Immigration News

25 June, 2009
Nicholas Keung
IMMIGRATION REPORTER

Should impoverished migrants be exempted from an immigration application fee simply because they can't afford it?

That was the focus of a federal court case in Toronto on Wednesday involving three migrant families who argued that the $550 fee for humanitarian and compassionate applications - a last resort for failed refugee claimants and non-status individuals to stay in Canada - infringes on their constitutional and charter rights.

"The case is about the access to that process," said lawyer Angus Grant, who, along with colleague Andrew Dekany, represented the three families, the Gunthers from Hungary, the Krenas from the Congo and Nell Toussaint, a woman from Grenada.

No refuge
June 18th, 2009
Stefan Christoff - thehour.ca

Montreal Tamil refugees face deportation back to Sri Lanka

After months of intense warfare in northern Sri Lanka, thousands of Tamil civilians are dead and tens of thousands more displaced - many to Sri Lankan military-controlled displacement camps.
Now Tamil refugees in Montreal fear they will be deported back to Sri Lanka, and an uncertain future.

Although the federal government expressed "dismay and displeasure" over the Sri Lankan government's refusal last week to allow Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae to enter Sri Lanka, they continue to deport Tamil refugees in Canada.

"Today the situation in Sri Lanka for Tamils is very bad. Canada is going to send me back to war and a government in Colombo that doesn't respect my rights as a Tamil," says Ratnam Thurai, a Tamil refugee who faces deportation.

Paul Koring - The Globe and Mail
April 3, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Conservative government reversed itself today and denied an emergency passport to Abousfian Abdelrazik, preventing the Canadian citizen - blacklisted as a terrorist - from flying home to Montreal.

In a terse explanation, it said Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon considers Mr. Abdelrazik a national security threat.

In a one-sentence letter, delivered this morning to Mr. Abdelrazik's lawyers, the justice department said “the minister of foreign affairs has decided to refuse your client's request for an emergency passport.” It cited Section 10.1 of the Canada Passport Order which says “the minister may refuse or revoke a passport if the minister is of the option that such action is necessary for the national security of Canada or another country.”

The refusal represents a complete reversal of the government's written promise of three months ago to issue Mr. Abdelrazik an emergency passport if he had a paid-for ticket home. Mr. Abdelrazik remains stranded in the lobby of the Canadian embassy in Khartoum, where he has living for nearly 11 months, granted “temporary safe haven” by former Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier.

Scholarship winner to be deported as Ottawa gets tough with illegals
September 22, 2008 - The Toronto Star
LESLEY CIARULA TAYLOR
IMMIGRATION REPORTER

A crackdown by the Canada Border Services Agency after a report uncovered 41,000 unaccounted for illegal immigrants is derailing a young Bangladeshi man's last years at the University of Toronto.

Saad Alam was starting his third year of a life sciences degree with a hope of medical school in the future. The 23-year-old has lived in the GTA for five years and the U.S. for nine before that. He and his parents are being deported to Bangladesh at the end of the month.

"They're very strict about removals these days," said Anita Balakrishna, the lawyer representing the Alam family. "It's a reaction to the auditor general's report."

ANTHONY REINHART
TORONTO — The Globe and Mail
Published on Wednesday, Mar. 26, 2008
If it all goes according to plan, Sarah Leonty will parlay her academic acumen into a career with Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs.

But first, the 20-year-old Toronto woman will have to stop the country she wants to serve from kicking her out.

Ms. Leonty, who came to Canada from St. Lucia when she was 11, recently learned she is facing deportation to the Caribbean island because she lacks immigration status, though she had no say in her parents' decision to bring her here.

Now, she is mounting a fight to stay, so that she can finish university and put her impressive Canadian scholastic record – which includes a federally funded scholarship and a stint as prime minister of her high school's student council – to work for her adopted country.

Wednesday 08 March 2006
JEFF HEINRICH
Montreal Gazette

Tears came to Fawzi Hoceni's eyes yesterday as he watched and listened to TV footage of police using tough tactics to arrest him and 11 other unarmed Montreal demonstrators in an Ottawa office tower three years ago.

Along with two non-Algerian supporters, eight of the 10 Algerian men, including Hoceni, were acquitted last month on charges of mischief for occupying the waiting room of Denis Coderre, who was citizenship and immigration minister, on May 29, 2003.

The sit-in lasted almost 10 hours before police attacked the the demonstrators with electric stun guns and hauled them away to spend the night in jail.

The trial is over, but for the Algerians the emotional - and in some cases, physical - scars remain. They and others who've fled the North African country want Canada to recognize what they consider their right: to stay here indefinitely.