Canada

More than one in five residents in Canada was born in another country, making it one of the world's top destinations for international migrants. From its migration policymaking aimed at identifying and recruiting workers needed by the Canadian economy, to its immigrant integration policies, and efforts to recruit skilled migrants and international students, the research collected here focuses on the diverse policies, practices, and trends that Canada is experiencing.

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Commentaries

Canada's New Tech Talent Strategy Takes Aim at High-Skilled Immigrants in the United States

Canada’s Tech Talent Strategy is highly unusual for its explicit targeting of visa holders in another country. Opening a dedicated stream specifically for high-skilled immigrants in the United States who hold an H-1B visa is the latest salvo in a growing global competition for talent—one in which some countries are racing ahead of the United States in terms of policy dynamism, as this commentary explores.

Recent Activity

Multimedia March 31, 2020 Expert Podcast: Meeting Seasonal Labor Needs in the Age of COVID-19	Commentaries March 2020 A Race Against the Clock: Meeting Seasonal Labor Needs in the Age of COVID-19 By Kate Hooper and Camille Le Coz
Articles March 11, 2020 As Governments Build Advanced Surveillance Systems to Push Borders Out, Will Travel and Migration Become Unequal for Some Groups? By Carlyn Greenfield	Commentaries March 2020 Coronavirus Is Spreading across Borders, But It Is Not a Migration Problem By Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan, Meghan Benton and Susan Fratzke
Reports January 2020 Beyond Work: Reducing Social Isolation for Refugee Women and Other Marginalized Newcomers By Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan	Policy Briefs December 2019 Refugee Sponsorship Programs: A Global State of Play and Opportunities for Investment By Susan Fratzke, Lena Kainz, Hanne Beirens, Emma Dorst and Jessica Bolter
Reports November 2019 Volunteers and Sponsors: A Catalyst for Refugee Integration? By Susan Fratzke and Emma Dorst	Reports November 2019 Creating a Home in Canada: Refugee Housing Challenges and Potential Policy Solutions By Damaris Rose

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Reports November 2013 Building New Skills: Immigration and Workforce Development in Canada By Karen Myers and Natalie Conte	Reports July 2013 Recognizing Foreign Qualifications: Emerging Global Trends By Lesleyanne Hawthorne
Reports July 2013 Tackling Brain Waste: Strategies to Improve the Recognition of Immigrants’ Foreign Qualifications By Madeleine Sumption	Books July 2013 How Can Talent Abroad Induce Development at Home? Towards a Pragmatic Diaspora Agenda
Books November 2012 Rethinking National Identity in the Age of Migration	Reports July 2012 Understanding 'Canadian Exceptionalism' in Immigration and Pluralism Policy By Irene Bloemraad
Books June 2012 Developing a Road Map for Engaging Diasporas in Development: A Handbook for Policymakers and Practitioners in Home and Host Countries By Dovelyn Rannveig Mendoza and Kathleen Newland	Reports May 2012 The Relationship Between Immigration and Nativism in Europe and North America By Cas Mudde

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Top Ten

December 4, 2008

Warming up to Circular Migration?

Circular migration means a continuing, long-term pattern of international mobility. The European Union set up two pilot programs in 2008 that seek to facilitate this type of movement.

Top Ten

December 3, 2007

Integration Means Belonging

All the nuanced meanings of "belonging" describe integration trends in industrialized countries in 2007, including the United States, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Germany.

Feature

November 12, 2007

Canada's Temporary Migration Program: A Model Despite Flaws

In response to an agricultural worker shortage over 40 years ago, Canada initiated a temporary migration program to brings workers from the Caribbean and later Mexico. But this "model" program also has its drawbacks, as Tanya Basok of the University of Windsor explains.

Feature

May 18, 2007

Selecting Economic Stream Immigrants through Points Systems

The U.S. Congress is considering a bill that includes a points system for permanent immigration. MPI's Demetrios G. Papademetriou outlines how points systems work, which countries have used them, their political benefits, and trends in points-system use.

Feature

April 1, 2006

Canada: A Northern Refuge for Central Americans

Although most Central American refugees sought protection in the United States, Canada admitted thousands of Central American refugees in the 1980s. María Cristina García of Cornell University takes a detailed look at Central Americans in Canada

Recent Activity

Reports

June 2022

Temporary Worker Programs in Canada, Mexico, and Costa Rica: Promising Pathways for Managing Central American Migration?

Irregular migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras has become a dominant feature of the migration landscape in Central and North America, yet few legal pathways exist for Central Americans facing pressure to emigrate. This report explores how Canada, Mexico, and Costa Rica could use existing temporary worker programs to expand legal migration options while also helping fill their labor shortages.

Commentaries

June 2022

The Los Angeles Declaration Could Represent a Big Step for Real Migration Cooperation across the Americas

The Los Angeles Agreement on Migration and Protection signed by leaders from 20 countries across the Western Hemisphere at the 2022 Summit of the Americas marks a significant step forward in creating a common language and a coherent set of ideas for more cooperatively managing migration movements across a region that has seen very significant mobility in recent years, as this commentary explains.

Video, Audio, Webinars

May 24, 2022

Seeking Safety: Regional Protection Options for Central Americans

Marking the release of a Migration Policy Institute report on possible protection pathways for Central Americans, this webcast offers analysis on regional resettlement and humanitarian channels and the opportunities and obstacles to expanding these programs, along with specific actions that the United States and Canada could take.

Policy Briefs

May 2022

Vías humanitarias para personas centroamericanas: Evaluando oportunidades para el futuro

Para la mayoría de las personas centroamericanas que se ven forzadas a abandonar sus hogares, viajar a México o Estados Unidos para solicitar refugio o asilo es la única opción para buscar protección internacional. A la fecha, el reasentamiento de personas refugiadas ha sido utilizado de manera limitada en la región. Este informe explora el papel que el reasentamiento y otras vías de protección humanitarias desempeñan en atender estas necesidades.

Policy Briefs

May 2022

Humanitarian Pathways for Central Americans: Assessing Opportunities for the Future

For most Central Americans forced to flee their homes, traveling to Mexico or the United States to apply for asylum is their only option to seek international protection. To date, refugee resettlement has been used only sparingly in the region. This brief explores what role resettlement and other humanitarian pathways play in meeting these protection needs, and whether and how they could be scaled up.

Reports

May 2022

COVID-19 and the State of Global Mobility in 2021

Despite high hopes that international movement would be revived in 2021 after the deep chill in 2020 with designation of a global pandemic, cross-border mobility remained limited as migrants and travelers faced complex rules, high costs, and uncertainty as new COVID-19 variants emerged. This report assesses global mobility in 2021, including changing use of travel restrictions, their impacts on mobile populations, and efforts to safely restart migration and travel.

Reports

May 2022

From Fear to Solidarity: The Difficulty in Shifting Public Narratives about Refugees

Public opinion of refugees and asylum seekers is often portrayed as a binary, reflected in stories of them as “threats” or “benefits.” Yet in reality, people can hold a variety of competing beliefs and concerns about forced migrants and their impacts on society. This report explores these different narratives, the contexts in which they flourish, and the types of initiatives that have been used to try to boost solidarity and ease tensions.

Reports

April 2022

Destination-Country Policies to Foster Diaspora Engagement in Development

Emigrants and their descendants can play a critical role in the development of their countries of origin or ancestry. In fact, many such countries have policies that seek to leverage their diaspora’s contributions. Much less attention has been paid to how destination countries with large international development programs are engaging their resident diasporas—or could be engaging them—in the development of countries of origin.

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