Precarious Migratory Status in Canada Implications for Social Work and Social Service Delivery

This is the published version of an article published by the Canadian Social Work Journal.Canada, like other immigrant-receiving states, welcomes migrants for economic, family and humanitarian reasons. Despite overtures to welcome immigrants as permanent residents, however, Canada has a growing population of people living with precarious migratory status—forms of insecure and irregular migrant status including refugees, temporary workers, and non-status immigrants. This article examines the implications that precarious migratory status has for social work and social service delivery in Canada. This research is part of a larger study designed to explore the construction of social rights in public policy and social service delivery. In this article, we highlight our findings from interviews with service providers who work with a particularly vulnerable group of migrants-women seeking shelter from domestic violence. We present our analysis of the strategies employed by service providers to maximize social rights for migrants while mitigating the ill effects of immigration enforcement. Our research indicates that amidst economic and political pressure to restrict social entitlements overall, it is imperative that social workers and other service providers organize across service sectors to develop individual, organizational, and policy alternatives to redress the current state of injustice facing migrants with precarious status in Canada