In Toronto, Immigrants Find a Modern, Fast Employment System

But while many praise Canada’s Express Entry system as speedier than the months-long wait to get a work permit in the United States, immigrants can face hurdles finding pay and job titles equivalent to the ones in their native countries.

TORONTO — Raunica Ahluwalia and her husband, Bikram Ahluwalia, work together at a table in a quiet, sun-filled room of the Toronto Reference Library.

The time they spend together — quietly talking while looking at each other’s laptops — is in contrast to when Bikram spent four or five days a week traveling in his role in senior management of a bank in Delhi, India. The couple migrated to Toronto through Express Entry in 2019, leaving India at the peak of their careers.

For the pair, a better quality of life for themselves and their two children was worth the risk. In Delhi, they juggled busy schedules while growing increasingly worried about pollution. They sometimes couldn’t walk onto their balcony because of the air quality.

“We never saw a blue sky there,” she said.

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Nearly five years after moving to Toronto, the couple is on their way to becoming Canadian citizens. They are among those who have migrated to Canada using the country’s Express Entry system, which manages their skilled worker programs. Those who’ve navigated immigration in Canada and the United States say Canada’s approach to skilled immigrant workers produces faster response times and is easier to use.

The Canadian immigration system, for workers and companies, offers more avenues to obtain work permits for employees, said Henry J. Chang, a Toronto-based attorney who works in corporate immigration.

While the U.S. has specific criteria for work permits, like the H-1B program that U.S. employers can use to hire immigrant workers, Chang said Canada offers more options, such as a program that allows speakers of French — one of Canada’s official languages, along with English — to get a work permit. Companies can also make a case to the government — known as a labor market impact assessment — that there aren’t any Canadians available to fill a position so they can hire immigrants.

“The problems with U.S. immigration actually help us Canadians because we’re the solution quite often to the problem,” Chang said.

Express Entry

Canada has used Express Entry since 2015 to manage three of its worker programs.

Before that, the federal skilled worker program required people to apply abroad, said Phil Triadafilopoulos, an associate professor at the University of Toronto. Express Entry allows people who are already in Canada — such as international students or those who arrived with a temporary visa — to apply.

“I think the system is much more decentralized and open to many more different people,” Triadafilopoulous said, adding that this has allowed employers, universities and provincial governments to have more say in immigration.

In 2019, there were 69,985 people admitted through Express Entry who moved to Ontario, the province where Toronto is located, according to data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, a federal agency overseeing immigration. That number dropped in 2023 to 67,635 people. Across the country, the number increased from 109,000 in 2019, to more than 120,000 people in 2023.

Triadafilopoulous said political parties in Canada support a robust immigration system and multiculturalism.

“Immigrants live in those parts of the country where most of the political representation is, and they become citizens, and so they become voters,” he said. “And they vote at the same rate as people born in the country."

Navigating North American Immigration

When Khayyam Zubair moved from his native Pakistan to attend Ohio Wesleyan University, he did not know much about immigration.

In the eight years that he lived in the Midwest, he learned about the complexities of the system as he was strung along with promises of immigration sponsorship and lost out on the competitive H-1B visa lottery.

“It felt like I was doing all this work — getting that qualification, working full time — and it still felt like I didn’t have everything together,” Zubair said.

In 2023, Zubair moved to Toronto after getting a job through MobSquad, a Canadian company that contracts tech workers to other companies, including to some in the U.S. Within a month of getting a work permit from MobSquad, he received Canadian permanent residency because the job — considered Canadian experience — gave him enough points in the Express Entry system.

He’s traveled to visit family twice in one year after not being able to do so while in the U.S.

“The biggest relief was going back home,” Zubair said. “I knew friends who were losing parents. My parents got diagnosed with diabetes. I was in a state of paranoia. I just wanted to see my parents at that point.”

A path toward citizenship

Eddie Fernandez and Tyler Thom envisioned spending the rest of their lives in the United States.

After the couple — who lived in Milwaukee — married, they dove into the U.S. immigration system trying to figure out how Fernandez, who had protections from deportation from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, could become a permanent resident.

“We had a higher level of confidence that this would all work out,” said Thom, who was a U.S. citizen. “It was a painful, long process, but it was going to be fine.”

They scoured the internet for information, consulted lawyers and shared their story with lawmakers. A denial of Fernandez’s petition for adjustment status to become a permanent U.S. resident coincided with an increasingly hostile environment for immigrants under former President Donald Trump.

“Nothing guarantees that they will not come after me,” Fernandez said, referring to immigration officials. “That was the scary part at the time. Me and Tyler, we love each other; we want to have a future. And that’s when Tyler started looking into moving.”

Nearly six years after moving to Toronto, they are Canadian citizens. Thom used the Express Entry system to apply for the federal skilled workers program, which allowed Fernandez to join him.

Their citizenship certificates are displayed in their Toronto high-rise apartment next to photo cubes of the couple. Fernandez was able to vote, for the first time in his life, in Toronto’s mayoral election in 2023.

Fernandez recalls how one day after moving to Toronto, he realized he felt happy. For so long, he was tense and carried a sense of heaviness.

“My body felt like, oh my gosh, I feel great here,” he said. “This is what it feels to be kind of normal — that you aren’t worried about a status, immigration.”

Struggles of immigrant workers

Raunica Ahluwalia works as a professor in Toronto, similar to her position in India. But her journey hasn’t been without setbacks. She heard people question her credentials, though she knew how hard she worked to achieve the academic career she had in India.

“How do you prove that what you did was valued enough?” she asked. “Those types of things become very difficult to prove.”

It took Bikram Ahluwalia a year to land his first job in Canada, partly because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But even after obtaining a master’s in business administration in Toronto, he couldn’t get senior-level positions like he held in Delhi.

“What I didn’t know when I got here, that it would technically be five levels down,” he said. “I thought two or three levels and then you would grow and move up.”

Retaining immigrants

The couple turned to the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council, known as TRIEC, which has a program that pairs newly arrived immigrants with a mentor. The two have since gone from mentees to mentors.

The council has long tried to find ways to bridge the gap between highly skilled immigrant workers and career opportunities.

“The problem persists,” said Gillian Mason, CEO of TRIEC. “We continue to see in migration of highly skilled folks, and a good portion do not arrive and find work that’s commensurate with their skills, education and experience, nor do they find themselves earning salaries at the level that is commensurate with their Canadian-born counterparts.”

The Institute of Canadian Citizenship has examined the issue of retention of immigrants in Canada. An analysis the organization conducted found that there’s been a decrease — from 75% in 2001 to 45% in 2021 — in the number of immigrants who become citizens 10 years after obtaining permanent residency, said Daniel Bernhard, CEO of the institute.

“This is the other side of the sword of highly selective policies — you get people with options,” Bernhard said about Canadian immigration policies.

The Ahluwalia family questioned their decision for years before feeling settled in Toronto. Bikram Ahluwalia pivoted to consulting, and his clients include immigrants frustrated with their job prospects. One client he was working with was considering leaving Canada.

“There’s a huge gap,” he said, “Between the dream Canada and live Canada.”

The Democracy Solutions Project is a collaboration among WBEZ, the Chicago Sun-Times and the University of Chicago’s Center for Effective Government, with funding support from the Pulitzer Center.