Cuts to family-reunification visas upset Asians
Community 'angry' elders may be kept out of country for years
By Suzanne Fournier, The Province February 10, 2011
Vancouver's Asian community is furious at allegations Immigration Canada is planning to dramatically cut visas issued this year for family reunification.
The reduction in visas in 2011 cuts to the heart of Asian and South Asian families, who especially cherish the contribution of elders to family life.
Seniors are being sentenced to a 13-year wait that many of them won't survive, say immigration experts.
Thomas Tam, chief executive officer of SUCCESS immigrant services, called the reduced visa numbers "a big surprise and so disappointing -everyone is angry."
"Traditionally for Asian immigrants, the reunion with grandparents is very important. Parents rely on them for childcare and our community looks after grandparents. They are not a financial burden."
Immigration Canada is planning for "fewer immigrant visas overall, a reduction from 230,450 in 2010 to 217,800 visas in 2011, a drop of over five per cent," noted Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland, who got the never-released data under an Access to Information request.
"You're more likely now to get a coffin than a visa to Canada," Kurland said Wednesday.
"If you're hoping to bring a grandparent over for a christening, they'll be lucky to get here before the child graduates from high school."
Although Kurland notes there will be slight increases in visas issued in 2011 to business immigrants, such as entrepreneurs or wealthy investors, "the only group chosen for the back of the bus are parents and grandparents."
Particularly hard-hit will be elders from cities such as New Delhi, "which will see the number of its visas drop from 4,500 in 2010 to 2,500 in 2011," said Kurland.
Charan Gill of Progressive Intercultural Community Services was incensed at the apparent drastic reduction in the numbers of parents being allowed to emigrate from India.
"Already we have so many families waiting five, six years to bring parents over. Now people will die before they see their family in Canada," said Gill.
And while Asia/Pacific visa quotas are reduced overall, the city of Beijing appears to have been given an increase.
"That means there will be only 11,200 parents/grandparents come to Canada from China in all of 2011, but one in four of them will be from Beijing," noted Kurland. "Everyone else has to wait."
Johanne Nadeau, spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada, cautioned that "the visa targets only serve as a planning tool to help allocate scarce resources, manage applications and minimize processing delays across a global network."
Nadeau said the "visa targets change from year to year" and are "adjusted as necessary."
It would be "wrong to infer from planning numbers how many people Canada will actually welcome in 2011," she said.
Nadeau noted that, in 2010, Canada "welcomed the highest level of permanent residents in 50 years."
Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/Cuts+family+reunification+visas+upset+Asians/4255890/story.html#ixzz1DZkExbNz
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If the above is true IT SUCKS big time, in the news release in November it said that quotas have been increased for family reunification and now they are saying it's decreased drastically, I hope SPOUSE Visas are not affected with this, For Parents and Grand Parents it will be a 13 year wait now WTF sorry for being agitated but it really is bad, Canada is really tightening down the way it's allowing the immigrants.
Hope for the best folks!
Cheers;
Panda
