With Donald Trump’s new immigration policies, there has been a slump in the tourist inflow to the US, especially when it comes to the Canadian population. His crackdown on foreign populations reeking of a white supremacist agenda hasn’t gone down very well with people looking for an opportunity to travel to the US, as many of them are now rethinking their decision to do so.
On the contrary, there has been an increased buzz among Americans to move to Canada, with more and more people browsing the internet to look for one-way flights to Canada. The newly found aversion seems to affect more women than men, as the percentage of women unwilling to travel to the US is 52% while that of men is 37%.
According to Henry Harteveldt, former marketing director for Trump’s airline- Trump Shuttle, who presently runs the Atmosphere Research Group and specializes in analyzing U.S. travel trends, sees it as more than negative sentiment. Trump’s hurtful comments directed at women and people of color surely have their part to play. Still, it is the high rate of hate crimes, reports of swastikas painted all over the country and the rise of neo-nazism and white supremacy that seem to do the maximum damage. The Canada-America relationship has been harmed severely.
It is going to hurt the US economy that thrives on tourism. Canadians make up the largest inbound travel market in the US, with 20.7 million visits in 2015 – a 10-per-cent loss due to currency declines from 2014 and a further decrease ever since Trump’s appointment. An average of 5000 US dollars per foreign national is gained by the US economy, which seems to suffer greatly. Even countries like Canada, for whom the US is an affordable and accessible destination, are seeming to withdraw their inclinations to travel here.
This comes at a time when international students will find it easier to stay in Canada.
Foreign Students Will Love Canada’s Friendly Immigration Policy
Research students wanting to study in Canada can now heave a sigh of relief as the Canadian government has made changes to its existing immigration policy to allow more international students to apply for permanent residency. The margin of increase has been reported to be 1/3rd.
The proposed changes will affect the scoring protocol for selecting these candidates. They will award lower scores to candidates with job offers and more points to candidates who are international citizens and have completed their post-secondary education in Canada.
According to John McCallum, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, the international students who have studied in a Canadian post-secondary institution will be given a score of 15 points after completion of a one-year or two-year program. They will receive 30 points after completion of degree courses at the undergraduate or postgraduate level. At the same time, those students who have a job offer in their kitty will receive points ranging from 50 to 200 depending on their job designations and will not be awarded the 600 points given to them currently.
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These new developments are a part of Canada’s Express Entry program, which awards permanent residency to students by a standardized scoring system. Candidates are awarded a maximum of 1200 points, and the highest-scoringg candidates are selected. McCallum has also stated that the immigration department carried out simulations based on these changes. These simulations revealed that 30% of the applicants receiving an invitation for the Express Entry are international students, and the current changes will enable this figure to jump to 40%.
This is being done to balance out the system and level the paying field while making it easier for highly skilled candidates with good language skills to apply for permanent residency even if they don’t have any job offers.
This is good news for research scholars as they can now easily set their foot in Canada.