No One is Illegal - Halifax

Workshop: Advocacy Training 101 on Refugee Rights

2007-07-23T06:42:00.001-07:00

A free workshop, open to the public, offering an overview of the refugee determination system, recent legislative changes, stowaway rights, immigrant advocacy, and more.

Brought to you by No One is Illegal Halifax, the Halifax Refugee Clinic and the Metropolitan Immigrant Settlement Association.
- Lunch and informational hand-outs will be provided -

DATE: Saturday, September 29 th
TIME: 9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m
LOCATION: Room 307, Dal SUB
6136 University Ave, Dalhousie University
For more info, please call (902) 494-6662 or email noii@nspirg.org

Workshop Objectives:
- To build greater awareness about refugee and immigration processes
- To learn about local resources and support for refugees

*Please register as soon as possible as space is filling up quickly!*

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(Francais)

ATELIER D’ENTRAÎNEMENT : LE SOUTIEN AUX RÉFUGIÉES

Un atelier gratuit, ouvert au public, qui offre une vue d’ensemble du système de détermination des réfugiées, les changements législatifs récents, les droits des passagers clandestins, le soutien aux immigrants, et plus.

Organisé par No One is Illegal Halifax, La clinique des réfugiées d’Halifax (Halifax Refugee Clinic), et M.I.S.A. (Metropolitan Immigrant Settlement Association.

Le dîner ainsi que des dépliants d’information seront fournis.

DATE : samedi le 29 septembre 2007
HEURE : 9h30 – 16h30
LIEU : Salle 307, SUB de Dalhousie University
Pour d’autres renseignements veuillez téléphoner au (902) 494-6662 ou email noii@nspirg.org

Objectifs de l’atelier :

- Se conscientiser par rapport aux processus d’immigration et de réfugiées
- D’apprendre sur les ressources locales et le soutien aux réfugiés

*Prière de s’inscrire le plus tôt possible, l’espace est limitée!*

Immigration Canada to Tear Apart Halifax Family

2007-05-18T13:02:00.000-07:00

Sri Lankan Man to be Deported to War-Torn Country

HALIFAX – Dammika Kumara Tissawalangumndiyanselage (Kuma), a Sri Lankan man and 5-year resident of Dartmouth, faces a deportation order currently slated for this Saturday. The Halifax office of the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) will be proceeding with Kuma’s deportation, currently scheduled for May 19th, 2007, to war-torn Sri Lanka. Kuma is currently married to a Canadian citizen, has been living and working in Halifax for five years. He was originally scheduled for deportation on May 11th, however the order was delayed due to the fact that the only international airport in the country has been closed as a result air attacks by the Tamil Tigers. His deportation represents a disturbing and repressive act on the part of immigration officials, due to the dangerous situation to which he and his wife would be subjected in Sri Lanka.

Kuma’s Canadian wife, Kimberly Charron, had applied to be his sponsor in his permanent residence application, based on Humanitarian and Compassionate grounds. Regardless of the pending nature of this legal claim, his deportation date to Sri Lanka was set for May 11th, 2007. Kuma lost his refugee claim in 2005 and was notified on April 14th of this year that he lost his Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (PRRA) application. His deportation date was later extended to May 19th due to the closure of Sri Lanka’s only international airport.

Kuma’s wife, Kim Charron, is currently working two full-time jobs in Dartmouth, due to the fact that the Canadian government has revoked Kuma’s work permit. The Canadian government’s unwillingness to consider issuing a stay of Kuma’s deportation order has placed an immense emotional strain on Kim and her family. Kuma and Kimberly will be forced apart due to the financial strain caused by the repeated rescheduling of Kuma’s departure flight by Immigration officials. Despite the dangerous nature of the situation in Sri Lanka due to the current civil war, Kimberly had initially planned to depart with Kuma. Instead, she will remain in Canada for the next few months due to threats to her safety, as well as financial constraints.

