bout de papier, Vol. 29, No. 4 (2016), pp. 41–42
CANADA’S IMMIGRATION OFFICERS DECIDE WHO GETS IN, by Vic Satzewich, University of Toronto Press, 2015, 305 pp, $32.95 paper
How do Foreign Service Officers at the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) make decisions on immigration applications? This is the question that Vic Satzewich seeks to answer in his recent book Points of Entry: How Canada’s Immigration Officers Decide Who Gets In. The result is an insightful read for persons familiar with immigration processing as well as for those who have never been inside a Canadian visa office.
For an outsider, the book contains valuable information on visa offices’ procedures. Satzewich’s research is based on visits he made to eleven Canadian visa offices abroad from 2010 to 2012. While on these visits, he interviewed 76 Canada- Based Officers and 58 Locally Engaged Staff. He also observed 42 interviews with visa applicants and became familiar with general office practices and standards. This extensive research allowed him to provide a clear explanation of organisational procedures along with descriptive examples that demonstrate how immigration officers assess applications.
Satzewich’s study discusses nearly all aspects of immigration processing. When he first proposed this study, Satzewich wanted to understand how substituted evaluation was used when assessing Federal Skilled Worker immigration applications. (This is when an immigration officer chooses to substitute the points accorded to an immigration applicant with a different assessment when the points are an inaccurate characterization of the person’s ability to become economically established in Canada.) However, as his study progressed his focus expanded. The book includes chapters on spousal sponsorships, economic immigration, and visitor visas. Other chapters convey how immigration interviews are conducted, different offices, and describe the structure of visa offices with particular attention to personnel. He also includes an overview of academic literature on discretionary decision making and the development and implementation of immigration policy.
The experienced immigration officer will find the book perceptive, but will be disappointed by some of the errors. Satzewich explains that he was not permitted to record any of the interviews he conducted with staff. Rather, he relied on notes taken on paper during his visits to offices. This may be the reason for some of the inaccuracies, which include misstating the length of training for local officers, incorrectly describing appeal procedures for visitor visas, and terminological errors
The book includes chapters on
spousal sponsorships, economic immigration, and visitor visas. Other
chapters convey how immigration interviews are conducted, discuss approval and refusal rates between different offices, and describe the
structure of visa offices with
particular attention to personnel.
including overlooking the difference between a ’permit’ and a ’visa’ Furthermore, certain sections of the book are now out of date with the introduction of Express Entry (a new system to manage how people with skilled work experience apply to immigrate to Canada) and revision of other immigration policies such as updates to the list of countries requiring temporary resident visas.
These errors do not diminish the strength and insight found in the book. Two insights are particularly valuable.
First, the descriptions of how decisions are taken illuminates the factors that affect the outcome on each visa application. Noting that visa decisions are assessments of credibility and risk, Satzewich identifies macro-, meso-, and micro-level factors that detecting fraud or refusing certain cases: he notes that approving cases takes less time and effort. Micro-level factors include the individual experiences and perspectives of immigration officers as well as their direct interaction with visa applicants or – more frequently – the documents submitted by these applicants. At both the meso- and micro- level, Satzewich notes that immigration officers and managers vary in their approaches as either ’facilitative’ or ’enforcement-minded.’
Second, Satzewich’s research notes the consequences of reducing client interaction during immigration processing. He characterizes IRCC as “a truly nameless and taceless bureaucracy” and states there is a “firewall” between applicants and officers. The barriers applicants face in contacting visa offices has increased with the outsourcing of certain tasks to Visa Application Centres and centralization of intake of other applications in Canada. While many cases were interviewed in the past, Satzewich notes that all types of face-to-face interaction at visa offices with clients are increasingly rare. Satzewich is clear: the decrease in interviews or in-person service is driven by financial constraints as well as an effort to waive unnecessary interviews. While he notes that some of this shift s reasonable, he states that the trend “is somewhat disconcerting”. In particular, le expresses concerns about losing the Ibility to counsel new immigrants, notes how eliminating interviews decreases the personalized assessment given to each application, and recounts how Foreign Service Officers identify reduced client interaction as a contributing factor to job dissatisfaction and employee turnover. He also states that never meeting “good” applicants causes officers to operate in “an atmosphere of distrust” which reduces the quality of decision making.
Satzewich’s clear prose and astute observations make this book worth reading. His analysis provokes reflection on how decisions are made on immigration files. As the government pursues its modernization agenda focused on streamlining immigration processing, his concerns about how current and future policy changes impact client service and the quality of decisions must be heeded by officers and managers alike.
Ian Van Haren joined IRCC as a Foreign Service Officer in 2009 and is currently First Secretary (Immigration) in Pretoria, South Africa. He has previously been posted in London and Beirut. He did not have the fortune of meeting Vic Satzewich during his study of immigration offices abroad.
RBC Dominion Securities Inc. Grow & Protect Your Wealth
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 29, No. 4 (2016), pp. 41–42. Read the rest of this issue →
