In the past decade, Canada has further institutionalized a ‘two-step’ immigrant selection process, whereby more than half of all new permanent residents are selected from a growing number of temporary residents living in Canada. Applying for permanent residence within Canada, however, requires people to demonstrate their “legibility” (i.e., official recognition) to the state as both eligible and admissible as permanent residence, while also contending with the complex and ever-changing laws, regulations, and bureaucratic processes that shape their experience as immigrants with a precarious status in Canada.
To gain a deeper understanding of complex challenges faced by immigrants who seek permanent residence in Canada, we developed an analytical framework (Larios, et al, in press) for exploring the dynamic, unpredictable, and dialectic relationships among state-centric immigration categories, state bureaucracies (e.g., immigration, labor market, education, health care), and immigrants’ informal and formal networks. Through two case studies, we also shed light on the hidden forms of legal and bureaucratic violence experienced by migrants within Canada’s two-step immigration system.
To gain a deeper understanding of complex challenges faced by immigrants who seek permanent residence in Canada, we developed an analytical framework (Larios, et al, in press) for exploring the dynamic, unpredictable, and dialectic relationships among state-centric immigration categories, state bureaucracies (e.g., immigration, labor market, education, health care), and immigrants’ informal and formal networks. Through two case studies, we also shed light on the hidden forms of legal and bureaucratic violence experienced by migrants within Canada’s two-step immigration system.
For the secondary qualitative analysis, we analyzed 42 qualitative interviews from eight studies. These interviews, conducted between 2010 and 2020, focussed on a range of topics including precarious employment, gender inequality, settlement experiences and pregnancy. In a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (Schmidt, et al, in press), we examine the administrative burden that migrants with precarious status encounter in their interactions with state immigration bureaucracies as they try to attain permanent residence through economic programs. Among a subsample of 20 immigrants living in the Ontario, Alberta and Quebec, participants describe the stressful life consequences resulting from confusing and opaque administrative processes, unpredictable wait times, costly application fees, bureaucratic errors, and a lack of accountability. We theorize how such experiences of administrative burden can prolong migrant precarity, exacerbating the legal violence inherent in state immigration categories which deny full social rights to migrants without permanent residence.
As our collaborative research was deeply shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic, we are also writing a reflexive methodological paper to discuss the ethical, methodological, and practical challenges of engaging in secondary qualitative data analysis, while also noting the potential for collaborative, “slow scholarship” to foster community resilience among academic researchers.
This study is co-led by Rupaleem Bhuyan and Jill Hanley, with Heather Bergen, Oula Hajjar, Lindsay Larios, Delphine Nakache, Margarita Pintin-Perez, Cathy Schmidt, and Sonia Ben Soltane.
- Bhuyan, R. and Leung, V.* (2022). Framing Migrant Resilience as a Civic Responsibility: A Case Study of Municipal and Provincial Immigrant Integration Policies in Toronto, Ontario. British Journal of Social Work. 52(2), 796-815.
- Bhuyan, R. (2022). Coloniality of Bordering and Belonging: Deconstructing everyday symbolic and structural violence of migrant “illegality” and reimagining belonging in decolonial futures [Roundtable Chair and Participant]. Global Meeting on Law and Society. July 13, 2022. Lisbon, Portugal.
- Bordering non-citizenship assemblage through migrant legibility: A conceptual framework for tracing hidden forms of legal and bureaucratic violence
- Frontiérisation de l’assemblage non citoyen par la lisibilité migrante : Cadre conceptuel pour repérer les formes cachées de violence légale et bureaucratique
- Ups and Downs in Immigration Status: Factors influencing transitions for precarious status migrants
- Hanley, J. (2024, April). Interview with Joe Buongiorno in “Canada is scaling back temporary foreign workers. Critics say the program needs an overhaul”. CBC News. April 30, 2024.
- Hanley, J., *Hassan, M., *Al Mhamied, A., Guruge, S., *Hajjar, O., Hynie, M., *Jamil, R., *Razavipour, E. (forthcoming). Resettlement of Older Syrian Refugees in Canada: Key Individual Factors of Social Inclusion. Refuge.
- Brotman, S., *Simard, J., Hanley, J., Raymond, É., & Delgado, P. (2023). Les personnes âgées immigrantes et leurs proches à Montréal: des vies oubliées durant la pandémie. Canadian Journal on Aging/La Revue canadienne du vieillissement, 42(1), 177-183.
- *Schmidt, C., Bergen, H., *Hajjar, O., Larios, L., Nakache5, D., Bhuyan, R., & Hanley, J. (2023). Navigating bureaucratic violence in Canada’s two-step immigration system. Journal of ethnic and migration studies, 1-2.
- Hanley, J., *Al Mhamied, A., Cleveland, J., *Hajjar, O., Hassan, G., Ives, N., *Khyar, R., Hynie, M. (2018). The Social Networks, Social Support and Social Capital of Syrian Refugees Sponsored to Settle in Montreal: Indications from their early experiences of integration. Canadian Ethnic Studies 50(2): 123-149.
- Hanley, J., *Salamanca Cardona, *Larios, *Henaway, *Dwaikat Shaer, *Ben Soltane, Eid. (2018). Transportation and Temp Agency Work: Risks and Opportunities for Migrant Workers. Cahiers du géographie québécois 62(177):1-14.
- Hanley, J., *Hajjar, *Al Mhamied, Cleveland, Hassan, Ives, *Khyar. (March 2018). What do we know so far? Resettlement of Syrians in Quebec: central city versus suburban experiences. Metropolis Conference, 21-24 March 2018, Calgary, AB.
- Lairos, L., Bhuyan, R., Schmidt, C., Bergen, H., (In press). The Structural Violence of Everyday Bordering: Legal and Bureaucratic Exclusions for Immigrants with Precarious Status in Canada. International Journal of Migration and Border Studies. Accepted February 26, 2023.
