“Canada is certainly trying to make it more challenging for asylum seekers to seek refuge. Canada in the recent past has done a lot to make itself less attractive. To what extent will that play a role in possible demand? It’s hard to say at the moment.” www.thestar.com/news/gta/afg...

Interim injunction in place to halt the province fm enforcing minimum 2-year high school requirement till court decides if it's constitutional. International medical grads still eligible to apply for Ontario residency under old criteria until 5 pm Dec. 8. www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

“Maybe it’s just because of the bureaucracies or maybe it’s politics...I don’t know. But why are refugees being processed faster in other regions (than Africa)?” www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

In 2026, Ontario will receive 104,780 applications with a target of 70,074 actual study permits issued + yet-unknown share of 49,000 master’s & PhD student spots. In 2025, it got 149,011 study permit applications, with extra 32,579 for graduate students. www.thestar.com/news/gta/int...

Bill C-12 amended to prevent anyone subject to a removal order from accessing federal social services beyond emergency medical care & require requiring annual reporting on the types of benefits provided to asylum seekers and the cost of those benefits. www.thestar.com/politics/fed...

In a rare move, American faith groups have sent an open letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney, urging him to rethink Canada’s proposed changes to asylum rules they say have “disturbing” parallels with restrictions south of the border. www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

It took multiple bus rides over two days for Barbara Ngwenya to get to the Canadian embassy in South Africa from her village in Botswana to submit her fingerprints for a visitor visa application. At 67, she said that was just the start. www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

As of August, permanent residence application processing for a protected person's overseas dependants took 50 months. Plus 37 months for the parent’s flight to Canada, wait for refugee hearing and decision = 87 months in reunification, class action claims www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

“The Policy imposes a significant and direct barrier to residency access...creates a disparate discriminatory impact tied to national origin or immigration status, disproportionately affecting international medical graduates": injunction application www.thestar.com/news/ontario...

IRCC is going to cap on PSR (private sponsorship of refugees: Canada Gazette. The number of new sponsorship applications that will be accepted for processing is set at zero for 2026. gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p1/202...

Proposed removing failed refugees' federal social benefits; banning claims fm G7/EU countries; requiring educational institutions to share cost of asylum claims by international students. A critic says these ideas are based on misleading or false rhetoric www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

Affected OINP applicants are asking the Ontario government to assess their applications and interview them in person to weed out fraudulent cases rather than punish everyone, including the genuine ones who follow the rules and law by the book. www.thestar.com/politics/pro...

@utoronto.ca,esp Rotman Business School,must find jobs for alumni& have less brutal curricula for students—both rooted in dignity & health. #UofT & Mellody Hobson’s Princeton U get repaid 1000+% when they invest in students & alumni. @thestar.com’s @nicholaskeung.bsky.social does impt reporting.

The Senate’s passage of Bill C-3 on Wednesday marked another milestone in the years-long battle by "lost Canadians" to change citizenship-by-descent rules, and will proceed to royal assent to be law. Yet, fight will continue for another group. www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

With Canada and top international student destinations curtailing intakes, emerging markets are filling the gaps, offering students more options. Non-Anglophone countries have stepped up & invested in their international education programs to draw talent www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

Bill C-3 passed third reading in Parliament by a vote of 177 to 163, with the support of Green Leader Elizabeth May and all seven New Democrat MPs. www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

From more cut to international students to humanitarian programs for Ukrainians & Hong Kongers, overall PR levels, fast-tracking PRs for protected persons and the need for a broader regularization plan, here's Marc Miller's take on new immigration plan www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

A federal funding reduction of $107 million, as first reported by the Star, is the equivalent of losing approximately 1,800 shelter beds in a system that currently houses more than 3,500 refugees — about 40 per cent of the people in the shelter system. www.thestar.com/news/gta/ott...

With the size of the pie shrinking and processing resources at capacity, officials must scramble to add spaces to some programs at the expense of others. An appendix to the new immigration plan sheds light on the winners and losers in the numbers game. www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

“It’s through immigration that you bring in skilled people who are going to build...This plan is a giant hole in what appears to be a nation-building budget. It’s going totally the opposite direction. I think it’s more about responding to opinion polls." www.thestar.com/politics/fed...

What's supposed to be temporary stay has turned into indefinite displacement w/no end in sight to conflicts & little chances of acquiring PR. How to manage temporary guests who Canada has declared a moral obligation to help remains a challenge for Ottawa. www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

“It does show how much Trudeau affected people’s perceptions. Now that he’s gone & the government has continued to follow through on that more restrictive immigration policy, they’ve kind of returned to more of a normal place.” www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

“If you keep talking about massage parlours & substandard education, diploma mills…all of that language undermines the perceived quality of a country whose education system continues 2B world-class in quality." Here's how DLIs want to change the narrative www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

A Liberal government source with knowledge of the situation and not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, said they still don’t know whether the full immigration levels plan will be in the budget, or a partial version of it. www.thestar.com/politics/fed...

