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“We expect new federal skilled worker applicants, including those with arranged employment, to receive a decision within six to 12 months compared with up to six years under the old system,” said Minister Kenney. “All other economic class applications—including applicants chosen by Quebec, provincial nominees, the Canadian Experience Class, and live-in caregivers—will continue to be given priority.”
All applications made before February 27, 2008, will be processed according to the rules that were in effect at that time.
CIC said that these changes “bring Canada in line with two of its main competitors for highly skilled labor: Australia and New Zealand. Both of these countries have eliminated their backlogs and have systems that deliver final decisions for economic applicants within a year.”

Canada plans to admit between 240,000 and 265,000 new permanent residents in 2009, Minister Kenney said, noting that the planned numbers are on par with last year and are among the highest for Canada during the past 15 years. The 2009 plan includes up to 156,600 immigrants in the economic category; 71,000 in the family category; and 37,400 in the humanitarian category.

Minister Kenney noted that “[t]he recent steps this Government has taken to improve our immigration system will help ensure that Canada remains competitive internationally and responsive to labour market needs domestically.” Critics, however, expressed concerns that the new emphasis on skilled workers would create two classes of immigrants and that less-skilled workers would be at a disadvantage, and that doubling the number of temporary workers would depress wages. “It’s bad for the Canadian economy and it’s bad for [the temporary workers], because they cannot bring in their families and often are open to exploitation and abuse,” said New Democrat Olivia Chow.

CIC has expanded its web site. The site now includes a section for employers and a new interactive tool that matches information provided by potential applicants with immigration programs.

The ministerial instructions
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/backgrounders/2008/2008-11-28a.asp

The notice announcing the instructions
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/backgrounders/2008/2008-11-28.asp

For more information on the new initiatives
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/releases/2008/2008-11-28.asp

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Previously, foreign religious workers were able to request an R-1 religious worker visa at a consular post without any previous stateside review of the religious organization or job offer. The final rule will require individuals seeking to enter the U.S. through the nonimmigrant religious worker program to provide a consular officer an approved Form I-129, Petition for Alien Worker. Stateside review of the petition will allow USCIS to verify that the petitioner and the job offer are legitimate before the State Department issues a visa and admits the religious worker to the U.S.

Among other things, the rule also reduces the initial period of admission for a nonimmigrant from three years to a period of up to 30 months. USCIS said this will allow it an earlier opportunity to review whether the terms of the visa have been met before extending the nonimmigrant religious worker’s stay in the U.S. Religious workers will be allowed one extension of up to an additional 30 months.

A questions-and-answers sheet is available as a PDF. A related fact sheet is available also as a PDF. A policy memorandum on handling non-minister special immigrant religious worker petitions affected by the October 1, 2008, sunset date is available here.

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The named plaintiffs are three migrant farmworkers. Eller and Sons Trees provides forest reforestation (tree planting) and forestry services such as brush clearing, boundary marking, and chemical spraying. Most of its employees are engaged in tree planting, predominantly in the southern U.S. during the months of December, January, and February. Eller and Sons Trees cannot find enough employees in the U.S. to perform the work, the decision noted. As a result, most of the workers come from outside the U.S., with the vast majority coming from Guatemala, and others coming from Mexico, Honduras, and Colombia. Eller and Sons Trees obtains temporary seasonal employees through the H-2B visa program.

The guestworkers were represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), and the Legal Aid Justice Center of Virginia is serving as co-counsel. The SPLC said it now must prove how much money is owed to the workers. “This is a great victory for these forestry workers,” said Mary Bauer, director of the SPLC’s Immigrant Justice Project. “For too long this industry has seen guestworkers as a disposable workforce to be used, abused and thrown away. This decision is a signal that those days are coming to an end.”

According to the SPLC, the court also found that the representations an employer makes to the government on H-2B visa applications, such as the total number of hours the employees will work per week, can be enforced by the workers even if they are unaware of what the employer reported to the government. This finding would hold an employer liable for a 40-hour work week promised on its application to federal government, even if the employer never made such an agreement with its workers, the SPLC noted. The judge in this case found that an employer cannot drive a worker’s pay below the minimum wage rate by deducting expenses for things that primarily benefit the employer. The court also found that the prevailing wage rate for the area, rather than the lower minimum wage rate, is protected from such deductions under this principle. The SPLC said that this is the first time such a decision has been reached in a contested case.

The judge found that the costs of passports, visas, and other travel costs not only drove the workers’ pay below the protected rate level but resulted in workers having “negative incomes” in their first week of work. The judge awarded $53,890 to the case’s plaintiffs for expenses that were not reimbursed during their first work week, citing the Fair Labor Standards Act. The SPLC believes that damages for the rest of the class, which the organization expects number into the thousands of workers, may reach into the millions of dollars.

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