Not only is the Canadian government willing to place this man and his wife in immediate danger, but in a show of an incredibly racist double standard, the government has imposed a travel warning for Canadian citizens to this war-torn region. This represents a slap in the face for all Canadians who believe in a society which is not based upon racism and discrimination.

Kuma is prepared to depart willingly, but will be filing a new application for spousal sponsorship in hopes of returning to Canada. Such a process could take up to a year to complete. Kuma faces the prospect of living in a war zone while awaiting the results of this process. Kuma’s deportation will occur less than two weeks after the deportation of the Silva family, a Brazilian family who had lived for years in Halifax, by Canadian Immigration officials.

Stateless and Deported

2007-03-03T12:53:00.000-08:00

An Interview with the Coalition Against the Deportation of Palestinian Refugees
Z Net, June 24 2004
By Justin Podur

For over a year, the Coalition Against the Deportation of Palestinian Refugees has been working in Montreal to stop deportations against these members of an already stateless and oppressed community. The coalition's political campaign and case work has afforded some of the only protection and publicity for those few Palestinians who have managed to escape from the refugee camps in Lebanon or the occupied Palestinian territories. The Coalition itself is a part of is part of the Solidarity Across Borders Campaign, which brings to together various self-organized immigrant and refugee communities who are fighting for collectively for their status, against deportations and detentions. Members of the coalition visited Toronto to share their experience with Toronto organizers and community members in June 2004.

Justin Podur (JP): Last year (1), the Coalition had begun its work, identifying over 100 Palestinians facing deportation. It was built up of community members, activists from No One is Illegal who had experience campaigning against the deportation of Montreal Algerians (2), and others, including Palestine solidarity activists. Can you describe the experience of the past year?

Coalition (CADPR): The most searing experience of the year for us was the deportation of Ahmed Abdel Majid in November. He was one of the most active organizers. He was the first one to get a deportation order. He was deported to the United States, which was his point of entry, and is now in the refugee camp in Lebanon where he came from, Ein El Helweh, and trying to leave again.

We learned a lot from that experience, about the lies the immigration authorities are willing to tell to make a deportation happen. We've learned a lot about the system: the dynamics, the politics between the Refugee Board, Immigration Canada, the Ministry of Immigration, the Minister herself, the lawyers, the consultants.

JP: How does immigration policy work?

CADPR: It doesn't work, in fact. Or, it doesn't work for the people who are most vulnerable. There is a battery of lawyers and immigration officials, politicians and their offices, a battery of forms and applications and laws. But when you need a straight answer to a simple question, you can't get one. You get inconsistent answers. We had a very hard time. People with language barriers, cultural barriers, financial barriers, find it nearly impossible to navigate this system.

Immigration authorities also have a fortress mentality. They look for ways to close doors, and they give you bureaucratic answers out of some catalog. They use all this bureaucracy to hide from the human tragedies that their policies bring about.

They are hiding from their own mistakes. The bureaucracy cloaks injustice. Let's get into some specifics. There are different officials working in different aspects of immigration. There are removal officials, enforcement officials, and intelligence officials. Within Immigration Canada there are different people dealing with refugee claims and with enforcement. The Minister herself is unaware of regulations and laws. Can that be accidental, when her ignorance helps serve Canadian foreign policy and economic policy?

JP: How does immigration policy relate to foreign policy in this case?

CADPR: Canada has a free trade agreement with Israel and business interests in Lebanon. It doesn't want to take a strong stand against the treatment of the Palestinians in the refugee camps or in the occupied territories, which is at the root of the problem here. Canada was one of the first regimes to recognize the partition in 1948 when the Palestinian refugee problem began. Canada was part of the 'refugee working group' of the Oslo accords of 1993, a body created to help the Palestinian refugees. There was a Canadian mission to the camps in Lebanon in 1997, and it stated part of the reality on the ground. It asked for funding increases for the UN refugee works organization, UNRWA, and discussed the humanitarian disaster of the camps. But UNRWA is still underfunded and it is the only body that offers anything to the Palestinians: they lack even the protection of the UN High Commission on Refugees.