An update to Canada's plan to allow new citizen self-attestation of citizenship oath by a mouse on keyboard - and the almost decade-old project to update an outdated citizenship study guide www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

A termination package included a $250 payment to assist with “transition to new employment,” contingent on, among other things, a “non-disparagement” clause, i.e. workers must “agree not to make, disseminate/publish any statement critical of the Company." www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

Some immigration programs are seeing eye-popping surges in new application processing times, exceeding 10 yrs. Critics question timing of the updates amid debates of new laws to manage immigration intakes & release of 2026-2028 admission targets www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

While Poilievre has vowed since last spring to end “woke ideology” in the public service, this is the first time since that he’s mentioned diversity and inclusion specifically. It’s a move that comes as DEI programming comes under fire worldwide. www.thestar.com/politics/fed...

“Today this division is the largest yet recorded, and immigration appears to be one of the defining issues of party affiliation.” Here's how CPC, Lib, NDP and BQ supporters differ in views on immigration levels and admissions of minority groups: www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

About 60% of family medicine residency positions in Ontario medical schools were filled by international medical graduates. New requirement will lead to a significant drop in the #s of applicants eligible for the first round, going from about 1,200 to 200. www.thestar.com/news/ontario...

“We came as immigrants and didn’t go to high school here. I can’t travel back in time to meet that requirement. What’s the relevance between where you go to high school and your qualifications for residency? This is blatant discrimination.” www.thestar.com/news/ontario...

‘Discriminatory and devastating’: New Ontario rule for medical residency that would exclude most immigrant physicians sparks outrage, by @nicholaskeung.bsky.social www.thestar.com/news/ontario... via @thestar.com

At parliamentary committee, John Tibbits was grilled by MPs on everything from Conestoga College’s budget surpluses to his $600,000 salary, students in “slumlord housing” & living off food banks, and the time he called another college president “a whore.” www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

Estefania, a migrant worker from Mexico, will not see a cent of the $1 million fine Ottawa issued against her former employer, Bolero Shellfish Processing Inc., for violating the temporary foreign worker program, according to the Immigration Department www.thestar.com/news/gta/can...

MPs on immigration committee have inserted into Bill C-3 language and knowledge requirements, as well as security checks for foreign-born descendants of Canadian parents who were also born abroad. 1,095-day residency has to be consecutive over 5 years www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

Hundreds of civil society groups and the NDP have opposed most of Bill C-2’s new provisions and called for its withdrawal, while the Conservatives and Bloc appeared open to the immigration changes. www.thestar.com/politics/fed...

Experts are seeing more security screening referrals even PR/TR applicants haven't served in military/law enforcement, worked for foreign govt or belonged to groups. Some think it's related to geopolitics & is an attempt to slow immigration processing www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

Desperate US firms could take advantage of CUSMA to poach talent to their north to fill gaps. Weighted H1B lottery would also mean int'l grads & junior skilled workers would less likely be selected. The cohort could be direct competition to Canadian grads www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

“We’ve heard concerns that Bill C-3 could mean hundreds of thousands of new citizens,. Based on that evidence, we anticipate volumes in the tens of thousands over time and we do not expect any surge.” www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

Under new PGWP rules, 30% fewer postgrad work permits for international students. In first 6 months of 2025, PGWPs going to colleges up at expense of undergrads from universities. Postgrad PGWPs steady. Share of PGWPs to biz/management programs also up www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

This unique StatCan study tracks the outcomes of those temporary residents already in Canada as they navigated Canada’s immigration labyrinth to extend permits, acquire permanent residence and in some cases, end up losing valid status. Here's what it found www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

Thanks for your reporting, @nicholaskeung.bsky.social. Canada must integrate its talent, including w/ fair living wages in dignified work. May leaders like ex Gov Gen’l Michaele Jean & PM @markcarneyforpm.bsky.social and orgs like @utoronto.ca be part of implementing this national self-interest.

About one-quarter of immigrants who came to Canada intending to work as nurses were unemployed or in lower-skilled jobs in 2021 despite a chronic shortage of health-care workers. www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

Canada’s median age — the age that divides the population into equal halves — increased from 40.3 years on July 1, 2024, to 40.6 years on July 1, 2025, while the average age rose from 41.6 years to 41.8 years. www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

Canada rose to 2nd place among six top countries for students who intended to study abroad as an “open, safe & welcoming” place, from 4th place. It jumped one spot, ranked the 2nd “most attractive” international education destination, just behind the U.K. www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

That was the amount of time Officer AH11413 spent b4 approving an application to voluntarily surrender Li’s status — without noticing it had been fraudulently filed by someone else. "What happened to Sam could happen to almost any perm resident in Canada.” www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

With the last province ending its contract w/Ottawa this week, no more immigration detainees are held in provincial jails, fulfilling recommendations by inquest jury into migrant death in custody. Immigration detention is now a full federal responsibility www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

He has cared for Canadian patients & struggled to get perm residence for 2 years despite Ottawa’s effort to attract health-care professionals to immigrate to the country. At 49, his age works against him. New rule removing points for job offer doesn't help www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

Toronto police arrested Fenilkumar Kantilal Patel on extradition warrant issued by the United States, alleging the Brampton man helped co-ordinate the Canadian arm of the smuggling operation that led to the 2022 deaths of an Indian family of 4 near Emerson www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

Despite all her clients applying within a month of the Gaza special program opening, none were given the chance to complete their applications, because their codes never arrived. Now, each's been told the program had reached its cap and had closed. www.thestar.com/news/canada/...