Nicholas Keung
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nicholaskeung.bsky.social
Nicholas Keung
@nicholaskeung.bsky.social
43 followers 11 following 130 posts
Immigration Reporter at the Toronto Star. Can be reached at [email protected].
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nicholaskeung.bsky.social
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...
Here’s how much the cuts to Canada’s international students have hurt Ontario colleges and universities
New post-secondary figures obtained by the Star reveal massive revenue losses, expected to get worse with the latest federal cuts to foreign students.
www.thestar.com
November 27, 2025 at 6:32 PM
nicholaskeung.bsky.social
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...
Committee MPs amend border bill to restrict health, other benefits to deportees
OTTAWA - MPs on the House of Commons national security committee have amended the government's border security bill, C-12, to restrict the benefits people subject to removal orders can access.
www.thestar.com
November 27, 2025 at 6:27 PM
nicholaskeung.bsky.social
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/...
Here’s why U.S. faith groups say they’re disturbed by Canada’s border security bill
In a rare move, the groups have sent an open letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney, urging him to rethink proposed restrictions on asylum rules.
www.thestar.com
November 27, 2025 at 6:24 PM
nicholaskeung.bsky.social
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/...
600 days and counting: Why this woman is stuck waiting to visit her grandkids in Canada
Long trip from Botswana to a Canadian embassy was just the start of a process that has yielded few answers — and was originally expected to take weeks.
www.thestar.com
November 27, 2025 at 6:22 PM
nicholaskeung.bsky.social
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/...
This Canadian immigrant says he was traumatized by five years of separation from his family. He has launched a lawsuit against the government
Proposed class action claims that through discrimination, Canada is infringing on protected persons’ rights to prompt family reunification.
www.thestar.com
November 25, 2025 at 2:50 PM
nicholaskeung.bsky.social
“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...
Injunction sought over Ontario’s international medical graduate residency rule — called ‘unlawful, unreasonable, unintelligible’
The rule requires candidates to have at least two years of high school in Ontario to be in the first round of matching for medical placements.
www.thestar.com
November 25, 2025 at 2:45 PM
nicholaskeung.bsky.social
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...
Canada Gazette, Part 1, Volume 159, Number 47: GOVERNMENT NOTICES
November 22, 2025, Part 1, Volume 159, Number 47, Canada Gazette
gazette.gc.ca
November 21, 2025 at 7:25 PM
nicholaskeung.bsky.social
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/...
Conservatives to propose adding stricter rules for asylum claimants, faster deportations in new bill
The proposed changes include removing failed refugee claimants’ access to all federal social benefits beyond emergency health care.
www.thestar.com
November 21, 2025 at 3:11 PM
nicholaskeung.bsky.social
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...
Ontario suspends skilled trades program over fraud concerns
The provincial government has suspended the skilled trades stream of Ontario's economic immigration program over concerns of "systemic misrepresentation and/or fraud."
www.thestar.com
November 20, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Nicholas Keung
worldpeaceforyou.bsky.social
@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.
November 19, 2025 at 1:14 AM
nicholaskeung.bsky.social
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/...
A new battle looms over ‘citizenship-by-descent’ after Senate clears bill
Senator urges further study and possible reforms to ensure all intercountry adoptees are treated “equivalently” to Canadian-born adopted children.
www.thestar.com
November 20, 2025 at 2:51 PM
nicholaskeung.bsky.social
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/...
Canada is losing international students to other countries. Here’s where they’re going instead — and why
New destinations are taking the place of traditional anglophone markets, says a new report by ApplyBoard on global trends.
www.thestar.com
November 19, 2025 at 7:16 PM
nicholaskeung.bsky.social
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/...
Carney’s Liberals, NDP ensure ‘citizenship-by-descent’ bill passes third reading, undoing opposition changes
Amendments made by the opposition Conservatives and Bloc Québécois would have restricted the passage of citizenship.
www.thestar.com
November 7, 2025 at 2:02 PM
nicholaskeung.bsky.social
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/...
