The number of Indian international students and skilled workers coming to Canada has undergone a four-fold increased since 2013, according to a new report.
The April 2024 policy brief, titled International Students in Canada and the United States, and released by the National Foundation for American Policy, said Indian students and highly skilled foreign nationals choose Canada rather than the US because of the former’s immigration policies being more favourable for attracting and retaining talent.
The paper detailed that it is more difficult to gain H-1B status or permanent residence in the US, while Canada’s policies are far more receptive of foreign talent.
This has also led to many Indian nationals immigrating to Canada.
Forbes wrote that while Canada and India’s diplomatic issues earlier last year may cause short-term change in the behaviour of Indian nationals away from immigrating to Canada, the unlikeness of change in US immigration policies is may not affect Indians’ behaviour in the long term.
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While Canada has no annual limit on high-skilled temporary visas and processes most cases within two weeks, getting an H-1B visa in the US after graduating from university is becoming more and more difficult.
After graduating, an international student in Canada may get a PR in a few years’ time. In the US, the per-country limit and low annual limit on employment-based green cards mean highly educated Indians may have to wait for decades to get a green card.
Some other findings from NFAP’s research are that international students attending Canadian universities increased from 62,223 in 2000 to 400,521 in 2021, rising by 544 per cent.
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Since 2000, 45 per cent of the increase in enrolment at Canadian universities is because of international students.
International student enrolment from 2016 to 2019 dropped by 5.6 per cent at US universities, despite it increasing by 51.6 per cent at Canadian universities during the same time period.
Between 2016 and 2019, the number of Indian international students in US universities fell by 13 per cent but increased by 182 per cent at Canadian universities.