Many of us are active in the Palestine solidarity movement. One of us was talking on the phone to a Palestinian friend in a camp in Lebanon. We began talking about the right of return and resolving the Palestinian refugee problem, and he asked: "Why are you talking about 4 million refugees when your country won't even accept 100?" The fact is the refugees are a manifestation, on Canada's doorstep, of the occupation, displacement, economic and military warfare waged on the Palestinians, and it is something the Palestine solidarity movement has to deal with.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) travel advisory is a great illustration of the racism inherent in the system. DFAIT specifically warns Canadians against going to both the refugee camps in Lebanon and Occupied Palestine - even telling Canadians to leave the territories immediately, although that may be difficult due to curfews, closures, and incursions. Yet they see no problem sending non-citizens back

JP: Let us go back to the deportation of Ahmed Abdel Majid.

CADPR: He was born in Ein El Helweh refugee camp in Lebanon. In Lebanon, Palestinian refugees are barred from working in 78 professions, can't own or inherit property, and has no access to public services. He arrived in Canada in March 2001 and claimed refugee status. His claim was refused, so he lived underground without access to basic services. He worked with the coalition and helped other refugees.

On November 4 2003 four Canadian Immigration agents picked him up outside his work, handcuffed him, and took him to detention. He called us. We went to the Immigration offices and got a meeting with Rene D'aoust, the head of removals. We explained why he shouldn't be deported to a life of statelessness and persecution. D'Aoust said - and the one of us who met him will remember this forever - "We know we are not dealing with cargo here, but the life of a human being." He told us we had to get a letter from the Minister of Immigration and that he wouldn't be deported for 48 hours. We had sympathetic Members of Parliament intervene. While we tried to get the letter, Ahmed was told he would have a detention hearing at 1pm on November 6. We went to the detention centre that morning, at 6am. He called us and told us about the hearing.

Then at 8:30am he called us and told us that he was being released. Carloads of us went to the detention centre to greet him, assuming the Minister had intervened. About 30 people, mostly refugees themselves, went. We got there - and the security people called the police. The police told us we had to leave or we'd all be arrested. Just like that. We were confused - we thought we were going to pick Ahmed up. But we left, because we didn't want to be arrested and have more deportations come out of this.

It turns out that while we were waiting outside, they were deporting Ahmed, and they were nervous because they didn't know that we didn't know that the deportation was happening. They had actually scheduled his hearing at 1pm, lied to him, and packed him off to a New York county jail, where the guards were abusive and where we had to go through a great deal of bureaucracy to get him released on a $10,000 bond. They lied to him, they lied to us, repeatedly, so that they could deport him as quickly as possible.

JP: Immigration authorities violated sanctuary in order to violate Non-Status Algerian Mohammad Cherfi. There are Palestinian refugees living in sanctuary now too, correct?

CADPR: There is a Palestinian family of 3 elderly people who have been in sanctuary since January 5, 2004. They are living in a church, again without access to health care services. The previous immigration minister had a policy of not negotiating with churches or claims of people in sanctuary. The current immigration minister has carried that forward. So these people, who have lived through multiple wars and horrors, are now living in a church basement in fear of deportation because the government won't negotiate.

There is another case, of Ashraf, from Jenin. He had a deportation hearing and was released from detention on a $2000 cash and $2500 bond ticket. The judge was unusually sympathetic. Her job was only to assess whether or not he was a flight risk. Instead, she wrote in her judgement that if he is deported, he ought not to be deported through Israel. She recognized that he is from Jenin, and that if he lands in Israel the fact that he is from Jenin alone is enough to land him in prison for a very long time. So she wants him to be deported through Jordan straight into the West Bank. But Ashraf was denied a visa from Jordan. And then his Palestinian Authority passport expired. So now Canada wants to deport him but has nowhere to deport him to. He has to check in every Wednesday with an immigration officer. This has been going on for three months.

