McCallum to increase intake of privately sponsored Syrian refugees

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Former Member

McCallum to increase intake of privately sponsored Syrian refugees

Stephanie Levitz, THE CANADIAN PRESS, First posted: Thursday, March 31, 2016 02:04 PM EDT | Updated: Thursday, March 31, 2016 02:10 PM EDT, http://www.torontosun.com/2016...ored-syrian-refugees

John McCallum

John McCallum, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, speaks at a press conference following his participation at the meeting on global responsibility sharing through pathways for admission of Syrian refugees, at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, March 30, 2016. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP

OTTAWA -- Immigration Minister John McCallum reacted to a sustained public outcry Thursday by easing restrictions on the private sponsorship of Syrian refugees -- a decision that will add thousands to the number of refugees arriving this year.

The Immigration Department will now process all the private sponsorship applications for Syrians received as of March 31, with an eye towards getting the 9,000 to 10,000 Syrians they represent into Canada by year-end or early 2017.

"We can't go on to infinity, but we are doing the best we can to meet the demand," McCallum said in an interview with The Canadian Press from Germany, where he is meeting immigration officials.

The decision means the government will likely exceed its refugee resettlement target for this year, initially set at 44,800 -- a level Canada has not seen in decades.

Private groups were caught off-guard when efforts to resettle Syrians were scaled back even as the Liberals were working on the goal of bringing in 25,000 people by the end of last month.

With hundreds of Syrians arriving each day, the government quietly placed a limit on the number of new applications it would accept in 2016. Then, once the Liberal target of 25,000 was met, they closed the massive processing centres abroad and scaled back staff in Canada processing Syrian applications.

With the cap on new applications and the decrease in staff, sponsors began hearing it was unlikely anyone who submitted a file after Jan. 1 would see the refugee or family they wanted to sponsor arrive this year.

The move triggered frustration among would-be sponsors, since it takes months to raise the required funds to support a Syrian refugee. The detailed paperwork required meant many sponsorship groups had only just submitted the forms.

Some of the furor spilled out Wednesday night at a meeting in Toronto, where groups packed a downtown church to vent their frustrations and give an earful to local Liberal MPs.

Peter Goodspeed, a spokesperson for Lifeline Syria, which supports the private sponsorship of 1,000 Syrians in Toronto, said the changes will ease -- but not erase -- the anger. For any of the dozens of groups in Toronto alone that have yet to submit paperwork, the changes make no difference, Goodspeed said.

Asking people who've raised thousands of dollars, rented apartments and organized volunteers to hang on until later in 2017 is going to be a challenge, he added.

"These are people who were responding to a crisis. You just can't go back to the same standard of processing in a crisis situation," Goodspeed said.

"The government is coming to that understanding gradually."

McCallum said the refugee program has to be managed in a responsible way. In recent years, the government has placed a cap on the number of refugee sponsorship applications it would accept in order to bring down existing wait times. It's currently taking more than six years, for example, to process an application for someone currently in a refugee camp in Kenya.

The global cap on applications for this year is 10,500, but those for Syrians submitted prior to Thursday will no longer count towards that total. The department will also do its best to ensure processing the Syrian cases won't mean further delays for refugees from elsewhere, McCallum said.

One of the reasons a decision was made to admit at least 17,800 privately sponsored refugees this year was to bring down existing backlogs, noted Brian Dyck, the head of the sponsorship agreement association that oversees private sponsorship of refugees.

He said he welcomes the changes to Syrian applications, but also the continued commitment to helping refugees from elsewhere get to Canada faster.

"I think that we are seeing a significant increase in commitment to humanitarian immigration and a willingness to work with the community," Dyck said.

"While I think some remain frustrated with the pace, I see things moving in the right direction."

The government has also committed to bringing in a maximum of 24,600 government-assisted refugees, though that ceiling could also be exceeded, since the Liberals committed to resettling 25,000 government assisted Syrians by the end of 2016.

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Former Member

Five things about Canada's private sponsorship program for refugees

by Stephanie Levitz, The Canadian Press, Posted Mar 31, 2016 2:32 pm MDT, Last Updated Mar 31, 2016 at 4:19 pm MDT

OTTAWA – Five things to know about the private sponsorship program:

1. It’s over 40 years old. The program was set up in 1978 but put into full effect the following year to respond to a refugee crisis out of the Vietnam War. The Canadian government agreed to take in 12,000 of Vietnamese “boat people”; to nudge those numbers higher, it committed to matching sponsorships from private groups, largely church based. In order to sponsor a refugee, groups had to commit to covering the cost of doing so, but also help arrange for things like accommodations, language classes and other settlement needs. By the end of the program, some 60,000 Vietnamese refugees in total would arrive in Canada.

2. It’s one of the only programs of its kind in the world. It’s not until recent years that other countries have adopted the private sponsorship model. Australia launched a pilot project in 2013 and has since recommended making it permanent, while the refugee crisis created by the Syrian civil war prompted several private programs to pop up in Germany. The United Kingdom has also said it is exploring developing its own program.

3. It can be a long process and expensive process. The interest in the program has created lengthy wait times around the world. It currently takes nearly six years to sponsor a refugee from certain parts of Africa, three years from Myanmar. The previous government ended up placing caps on the number of applications it would accept each year to be able to get through the backlog and the Liberals are continuing with the caps. This year’s is 10,500. The current cost associated with sponsoring a single person is $12,600 for the year, which includes income support and start-up costs like the first months’ rent and stocking the pantry.

