Migrants advocates step up push for regularization

Migrants advocates step up push for regularization

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada Minister Marc Miller

May 27, 2024

By Veronica C. Silva

LJI Reporter

The Philippine Reporter

Migrant advocacy groups and their supporters are stepping up efforts to press Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to announce its promised update on a program that is expected to regularize thousands of undocumented in Canada.

In Ottawa, Ont. on May 27, more than 500 groups, led by Migrants Rights Network (MRN), a migrant-led coalition advocating for status for all undocumented and temporary residents, reminded Prime Minister Justine Trudeau of his government’s commitment to regularization as embodied in a mandate letter in 2021 to then Immigration Minister Sean Fraser.

The mandate calls on Fraser to “to further explore ways of regularizing status for undocumented workers who are contributing to Canadian communities.”

In October 2023, now IRCC Minister Marc Miller, when asked for an update on the mandate letter, told The Philippine Reporter that he was “still looking into it” as he was consulting settlement organizations. 

“I’m hopefully trying to put together something I can talk to Cabinet about in the mid- to late-spring. I know people are impatient to see it, but we need to put something forward that makes sense, that works, that deals with another number of competing policies,” he said.

He added that one of the questions is “how broad and how inclusive” regularization will look like. “We’re looking at pathways to regularise in other areas — whether it’s in the construction industry — but also a broader policy that will address a problem that we had.”  He continued that one of the questions is exactly how many undocumented are involved.

“We’re having some challenges quantifying whether it’s [the number of undocumented] 200,000, 300,000, 400,000, and this will be inevitably a discussion that Canadians will want to have an opinion about,” he said.

Canada estimates that the undocumented are between 200,000 to 500,000.

TPR was able to speak to Miller at the Filipino professionals’ convention in Vaughn, Ont. on Oct.27, 2023 where he said the Philippines is one of the top source countries for international students aside from immigrants.

In an interview with The Globe & Mail on Dec. 14, 2023, Miller said Canada is looking at a “broad and comprehensive program.”

Now that it is spring and with Parliament due to go on recess in early June, advocacy groups are stepping up actions to remind Miller to hold him to his word.

Summer officially starts on June 20.

“We are in the final stretch [of the regularization campaign],” said Sarom Rho, a co-ordinator for Migrant Students United, a member of Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, which is a member of MRN. Rho spoke last May 4 at the launch of the Filipino International Students Network in Toronto, Ont. “We are calling for these ministers [members of Cabinet] to meet and pass broad and inclusive program [on regularization].”

There are also some international students who have become undocumented because their permits have expired.

Groups that support the call for regularization include those other than in the immigrant and refugee sector. They include organizations in labour, faith, climate change, civil society, health, and legal. In the Filipino community, Migrante Ontario, Migrante Manitoba, Gabriela Ontario, Migrants Resouce Centre Canada, PINAY Quebec, are some of the organizations supporting status for all.