These are examples of Immigration Canada's fortress mentality. On the few occasions when we have secured a meeting with the immigration minister's office, we were typically allowed to send a single member, under heavy security escort, after submitting to repeated searches. We would get to the office of some member of the immigration office, surrounded by security, and the person we were meeting would be visibly scared. One time, as one of us was being escorted to the elevator after the meeting, a security guard commented: "Well, that was quite peaceful," as if surprised.

But it is demonstrative of the attitude of immigration officials towards Palestinians. It shows the stereotypes that they believe. Immigration and Refugee Board judges demonstrate these stereotypes in their judgements. IRB member Jeannine Beaubien Duque, for example, has written in her judgements statements like: "the violence of the Middle East is part of Israel's attempts at establishing secure political frontiers and preventing terrorist attacks on its territory," that "it is not the panel's duty to conclude as to the rightfulness or wrongfulness of the military activities of the Israeli authorities in the war stricken area", and that "many young men in their thousands volunteer to take part in martyr operations." These are the people that are deciding the fates of Palestinian refugees.

JP: What have been the coalition's successes over the year?

CADPR: We do a lot of work in our campaigns, contacting organizations, generating letters to the minister and the immigration authorities, holding rallies and demonstrations, we have a weekly picket at the immigration office, we have leaflets and petitions. We make an effort to make sure organizations supporting the coalition aren't just signing on, but giving support, time, resources, mobilizing people for actions.

To go along with this political work, we have a legal strategy where we go case by case and file a Humanitarian and Compassionate claim (H & C) to land the refugees based on the persecution they would face if they returned and their integration into Canada and Quebec society. So we try to create pressure on all levels. It costs $550 to file an H & C, so we have to do fundraising. We save money in one place: we have found that our activists do a better job than lawyers who don't know the situation in Lebanon, don't take the time, don't have the time because they are overworked (partly because there is not enough of them, due to legal aid budget cuts). The H & Cs that are part of a political campaign have a much better chance of success.

By fighting cases as part of a larger campaign, we have had some victories. One major one is, in spite of all of the difficulties of underground living, lack of access to services, fear, being hunted by the CIC, and the deportations and repression, the coalition has managed to maintain itself over this difficult year and continue its work. Another success is that now the authorities know that every single deportation is going to result in a battle. Every time there is a Palestinian who wants to fight deportation, that refugee will have support. There won't be a deportation without media, without publicity, without a battle.

A concrete victory is the staying of the deportation of Osama Saleh, a Palestinian refugee from the West Bank whose claim was denied in 2002, whose 'appeal' was denied in April 2004, but whose deportation was stayed. None of us thought that would happen and we know it is because of the campaign.

Notes:
1) See the previous interview with the coalition, 'Stop the (re) Deportations' July 5, 2004
2) See the interview with the Action Committee of Non-Status Algerians of December 2002. Among those interviewed was Mohammad Cherfi, who was deported several months ago when police violated a sanctuary of a church in Montreal to arrest him.

What Regularization Means

2007-03-03T12:51:00.000-08:00

Regularization is an issue of self-determination and justice. Entire families live in a state of constant stress and fear. Workers are being exploited. Children of non-status immigrants, whether Canadian-born or not, are denied the right to education. Children and entire families lack adequate and affordable medical coverage.

The Canadian government supports international agreements that allow the free movement of capital, business and goods across the globe. While businesses are free to move across borders to find thriving economic conditions, these same agreements deny people the same type of free movement. Business relocation has created huge areas of poverty and depression around the world giving people no choice but to migrate in order to save their families and children from poverty, war and militarization.

Many sectors of the Canadian economy rely on the exploited labour of non-status and refugees and it is not in the best interest of the Canadian government to deport non-status immigrants, thus maintaining a social and economic system that has created two classes of people - exploited non-status immigrants without social and citizenship rights- and the rest of the population.