This Trudeau minister kickstarted Canada’s immigration cuts. Here’s what he thinks about Carney’s new plan
The minister was tapped in 2023 by then prime minister Justin Trudeau to rein in rapid immigration growth amid a public outcry.
www.thestar.com
November 7, 2025 at 1:59 PM
nicholaskeung.bsky.social
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...
Ottawa’s funding cuts will force refugee claimants out of shelters and on to city streets, watchdog warns
A letter from the city’s ombudsman on Wednesday warns the federal government that a $107 million funding cut is the equivalent of losing approximately 1,800 shelter beds.
www.thestar.com
November 7, 2025 at 12:10 AM
nicholaskeung.bsky.social
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/...
Carney government’s new immigration plan: Who wins, and who is losing out
On Wednesday, the Immigration Department released the breakdown of the 2026-28 targets for individual permanent and temporary residence programs.
www.thestar.com
November 6, 2025 at 2:53 PM
nicholaskeung.bsky.social
“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...
Canada will reduce international student permits by more than half, budget reveals
“The new study permit caps further erode Canada’s reputation,” said one critic of Ottawa’s plan to next year limit new international student permits to 150,000 from a previous target of 305,900.
www.thestar.com
November 5, 2025 at 2:33 PM
nicholaskeung.bsky.social
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/...
Immigration cuts leave Ukrainians, Hong Kongers in Canada with little chance of permanent residence
Ottawa has given shelter to different groups as temporary residents through various humanitarian public policies. But cuts have left many in limbo.
www.thestar.com
November 4, 2025 at 2:10 PM
nicholaskeung.bsky.social
“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/...
Majority of Canadians say immigration level still too high, but confidence growing in Carney fixing ‘broken’ system: Poll
Overall, 38% of Canadians favoured the Conservatives to stickhandle this issue, compared to 29% for the Liberals, an Abacus Data survey found.
www.thestar.com
November 3, 2025 at 3:24 PM
nicholaskeung.bsky.social
“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/...
Canada’s education sector has a new idea to lure international students back. Here’s what it is
Canadian Bureau for International Education is leading an effort to try to save Canada’s reputation as a top destination in the face of drastic cuts.
www.thestar.com
October 31, 2025 at 2:35 PM
nicholaskeung.bsky.social
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...
Federal officials are not sure when immigration levels plan is coming
OTTAWA - Immigration department officials do not know if Prime Minister Mark Carney's promise to include Canada's new immigration plan in the federal budget next week will be the full
www.thestar.com
October 30, 2025 at 12:05 AM
nicholaskeung.bsky.social
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/...
What happened to ‘click once for Canadian citizenship’? The government has (quietly) thought twice
The proposal two years ago would have allowed citizens to take their oath on their own with a click on the keyboard.
www.thestar.com
October 24, 2025 at 1:35 PM
nicholaskeung.bsky.social
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/...
These temporary foreign workers in Ontario are facing job loss, possible deportation after mushroom plant closes: ‘We’re in a state of shock’
Shuttering of Highline Mushrooms’ location in Prince Edward County will leave dozens of employees without access to EI or other benefits.
www.thestar.com
October 21, 2025 at 1:49 PM
nicholaskeung.bsky.social
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/...
Canada’s immigration department reveals eye-popping application processing times — some of which exceed 10 years
Critics question the change, which is supposed to provide more transparency, amid worries that a mass cancellation of applications is coming soon.
www.thestar.com
October 21, 2025 at 1:41 PM
nicholaskeung.bsky.social
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...
Diversity, equity and inclusion are coming under scrutiny — and Pierre Poilievre is ready to push the conversation
Diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are in the crosshairs south of the border and now the mantle has been taken up by the federal Conservative party, which has released a
www.thestar.com
October 16, 2025 at 5:22 PM