I was curious about the differences between American and Canadian immigration systems. After 2016 US elections, we hear a lot about those differences, but I could not find a good source with actual numbers compared. Let's do it here. As usual, here is the Google Docs spreadsheet with all relevant data. As usual, all charts below are interactive, just move your mouse over the line or the legend item.
Let's start with the simplest part - total population numbers provided by Wikipedia:
No surprises here - these countries are economically and culturally close, so population growth patterns are similar.
Let's have a look at natural population growth numbers pulled from UNDESA (UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs) and The World Bank:
Here we have an indication that, since early nineties, natural population growth in Canada is slower than in US. How does Canada keep its total population growth rate on par with its neighbor down South? Immigration may be the answer. The following chart shows the number of new permanent residents per year for both countries:
The PR numbers are available for both countries and can be easily compared. Now to the most challenging part: temporary workers and refugees. I decided to focus on temporary resident entry statistics - this data is better structured for both countries. Alternative approach - counting temporary residents who are actually present in the country at the specific date of the year - looked less transparent to me.
For the US, I counted in CW,E,F,GH,I,J,K,L,M,O,S,TN,TD,T,U,V visa holders, putting aside all "visitor" visas like B,C,D,NATO etc. I also did not count Border Crossing Cards. Below is the full list of the US non-immigrant visa types:
| Visa type | Included | Description |
|---|---|---|
| A | Foreign Government Official | |
| B-1 | Temporary Visitor for Business | |
| B-1/B-2 | Temporary Visitor for Business and Pleasure | |
| B1/B2/BCC | Combination B1/B2 and Border Crossing Card | |
| B-2 | Temporary Visitor for Pleasure | |
| C | Transit | |
| C-1/D | Combination Transit/Crew Member | |
| CW | Y | Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands Transitional Worker or Investor |
| D | Crew Member | |
| E | Y | Treaty Trader or Investor |
| F | Y | Student |
| G | Y | Representative/Staff of International Organization |
| H | Y | Temporary Worker and Trainee (H-2A seasonal agriculture, H-2B - seasonal non-agriculture) |
| I | Y | Representative of Foreign Information Media |
| J | Y | Exchange Visitor |
| K | Y | Fiance(e) of U.S. Citizen |
| L | Y | Intracompany Transferee |
| M | Y | Vocational Student |
| N | Y | Certain Relatives of SK Special immigrants |
| NAFTA | Y | NAFTA Professional |
| NATO | NATO Official | |
| O | Y | Person With Extraordinary Ability in the Sciences,Arts, Education, Business, or Athletics |
| P | Athlete, Artist or Entertainer | |
| Q | International Cultural Exchange Program Participant | |
| R | Person in a Religious Occupation | |
| S | Y | Informant Possessing Information on Criminal Activity or Terrorism |
| T | Y | Victim of Severe Form of Trafficking in Persons |
| U | Y | Victim of Criminal Activity |
| V | Y | Nonimmigrant visa created to allow families to stay together while waiting for the processing of immigrant visas (https://www.uscis.gov/family/family-green-card-holders-permanent-residents/v-visa/v-nonimmigrant-visas) |
For Canada, I included all temporary residents that entered the country via IMO (International Mobility) program and TFWP (Temporary Foreign Worker) program. All IMO and TFWP sub-statuses were used in the calculation. Those sub-statuses correlate with the choices I made in the US visa type list above.
Refugee entries were easy to count. Unfortunately, the data is limited to 1997-2014 for US and 2005-2014 for Canada. I have combined PR, temporary workers and refugees numbers in the same chart.
Lessons learned:
- temporary workers and refugees numbers are hard to find compared to PR statistics;
- Canada relies heavily on permanent immigrants and temporary workers;
- for both countries, the number of refugees arriving each year is much smaller than the number of new PRs and temporary workers and students.
Tools used: Microsoft Excel, charte.ca online chart editor
Sources:
- US population - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States
- Canada population - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Canada
- Natural increase: UNDESA - https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/dataquery/
- Fertility rate: The World Bank - http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN
- US new permanent residents: Department of Homeland Security - https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Yearbook_Immigration_Statistics_2012.pdf
- Canada new permanent residents: Government of Canada - http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/statistics/facts2014/permanent/index.asp#figure1
- US non-resident visa entries: US Department of state - https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/AnnualReports/FY2015AnnualReport/FY15AnnualReport-TableXVIA.pdf
- Canada IMO and TFWP entries: Government of Canada - http://www.edsc.gc.ca/eng/jobs/foreign_workers/reform/index.shtml
- US refugee arrivals: Refugee Processing Center - http://www.wrapsnet.org/archives/
- Canada refugee arrivals: Citizenship and Immigration Canada (published by CBC news) - http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-s-refugees-by-the-numbers-the-data-1.3240640
Also, there is an excellent 2012 paper by Magali Barbieri and Nadine Ouellette: The Demography of Canada and the United States from the 1980s to the 2000s A Summary of Changes and a Statistical Assessment, although I did not use any numbers from it.
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