Just as Canada was dependent upon colonial plantations in Latin America, Africa and Asia that produced fruit, vegetables, coffee, tea, sugar for the Canadian market, today the Canadian economy depends upon the labour of migrant workers of colour who are underemployed and exploited. One clear and present example is the garment industry, in which 77% of workers are racialized immigrant women whose pay depends on their status- ranging from two to four dollars per hour. (Women and Welfare Project March 2004, Vancouver Status of Women).

In the past, every time there has been an overhaul of our immigration law, the government has brought in programs to regularize the status of those who were caught in the old system. The first time the government introduced a special program to allow a person in Canada to regularize their status was in 1960. Since then there has been many other such programs: in 1972, 1986, 1989, and in 1995.

War on Terror a War on Immigrants?

2007-03-02T17:44:00.000-08:00

With America’s unrelenting ‘War on Terror’ scourging the sands of the world to tap the flow of oil profits westward, the flows of population migration have been stifled; an almost reciprocal effect of a neo-colonial pan-American agenda. The increased instability precipitated by George W. Bush’s ‘democracy project’ in the Middle East has displaced and disenfranchised millions of Arabs and Muslims, who’ve sought refuge in Europe and North America. Not coincidentally, these same countries have tightened border restrictions under the pretext of national security measures.

In Canada, exclusive immigration policies have become more impregnable within federal legislation. Alleged terrorist plots at home, and Canada’s peripheral role in supporting allied forces in their occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Palestine have created conditions for he accelerated deterioration of rights and protections for migrants in Canada – especially those hailing from these same adversarial countries.

Next, after diplomatic relations between countries, as a criterion for
differential treatment, is a nation’s affluence. First world nations cherry-pick migrants based on class, as well as race, which is why African refugees, for example, from third world countries (like Sierra Leone or Somalia) get second-class treatment through Canada’s immigration system.

Since the events of September 11th 2001, broad declarations in the
corporate media and generalizations or oversimplifications in government bills have made more and more migrants the targets of racism and xenophobia; countless migrants in Canada have faced harassment and unjust treatment in the form of secret trials, arbitrary detention, abuse and harassment, torture, racial or religious profiling, security certificates, police surveillance, deportation, and the restriction of family visitation rights.

In light of these injustices, a Halifax-based coalition formed in August 2006 with the explicit mandate of “demanding the rights, dignity, and respect of immigrants and refugees, as well as those living without status in Canada”.

The group, which calls itself No One Is Illegal (Halifax), brings together immigrants, refugees, academics, activists, caseworkers, lawyers, and other interested community members. We are committed to establishing links and networks of solidarity in Nova Scotia, and the Atlantic Provinces, to defend migrants and migrant communities against these systemic attacks.

Guantanamo North?

2007-03-02T17:21:00.000-08:00

Security Certificates and secret trials in Canada
Briarpatch Magazine, Dec 2005
By Jessica Squires

"Those who exchange liberty for security will soon find they have neither."
-Benjamin Franklin (attributed)

"As someone who has suffered and endured physical and psychological torture at the hands of a regime that does not respect basic human rights, I find it very shocking that Canada will deport Mr. Jaballah to Egypt, a country it admits practices torture on detainees.

"There is nothing on earth that justifies shipping off someone to torture. The best way to have security is to support and promote justice. If someone is guilty of breaking the law, then he should be allowed to see the evidence against him and to defend himself in an impartial and fair manner.

"It is about time for Canada to repair the damage that was done to its reputation since it was criticized by various human rights organizations for being directly or indirectly complicit in sending people to torture. Canada has a choice to make and I hope it chooses the right one by committing not to send people back to countries where they will face a substantial risk of being abused and tortured."

Maher Arar (Canadian citizen deported to Syria and tortured)
Advertisement

Without warning or explanation, a Muslim man is arrested and detained. Neither he nor his lawyers are given access to any evidence against him, and no charge is laid. The man is detained indefinitely on the basis that he might, at some point in the past, present, or future, pose a risk to national security. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) has collected the required signatures of the Federal Ministers of Public Safety Citizenship and Immigration to authorize the detention.

