Why some groups are quitting Canada’s popular refugee sponsorship program

2023/01/19 Leave a comment

Of concern, and finding the right balance on accountability:

Canada’s Syrian resettlement project spurred an outpouring of public support for refugees, but now the federal government is trying to ease growing pains that have come with the hugely popular private sponsorship program.

Since Canadians from coast to coast welcomed displaced Syrians to their communities in 2015, the number of sponsorship agreement holders or SAH — organizations authorized to resettle overseas refugees in Canada — has surged from 90 to 138 in 2022.

The annual number of refugees brought to Canada through the SAHs — and supported by local community groups — had doubled from 9,350 to 19,143 in 2019, before the COVID pandemic hampered the work. This year, 27,750 refugees are expected to come from around the world under private sponsorships.

As a result, the immigration department has recently implemented new rules to govern the work of these religious, ethnic, community or humanitarian organizations — as well as sponsorship groups that raise money and volunteer to help newcomers settle in Canada by taking them to appointments and securing housing and jobs.

While the changes are welcomed to ensure refugees’ needs are met, some sponsorship agreement holders, particularly the ones relying heavily on volunteers, say the cumbersome paperwork and mandatory audits are stretching their limited resources.

At least two groups are calling it quits, including the Anglican diocese in British Columbia. The Star has learned that as many as 10 organizations have said they’re unable to continue their work, meaning fewer refugees would be sponsored down the road.

“In the face of growing conflicts around the world, this is more important than ever. We have undertaken this work despite the steep administrative costs, because we know how important it is,” Bishop Anna Greenwood-Lee of the Diocese of British Columbia wrote in an open letter to constituents before Christmas.

“This is a difficult decision for us, and we recognize that there will be uncertainty in our community.”

She said the diocese will honour the commitment to the 290 applications still in process and cease its sponsorship program when its current agreement with the government expires.

A 2016 government review found the essential needs of resettled refugees were met but that there was a lack of monitoring of the private sponsorship program. Immigration staff were also unsure to what extent they needed to keep an eye on how the sponsorships went.

In late 2017, officials created the resettlement services assurance team to monitor whether resettled refugees were receiving the required financial and non-financial support from their sponsors, a task that was seen as having been carried out inconsistently by local offices.

Since then, a total of 821 sponsorships have been flagged for “case reviews” through external complaints and internal monitoring mechanism.

In most cases, officials say they are able to work with the sponsors to address the deficiencies in the support provided and avoid a sponsorship breakdown and/or default.

Between 2018 and last year, a total of 821 sponsorships broke down after sponsored refugees changed where they planned to live or the contention identified in the reviews could not be resolved. In 76 cases, the sponsors were found to be at fault.

As part of the new assessment regime, SAHs have to be revalidated. They must meet all eligibility criteria; demonstrate the ability to monitor their caseloads and constituent sponsorship groups; submit an extensive form detailing organizational structure and operational plans; complete mandatory sponsorship training and provide financial statements within the past 18 months.

Recognizing some organizations may need time to meet the new requirements, officials have put in a temporary exemption for missing audited financial statements. However, those groups will be put on a watch list and required to provide proof of funds and settlement plans for each sponsorship application.

According to the Canadian Refugee Sponsorship Agreement Holders Association, 30 per cent of its members are completely volunteer-run organizations and another 12 per cent had only one part-time staff member. They oversee and support multiple sponsorship groups and facilitate anywhere from 10 to several hundred applications annually.

As the process is already cumbersome, some groups, especially the smaller ethnic-based organizations, are concerned the administrative burden would become too much.

“The over-professionalization of the private sponsorship program is a very real concern,” said Kaylee Perez, chair of the national association, adding that it’s working with immigration to make the assessment “less bureaucratic in nature and better aligned with the community-based, volunteer spirit of the program.”

At Mennonite Central Committee Canada, an established SAH, the new requirements would have relatively less impact because it has 14 full-time equivalent staff in five provinces and the infrastructure in place to support the program.

Still, the Mennonite group and all other SAHs have had to improve record-keeping to ensure they have all needed documents and receipts, let alone fork out as much as $10,000 for an audit by an accounting firm.

“In many sponsorships, the people who are doing the direct support tend to be family members,” said Brian Dyck, the Mennonite committee’s national resettlement co-ordinator. “You don’t keep receipts for family members. A lot of SAHs have found that they’ve had to take over the management of the finances” from constituent groups, he said.

“We’re doing a lot more than we used to. This is a program integrity exercise and that’s an important thing for me, too, but the question is, ‘Do we have the resources to do that and if we don’t, where do they come from?’”

Dyck said each file over the course of the one-year sponsorship requires an average 35 hours of staff time, from outreach to training of constituent groups, getting the forms right, collecting documentation, planning and monitoring. Existing SAHs are unlikely to be able to fill the gaps if others drop out.

Alex Hauschildt, operations director of the Anglican United Refugee Alliance, said each SAH does its best for sponsored refugees, and the new rules help ensure quality and consistent support.

