temporary home for nearly three times that number. The government is aiming to bring the number of foreign students back to pre-pandemic levels, and to root out instances in which foreigners use study visas as an excuse to come to Australia for other purposes. Currently, there are 10% more international students at Aussie state universities than there were before COVID-19. Among private vocational schools, the number is 50%.
Universities aren’t happy. Australia has historically been a major destination for foreign students, who constitute a $50 billion annual industry. They make up the second-largest economic sector for Australia after mining, according to Universities Australia, which warned Tuesday that “having fewer students here will only widen the funding gap at a time when universities need greater support.”U.S. President Joe Biden speaks to members of the press after a weekend in Delaware, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S., February 19, 2024.
Judge blocks Biden policy for undocumented spouses
A Texas judge on Monday temporarily blocked the Biden administration from granting legal status to unauthorized immigrants married to American citizens following a challenge by 16 Republican-led states.
The policy allows unauthorized immigrants and their children to apply for temporary work permits and deportation protections if they are married to US citizens, have lived in the country for at least 10 years, and pass background checks.
The coalition of red states said the policy incentivizes illegal immigration, and the judge agreed the states raised legitimate questions about the authority of the executive branch to bypass Congress and set immigration policy.
One week after taking effect, the judge halted the program estimated to affect half a million immigrants living in the US without legal status, disrupting a major move taken by President Joe Biden in June on immigration, a top campaign issue in the 2024 race for president. The policy was popular among the 22 million people living in mixed-status households and was one of the most sweeping moves to give undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship since Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals was enacted in 2012 to protect immigrants who came to the United States as children.
Ian Explains: What is Kamala Harris' foreign policy?
How would a Harris-Walz administration differ from a Biden-Harris White House? While the Vice President has had an integral role in policy decisions and high-level meetings and led many foreign delegations, there are more differences between the two than you might think, especially when it comes to foreign policy. On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer breaks down Kamala Harris’ foreign policy experience, how her worldview differs from Biden’s, and what her administration might do differently in addressing some of the world’s most urgent crises. Harris’ approach to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China, and Israel-Palestine is informed by her experience as an attorney general. She emphasizes rule of law issues like ‘sovereignty’ over Biden’s ‘good vs evil’ framing of global politics. Harris could be vulnerable when it comes to immigration on the US southern border, a top concern for voters ahead of the US election. But polls show Harris virtually tied with Donald Trump, and four in 10 Americans say they’d trust either candidate to handle a crisis or stand up to an adversary. It’s a marked increase for Democrats since Biden dropped out of the race and a sign voters already see Kamala as a distinct candidate from her predecessor.
Watch Ian's interview with former Congresswoman Donna Edwards, Maryland's first Black woman in Congress, and Presidential Historian Douglas Brinkley on the full episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airing nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don''t miss an episode: Subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).
Asylum seekers wait outside the foreign office in Brussels, Belgium.
Crackdowns against asylum-seekers gain momentum in Europe and the Americas
On both sides of the Atlantic, a range of countries adopted new measures to clamp down on asylum-seekers this week, amid rising concern about the political impacts of immigration.
Panama began US-funded deportation flights as part of an agreement with Washington to stem the flow of hundreds of thousands of people who transit the country annually en route to the US border. Immigration is the number-two top issue for US voters right now.
Brazil announced it will crack down on layovers who request asylum, after finding that many of them simply use refuge in Brazil as a jumping-off point for northward journeys to the US or Canada.
Hanging over all of this: Some 40% of Venezuelans say they may leave the country if Nicolas Maduro remains in power. Their exodus would exacerbate what is already the world’s largest external refugee crisis.
Across the pond, the UK, reeling from recent anti-immigrant violence, pledged a raft of new measures to stop asylum-seekers from coming, staying, or working in the country. Immigration is now the top issue for UK voters — the first time since the European immigration crisis of 2016, which helped fuel Brexit.
And Hungarian PM Viktor Orban took a page from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s book, promising one-way tickets to Brussels for undocumented migrants who arrive in Hungary. The threat comes after the EU fined Budapest for a strict border policy that is out of step with common EU rules.
A group of migrants who said they were from Djibouti and Somalia follow railway tracks towards the Canada-U.S. border as seen from Emerson, Manitoba, Canada, March 27, 2017. Picture taken March 27, 2017.
US deters asylum-seekers entering from Canada
The United States haschanged its northern border policy in a bid to limit the number of asylum-seekers crossing into the country from Canada as the number of migrants seeking shelter in the US continues to rise. Border Patrol has already detained 16,500 illegal migrants at the US-Canada border so far this year – up from just 10,000 last year and 2,200 in 2022.
The changes include a requirement that asylum-seekers come prepared with documents for review so that border officials can determine if they are eligible for entry or must be sent back to Canada under the joint Safe Third Country Agreement. Previously, migrants could request time to gather documentation while remaining stateside. A second change cuts the time migrants have to consult with an attorney, dropping the window from 24 to four hours.
Canada recentlyconcluded that the US changes are in line with the Safe Third Country Agreement, which the Biden administration claims will lead to a speedier and more “efficient” processing of asylum-seekers.
The updates brings US policy along the northern border in line with processes along the border with Mexico, with the Biden administration hoping it will bring down the number of asylum-seekers who enter Canada first and then seek to migrate to the US – particularly in an election year in which immigration features as atop issue of concern for voters.
Encounters along the US-Canada border have beenrising in recent years, hitting 189,000 in 2023, up nearly 600% from 2021.A Canadian flag waves beside McDonalds fast food restaurant in Toronto, May 1, 2014. Canada's foreign worker's program has expanded to lower-skilled jobs, especially at restaurant chains such as McDonald's Corp and Tim Hortons Inc.
Is there “slavery” in Canada?
Another week, another black eye for Justin Trudeau’s increasingly unpopular immigration policy. This time the punch came from the United Nations, which released a scathing report alleging that Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program is a “breeding ground for contemporary slavery.”
The program — which the Liberals have greatly expanded to fill pandemic-related job vacancies — allows foreigners to work temporarily in Canada in industries like agriculture, fisheries, and food service, often for low wages.
But the UN says the program makes workers vulnerable to abuse, since they can be deported if they are fired. The minister responsible for the program, Marc Miller, has acknowledged the need for reforms.
Immigration has historically not been a hot-button political issue in Canada, where there’s been a nonpartisan consensus about its societal and economic benefits. But the Liberals’ massive expansion of immigrant visas in recent years has contributed to a housing shortage, while economists say the temporary worker programs suppress wages for Canadians. As a result, the pro-immigration consensus has collapsed.Miller has been scrambling to make fixes to the system, but so far the Conservatives are making hay out of a popular demand to slow immigration. The Liberals, meanwhile, may be wary of cutting immigration too swiftly, for fear of the economic fallout and potential blowback from some in ethnic communities they rely on at the ballot box.