"When We Try to Explain This Whole Status and Mandate Stuff It Sounds like 'you Don't Want to Help Me': How Exclusion from Settlement Services Impacts Immigrant Women with Precarious Status in Canada

Background and Purpose: Canada is recognized internationally as having a successful approach to integrating new immigrants, in part due to the federal government’s investment in settlement services. Settlement services are freely available to new permanent residents and provide language classes, employment support, housing assistance and general orientation support. However, most new immigrants entering Canada each year have a temporary or precarious immigration status and are not eligible for federally funded settlement services. This study sought to better understand how this exclusion from settlement services impacts immigrant women with precarious status, and how service providers perceive these practices of exclusion.

Methods: This study is part of a larger research project about the settlement experiences of immigrant women in Canada, using qualitative feminist methods. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 35 recent immigrant women and 20 service providers working in the settlement sector in three cities in Ontario, Canada. Participants were recruited through community agencies and online networks. Purposive sampling was used to recruit immigrant women who arrived with different immigration statuses, including those who had made in-land refugee claims, and individuals on temporary work or study visas. Interview transcripts were coded and analyzed using both inductive and theoretical thematic analysis methods and NVivo software.

Results: Immigrant women with precarious status described lacking support and information upon arrival in Canada, and many were unaware of their rights and their eligibility for social services in the country. For participants who had made refugee claims, this lack of information had severe negative consequences, including exploitation by family members, landlords, and immigration lawyers, and experiences of material hardship. Some participants on temporary work or study visas were initially able to meet their settlement needs through personal or professional networks, but found themselves unable to access needed support during times of crisis, such as losing their job or dealing with a family member’s illness.

Service providers were aware of the barriers faced by immigrants with precarious status. Many described using strategies to resist the exclusions required by their funding mandates, such as seeking diverse sources of funding to fill in the gaps in their programs, or taking on extra hours of work to serve non-eligible clients in addition to their regular case load. Despite these strategies, most described being unable to meet the need for services in their communities. While a few service providers rationalized strict eligibility criteria as necessary due to a scarcity of resources, most believed that all immigrants should be eligible for services and described feelings of moral injury due to having to exclude certain categories of immigrants.

Conclusions and Implications: Findings demonstrate that exclusion from settlement services contributes to the structural vulnerability of immigrants with precarious status and puts them at greater risk of misinformation, exploitation and economic hardship. The study highlights the need for social workers to advocate for policy change to broaden eligibility criteria for federally-funded settlement services to include all new immigrants, regardless of their immigration status upon arrival.