“A lot of SAHs think that they don’t have the capacity to do everything that’s needed. This is what the balance of this whole thing is. You’re weighing the capacity to do good work and trying to find that balance from every lens,” said Hauschildt.

“If it is important to you, you have to find a way of doing it. If you were doing 100 so-so applications, maybe you should be doing 25 excellent applications,” he added. “There are definitely growing pains we all have to go through and figure out.”

Source: Why some groups are quitting Canada’s popular refugee sponsorship program

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Dutch government backtracks on migrant family reunions

2023/01/16 Leave a comment

Of note:

The Dutch government on Wednesday backtracked on restrictions that it placed last year on family members joining asylum-seekers who are granted residency in the Netherlands, after courts ruled the move was unlawful.

State Secretary for Justice and Security Eric van der Burg said in a letter to parliament that he expects other courts to follow suit “as a result of which the useful effect of the measure is temporarily absent.”

Van der Burg said he is temporarily suspending the family reunion restrictions pending a definitive ruling by a Dutch administrative court.

The justice ministry introduced the restrictions last year as part of a raft of measures aimed at reining in the high numbers of migrants arriving in the Netherlands that led to a housing crisis and overcrowding at asylum-seeker centers.

The problems came to a head in the summer when hundreds of people were forced to sleep outdoors in unsanitary conditions outside the country’s main migrant reception center in the northern village of Ter Apel.

The conditions at the camp were so bad that the Dutch branch of humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders sent a team to tend to the migrants, the first time the agency had deployed in the Netherlands.

In an attempt to ease the overcrowding, the government in late August announced measures including a move to temporarily rein in family reunions until migrants are permanently housed, provide more housing for people whose asylum requests are honored and process and repatriate people quicker from countries that are considered safe.

But a number of courts have since ruled that such family reunions can go ahead.

The Dutch council for Refugees has been highly critical of the policy, calling for it to be scrapped and labeling it “politics at its most ugly.”

Source: Dutch government backtracks on migrant family reunions

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Here’s how Syrian refugees who came to Canada say they’re doing — seven years later

2022/12/19 Leave a comment

Encouraging study:

Seven years after Canada opened its doors to Syrian refugees, that first cohort of newcomers say they feel good about their new lives, have remained friends with their sponsors and are hopeful for a better future.

However, many still struggle with finding gainful employment, according to a two-year research project by the Environics Institute.

For the newcomers and Canadians, the time between 2015 and 2016 was a defining moment of their lives and in this country’s history, as communities banded together and welcomed 25,000 Syrians within months during a national resettlement project.

“It was a feel-good thing. These people were coming over to Canada from a crisis. We were giving them a home. The government and private citizens were stepping up. They were settling in,” says Keith Neuman, research director of the study released Saturday.

“It was something that made a lot of Canadians feel good about their country, if you will. It’s kind of faded now in memory, but it hasn’t really soured.”

Researchers interviewed 305 Syrian refugees who came during that period about their lived experience and where they are today, seven years later. Participants, who responded to a callout, answered 125 questions in Arabic, English or French during in-depth interviews.

Almost nine in 10 described their current life in Canada in positive light, most particularly feeling safe and secure and being accepted by their local community in spite of different degrees of financial insecurity and challenges with employment.

While many said they appreciated the country’s rule of law and respect for human rights, the things they liked least in Canada included: the harsh weather (32 per cent), the initial challenges in adapting to a new culture and lifestyle (19 per cent), and being separated from families and friends (14 per cent).

An overwhelming 93 per cent of respondents said moving to Canada was the right thing to do, though six per cent expressed mixed feelings about the decision, while the remainder expressed clear regret or did not respond to the question.

“Canada is not a perfect country, but it’s a good country,” one participant told researchers. “You can do what you want in life; but you need to work hard, like anywhere, but here you have the tools for success.”

“I felt something I never felt back home. You’re free,” another was quoted as saying in the report. “Back in Syria, I had to iron my husband’s shirt every day, since I landed here, I never ironed a shirt once! People are all the same, there is no separation of classes.”

Although few arrived with a functional fluency in English or French, more than 60 per cent of those surveyed now rated their language fluency as excellent or good.

Half of the refugees interviewed were currently working, including three per cent reporting to be doing multiple jobs and seven per cent who were self-employed. Fifty-one per cent said their jobs fully or somewhat matched their past education, skills and experience.

Most people were employed in transportation, warehousing, retail, construction and accommodation and food services. Some were in professional, scientific and technical services.

Fourteen per cent of respondents reported their household income was “good enough and they were able to save from it,” while 63 per cent indicated it was “just enough.” The remaining quarter said they felt stretched or were having a rough time.

More than half of the survey participants said they feel a very strong sense of belonging to Canada, with most of the rest describing it as somewhat strong (35 per cent).

Those who were privately sponsored by community organizations and church groups have developed enduring relationships with their supporters, with three quarters of those surveyed saying they remain in touch years later.

Among the many aspirations of the Syrian immigrants were: owning a home (42 per cent); completing more education and training to improve their lives (39 per cent); sponsoring other family members to Canada (24 per cent) and ensuring their children finish higher education (22 per cent).