4. The numbers are growing. Since the program began and until 2009, privately sponsored refugees made up at most 4,500 or so of the refugees who came to Canada each year. But in 2009, the previous Conservative government began shifting refugee policy to favour private sponsorship and that year welcomed over 5,000 privately sponsored refugees. The original Conservative commitments to Syrian refugees saw private sponsors expected to take about 60 per cent of the 11,300 Syrians the Tories committed to bringing in by the end of next year. The target for this year was initially to accept 17,800 privately sponsored refugees overall, but that number will now increase with Thursday’s changes.

5. There’s a third way. In 2013, the government launched a new sponsorship program that sees the government share the cost of resettlement with private groups. Known as the “blended visa office program,” it’s expected grow in use over the coming years as it features the benefits of private sponsorship while reducing the cost to both government and private groups. The target for this year is 2,400 blended cases, but that’s expected to be exceeded, thanks to the Syrian program.

3/31/166:59 PM

Former Member

A timeline of Canada's policies and decisions during the Syrian refugee crisis

The Syrian refugee timeline in Canada

Posted: Thursday, March 31, 2016 1:27 pm, http://www.kelownadailycourier...92-460c65c8269f.html

Stephanie Levitz The Canadian Press

OTTAWA - Immigration Minister John McCallum is easing restrictions on the private sponsorship of Syrian refugees, adding thousands to the number of refugees arriving this year. Here is a timeline of how private sponsors have responded to the Syrian refugee crisis.

2011:

— The Syrian civil war breaks out, triggering a wave of migration and displacement that has to date created an estimated 4.2 million Syrian refugees and sent millions more fleeing for safety.

2012:

— Groups in Canada call on the government to do more to assist displaced Syrians, including making it easier for Syrians already in Canada to bring family members and speeding up asylum claim processing for those already in Canada.

— The Conservative government says it won't resettle refugees from Syria until the UN makes a formal request.

— The Conservatives make changes to refugee policy that make it more challenging for certain private groups, known as groups of five, to sponsor refugees by requiring a sponsored individual be officially registered as a refugee by the UN. They say the move is meant to cut down on fraud and help bring down existing wait times.

— The government closes the embassy in Damascus, forcing those immigration cases — including thousands of Iraqis — to be shuffled around the Middle East. Wait time for privately sponsored files out of that region begin to increase.

2013:

— The UN makes its first formal request for states to resettle Syrian refugees. In July, Canada agrees to take in 1,300 by the end of 2014 using the 200 government-assisted refugee spots set aside for emergency resettlement requests and opening up the rest for private sponsorship.

— Private sponsors are forced to scramble to raise the necessary funds, find refugees to sponsor and file the paperwork. Between July and December of 2013, they submit 195 applications.

2014:

— The Conservatives come under fire amid fear they will miss their Syrian refugee targets. The average processing time for privately sponsored refugee applications out of Lebanon, temporary home to one million Syrian refugees, was two years.

— By year-end, only 1,063 Syrian refugees have arrived in Canada, with more being government assisted than planned in order for the government to make any progress towards its target.

— In total in 2014, 1,299 applications were received by private groups interested in sponsoring Syrians.

2015:

January: Conservatives commit to resettling a further 10,000 Syrian refugees and suggest they'll again look to private sponsors to take in 60 per cent.

March: The government finally meets its 2013 promise, with 434 government-assisted refugees and 866 privately sponsored refugees in Canada.

June: A group called Lifeline Syria launches in Toronto with the goal of getting 1,000 Syrian refugees to Canada via the private sponsorship program.

July: The UN estimates the number of Syrian refugees has surpassed four million. Hundreds of thousands of others begin making their way out of Syria and surrounding countries in search of safe haven in Europe.

September: Three-year-old Alan Kurdi drowns as his family attempts to flee. It emerges Kurdi had relatives in Canada who had made an application to bring over Alan's uncle, but were rejected. Postmedia reports the rejection was the result of the Conservative rule changes for groups of five in 2012.

— The Conservatives exempt Syrian and Iraqi applications from the group of five rule and add staff to visa processing points in a bid to bring down wait times in response to public demand.

— All three main federal parties make election campaign commitments to increase intake. The Liberals promise to bring in 25,000 Syrians immediately and work with the private sector to do more.

October: Interest in private sponsorship of Syrians spikes — 551 applications are received, the highest single-month total so far that year.

November: The Liberals take office and roll out their marquee plan to get 25,000 Syrians to Canada by the end of February. The initial target was 10,000 privately sponsored refugees.

Between Jan. 1, 2015, and Dec. 14, 2015, 3,700 private sponsorship applications for Syrians are submitted, representing just over 8,214 people. By Dec. 31, 3,067 privately sponsored Syrians have arrived in Canada.

2016:

January: The Liberals decide to cap on the number of applications they'll accept in 2016 to sponsor Syrians, folding them into the global plan for private sponsor settlement. The cap applies to any application received as of Jan. 1.

February 27: the Liberals reach their goal to settle 25,000 people. Privately sponsored Syrians account for 8,792.

— The Liberals close up the major processing centres in Jordan and Lebanon and scale back the number of staff processing applications in Winnipeg.

Mar. 2: The Liberals confirm privately sponsored refugees who arrive in Canada after that date will be responsible for the cost of their own flights and medical exams. Under the Liberals' special resettlement program for Syrians, those costs had been waived.

March 14: there are just over 6,600 private applications in the inventory. Sponsorship groups get wind of the changes and begin to voice their displeasure when they realize the families they are seeking to sponsor won't arrive until 2017.

Mar. 31: Immigration Minister John McCallum announces any applications received before that day will be exempt from the cap and should be processed fast enough to see the Syrians arrive this year or early in 2017.

3/31/167:06 PM

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