News of the United States slamming its door shut on broad categories of foreign workers has unleashed bewilderment from the border to the boardrooms.
Immigration lawyers are now untangling what it means for Canadians.
Several said they spent the day Tuesday on group chats, seeking information from industry associations and contacting sources inside the U.S. government.
That’s because of the wording of an executive order announced Monday by President Donald Trump that suspends, at least for the rest of this year, vast categories of business and student-work visas.
Some believe it might affect thousands of Canadians and potentially disrupt their jobs, cross-border businesses and families.
Most think it contains a giant loophole for Canadians. At least for now.
Immigration lawyers in touch with U.S. border offices said agents expressed conflicting views and were awaiting instructions from Washington.
“It’s going to be a little chaotic for a while,” said Theresa Cardinal Brown, a former U.S. Homeland Security official and immigration expert once posted at the American embassy in Ottawa
“My guess is we won’t know for a little while [what this means], until [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] and [the Department of Homeland Security] issue their guidance.”
She offered this advice: If you’re a Canadian unsure whether this order applies to you, try contacting officials at whatever U.S. border checkpoint you intend to cross.
The fine print in Trump’s order
The potential Canadian loophole is in Section 3 of the order, which suspends the processing of popular work visas in the L, J and H-1B category.
That section says the visa ban only applies to people currently outside the U.S., who lack a valid visa or travel document. It so happens that most Canadians already have a valid travel document to the U.S.
It’s called a passport.
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One immigration lawyer said that’s a distinction not shared by most citizens of other countries, who generally need a visa or visa waiver to enter the U.S.
“Canadian citizens are unique in the world,” said Danielle Rizzo, a partner at the Harris Beach law firm in Buffalo, N.Y., and former head of liaison between U.S. Customs and the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
“My take is [this order] does not apply to Canadian citizens but it’s not extremely straightforward. … I think it was probably an oversight [in the drafting of the order].”
Trump’s order constitutes a significantescalation of his immigration-curbingpolicies.
He cast it as a measure to protect 525,000 U.S. jobs from foreign competition, amid a pandemic that has wiped out more than 18 million U.S. jobs.
An American ‘tragedy’
But to one former immigration official in the Obama White House, this is a heartbreaking moment in U.S. history.
“I think this is a tragedy,” said Doug Rand, who now runs a company,Boundless Immigration, that helps immigrants obtain U.S. residency and citizenship.
“And it’s a huge self-inflicted wound for this country — in terms of our values, our economy, and our ability to overcome this pandemic.”
He said that Trump has progressively chipped away at visa rules to make it more difficult to immigrate, and said it has caused one friend, a PhD in biomedical sciences, to move to Canada.
“Good job, Canada,” Rand said.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the Dream City Church in Phoenix on Tuesday. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)
A Harvard businessprofessor published apaper this spring warning that the U.S.’s out-of-date immigration system, which has not been reformed in decades, risks sapping the country of its great historical advantage in drawing top talent.
Trump has repeatedly said he wants to reform the system to prioritize skilled labour,like Canada’s points system.
But there’s no sign of any such legislation passing Congress, and what Trump has mostly done instead is tighten existing policies by executive order, culminating in this week’s.
In crisis, some Canadians see opportunity
Now, as in any crisis, some see opportunity.
Canadian tech companies are signalling their intention to recruit some of the workers now barred from the U.S.
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Canada had, before the pandemic struck, experienced ahistoric population boom, fuelled by foreign students and skilled workers. The OECD credited policies created by successive governments in Ottawa a role model.
One immigrant to Canada is now working to take advantage of Trump’s executive order.
Ilya Brotzky came to Canada from the Soviet Union when he was five, accompanying his mother, a horticultural engineer.
He now runs VanHack, which has 32 employees, mostly in Canada, that has recruited 600 tech workers from India and South America on behalf of companies looking to expand Canadian operations.
Brotzky said he’s begun talking to colleagues about how to track down and recruit people who have been shut out of the U.S.
U.S. border agents are awaiting instructions from Washington. Different checkpoints are interpreting the rules for Canadians differently. Seen here is the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor, Ont., and Detroit in 2018. (Cole Burston/Bloomberg)
He said many of these people will be hired by the exact same companies and will work remotely outside the U.S. — and make money and pay taxes outside the U.S.
“These are highly skilled, coveted workers who have a lot to contribute,” said the Vancouver-based entrepreneur.
“I think it’ll hurt the U.S.”
One thing he wonders is whether Trump’s announcement was a mere election-year political stunt.
After all, during the pandemic, U.S. government offices are being shuttered and immigration applications have slowed to a trickle.
But Rizzo said companies are still moving people around.
What happens next?
She said she’s still processing L visa applications for Canadian intra-company transfers during this pandemic, and has reason to hope it will continue.
What’s next, in light of Trump’s order?
It depends who you ask.
Cardinal Brown said she’s not sure Canadians get an exemption. The U.S. National Law Review called the Canadian situationunclear.
And different cases might yield different results.
Rizzo said she received about 100 queries Wednesday and every situation is different. For example, she said, Canadian workers might be able to cross but not with a spouse who’s a non-Canadian.
Two Canadian-based lawyers specializing in U.S. immigration, Henry Chang at Dentons in Toronto and Andrea Vaitzner at Norton Rose Fulbright in Montreal, opined that the current wording of the order likely spares Canadians.
But both urged caution.
The question is whether they erred and accidentally barred all Canadians or exempted all. I read as exempted. Says person “seeking entry pursuant to a nonimmigrant visa” is hereby suspended.” A Canadian is not seeking entry pursuant to a visa.
“It is too early to know with certainty whether [Trump’s order] will be applied in a manner that exempts Canadian citizens,” Chang wrote in an analysis.
“Hopefully, this issue will be clarified in the near future.”
Vaitzner said it would be a serious mistake for the U.S. to halt L-1 visas, used for transfers of executives between company offices.
“It would be a huge blow to businesses,” she said.
“[These executives] travel intermittently to the U.S. to do work at their company’s U.S. office or to visit [customers, suppliers and partners]. I do not understand how banning Canadian L-1 applicants from entering the U.S. would alleviate the unemployment rate in the U.S.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