While in detention, the man is denied proper heat in his cell. He is denied access to a Koran. He is not provided with meals in a timely fashion to enable him to pray during Ramadan. He is not able to touch his wife or children for years, seeing them only through thick panes of glass. If his Security Certificate is deemed "reasonable" by a CSIS-approved judge, he can be deported to his country of origin, which he fled because of religious or political persecution. If he is returned, he will likely be tortured or killed.

This is the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act Security Certificate. This is Guantanamo North.

Algerian refugee Mohamed Harkat was arrested, ironically, on Human Rights Day, on December 10, 2002, in Ottawa. Harkat has been in Canada since 1995. Working as a gas attendant and pizza delivery man, he worked an average of 18 hours a day. In 1997, he was given refugee status after successfully claiming government persecution should he return to Algeria.

On December 10, 2002, Mohamed Harkat was arrested by undercover police agents outside his home in Ottawa. Since then, he has been in jail, in the dark as to the specific evidence against him. CSIS alleges that Mohamed either has been, is, or will be involved with terrorism. Mohamed denies any involvement with any terrorist organizations.

Harkat is one of Canada's Secret Trial Five, five Muslim men whose lives have been torn apart by accusations they have not been allowed to fight in a fair and independent trial. Three men are imprisoned in Toronto: Mohammad Mahjoub, a refugee from Eygpt who has been in prison since June 2000 (almost four years in prison without charge); Mahmoud Jaballah, a refugee from Egypt who was arrested in August 2001 (three years this summer), and Hassan Almrei, a refugee who has been facing deportation to Syria since October 2001 (two and a half years in solitary). The fifth man, Montreal resident Adil Charkaoui, was detained on 21 May 2003. All five men were arrested under "security certificates," a provision of" the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) that have been described by Amnesty International as "fundamentally flawed and unfair."

The Security Certificate, which dates back to 1991 and was reintroduced in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act in 2002, is one of the roots of the attack that has been mounted, with frightening rapidity, on civil liberties and international norms since September 11, 2001. "National security," now endangers all of us. It is being used to justify legislation that would amend the Citizenship of Canada Act to allow naturalized citizens to be subjected to indefinite detention, secret trials, and deportation. And with C-36, the Anti-Terrorism Act, similar violations of rights are extended to all citizens.

Human rights monitoring groups including Amnesty International and the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group have all denounced the use of security certificates because the accused is denied the protection of basic rights, such as a full and complete defence.

The Security Certificate also runs contrary to the Canadian justice system. Because the lawyer of the accused cannot review the evidence against him, mounting a defence becomes impossible. The Security Certificate violates the most fundamental principles of justice and human rights. It violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Constitution, the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Convention on Refugees, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the UN Convention on Torture.

Update on Portnoy Family

2007-03-02T06:10:00.000-08:00

Update from Portnoy support committee in NFLD: "the Humanitarian Application included extensive medical documentation on how a deportation would negatively affect the health and well being of the children involved and the fact that this information was clearly ignored. Given the current situation in Israel, this hardly provides any comfort level. The thought that three Canadian children, two siblings including a newborn and their parents are being deported to a war torn country, is gut wrenching".

During the H & C review process, not one call or visit was made to the family or any named parties, or any medial professionals referred to in the applications; the recommendation of the Newfoundland & Labrador Child Advocate was ignored; the application was mysteriously not reviewed in St. John's but in Moncton (as we were advised). It is alarming to think the NL Immigration Office was deemed unfit or unqualified to access a file; and to add insult, no clear reasons were given in the letter of rejection, just a flat "no".

Lee Cohen, legal counsel for the Portnoys, is shocked by the decision of CIC. "The Portnoy family are perfect candidates for the humanitarian process. It is shocking that it was rejected. But when it comes to people in sanctuary, Canada acts much like a child, and feels the need to win. Canada refuses to let people in sanctuary win regardless of how just their cause. In the absence of fairness in the system, the Portnoys are powerless. They need to hear voices of anger rising up from the people of Newfoundland and Labrador expressing frustration over this decision."