Most Canadian Immigrants Are Not Economic Immigrants, they are Family-Based Immigrants

President Trump recently released anotherplan to reform the immigration system.   It was crafted with the help of his son-in-law and presidential advisor Jared Kushner.  My colleague David Bier ablyexplains the details of the Kushner plan, but I want to focus on a common misconception that lays at the justification for merit-based immigration reform: In reality, there is not a single country in the OECD or European Union (EU) where economic immigrants are a majority of new permanent residents, even in merit-based systems like Canada ’s. Theone-pager for the Kushner plan says that 63 percent of Canadian permanent resident visa are granted in employment and skill-based categories compared to just 12 percent in the United States, 57 percent in New Zealand, 68 percent in Australia, and 52 percent in Japan.   Those percentages all include the derivativefamily membersof the immigrant workers admitted through the employment and skill-based visa categories.   In other words, economic or skills-based immigrants are allowed to bring their immediate relatives but they also count against the economic visaseven though they are not the economic immigrants themselves.  The Kushner plan one-pager counts the derivative family-members of merit-based economic immigrants in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and the United States as skilled immigrants.  This grossly exaggerates the percentage of immigrants who are economic or skills-based immigrants and underco unts those who are fa...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs