Tamil refugee who arrived on MV Sun Sea granted stay of deportation

Sloppy not doing the risk assessment:

A man who arrived in Canada seeking asylum with a boatload of Tamils 16 years ago has been spared deportation after court ruled Canadian officials have failed to properly assess the risk he’d face if returned to Sri Lanka.

Kugatheeswaran Thuraisinkam was among the 492 passengers aboard the highly publicized MV Sun Sea in 2010, who were deemed a national security threat by then prime minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government.

Officials associated them with the separatist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and suggested some might have been terrorists. As a result, they had been detained for months and challenged at every step of their asylum process. 

Thuraisinkam has for years dealt with prolonged separation from his wife and three children, homelessness and mental illness. He says an agent mishandled his case and so it didn’t get properly assessed.

“This has been a very difficult process,” Thuraisinkam told the Star through an interpreter. “I am so scared of being deported. I have some relief now. I am very grateful to the courts for saving me.”

In staying Thuraisinkam’s April 16 deportation, Federal Court Judge Sébastien Grammond said Canadian authorities have not yet assessed the risk the man would be facing upon returning to Sri Lanka by virtue of having been a passenger of the MV Sun Sea.

And that’s what Judge William Pentney at the same court had asked the Canada Border Services Agency to do in quashing an officer’s refusal to defer Thuraisinkam’s removal last year.

“It is curious, to say the least, that CBSA is attempting to remove him again when the issue highlighted by Justice Pentney has not yet been resolved,” Grammond wrote in his ruling released this week. 

Like all passengers on the MV Sun Sea, Thuraisinkam was detained for months by Canadian border officials and made a refugee claim based on the fear of persecution of Tamils in Sri Lanka….

Source: Tamil refugee who arrived on MV Sun Sea granted stay of deportation