Canada’s Syrian refugee resettlement project was unique and there have been many takeaways for similar operations in the future, says Jobran Khanji, the research project’s community outreach lead.

“Different governments mobilized. Community agencies mobilized and the civic society mobilized. Your average Canadians came together in a crisis situation within weeks and months to support the families who were the first to arrive in Canada,” said Khanji, himself a Syrian immigrant from Damascus.

“It’s a great demonstration of what can be done when everybody mobilizes.”

Nabiha Atallah of the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia said she was not surprised by the survey findings but said she was encouraged most Syrians felt welcomed and that they belonged.

Nova Scotia welcomed about 1,500 of the Syrian refugees. Most of them were among the most vulnerable, with many children, sponsored by the government. Yet, they were eager to start working right away.

“It has taken the five or six years. Language is not an easy thing to learn as an adult when some of the people did not even have much of formal education,” Atallah said.

“One of the important things of this report is for the community to see that their response was really effective, because we see that most of the people in this study said they felt they belong and they’re part of the community. That’s great confirmation for the general population.”

Chris Friesen of Immigrant Services Society of B.C. says the report was reflective of the experience of the clients served in the province that resettled more than 3,000 Syrians.

It’s important to track the well-being of the Syrians over time to identify areas of needs and take those lessons to other humanitarian operations, he said.

“We’ve really taken some of the approaches and experiences in Operation Syrian refugees forward,” said Friesen, referring to the resettlement of displaced Afghans and Ukrainians. “That’s encouraging. We’re not repeating it, but we’re building upon it.”

Source: Here’s how Syrian refugees who came to Canada say they’re doing — seven years later

Link to report: Final Report

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Federal changes could make it impossible for private groups to sponsor refugees, say faith leaders

2022/12/16 Leave a comment

Really hard to know what the specific issues are from this op-ed:

Last year, footage of Afghans desperately clinging to departing planes following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan shocked the world. The images told a clear story: those holding onto the plane were so desperate to escape they would risk their lives. Since then, conflicts have escalated across the world, leading to the highest number of refugees in years, according to the UN High Commission on Refugees. The need to welcome refugees has never been greater.

On Vancouver Island, a wide variety of people have worked together to offer a haven to refugees and protect the persecuted. As faith leaders, we have watched worshippers, communities, and student groups come together to sponsor and welcome refugees to this part of the world.

The work of bringing a family to safety brings people together regardless of faith or race. The bonds that are created over the sponsorship process can last decades and are transformative for all involved. Those who come here as refugees begin to build a new life and are welcomed by a community invested in their success and happiness. It’s a win-win.

Organizations like the Anglican Diocese of British Columbia have been involved in privately sponsoring refugees from dozens of countries – including Ethiopia, Syria and the Democratic Republic of Congo – through the federal government’s Sponsorship Agreement Holder (SAH) program. The program allows for a certain number of refugees to be sponsored by organizations every year and places significant legal and financial liability on agreement holders, who must cover basic needs and support such as housing for a period of one year.

But upcoming changes to the program means that many groups may no longer be able to undertake this work. The federal government is implementing significant administrative requirements that will cost organizations tens of thousands of dollars, making sponsorship financially unfeasible.

For the Anglican Diocese of British Columbia, the largest SAH on Vancouver Island, these new costs are too onerous to bear. The diocese looks forward to honouring its commitments over the next few years to those whose applications have already submitted, and will be welcoming another 290 people – about half of whom will be children – to Vancouver Island. However, the diocese cannot responsibly submit any further applications under the new requirements and will allow our agreement to expire when the term is up.

For the diocese, the decision was not an easy one to make, but it can no longer afford to continue this work. Apart from raising millions in sponsorship dollars, the diocese itself contributes more than $150,000 a year to cover the administrative burden of this work. The new requirements will increase that burden and are a step too far for an already-stretched organization.

Our communities love this work. It matters. But as the federal government continues to make announcements about welcoming refugees, the reality is that much of the work is downloaded onto community and faith groups like ours.

Despite the diocese’s impeccable track record of navigating the system, raising money to sponsor refugee families, and ensuring support for these families for their first year in Canada, they are being asked by the government to do even more, without any funding and minimal support.

The work of welcoming refugees to Canada, setting up apartments, registering kids for school and ESL classes, and helping people feel at home in a new country is work that volunteers can and will continue to do. But the administrative work required by the government, in the form of expensive financial audits and forms, is too much to ask of volunteers.

As people of faith, people who are committed to providing a haven to the persecuted, we will continue to do what we can. But the government should make it easier – not harder – for us to do this work. Imposing administrative burdens on volunteers that are too heavy to bear will mean fewer refugees making Canada their home, families will remain apart, and religious institutions like ours will struggle to stay involved in this work.

We each lead congregations of people looking to build a better world. For our worshippers, just like for so many Vancouver Islanders, part of that work is welcoming refugees. We will continue to find a way to do this work because we do it well. We just want the government to help – not to hinder.

Bishop Anna Greenwood-Lee is the Anglican Bishop for the Diocese of British Columbia. Rabbi Harry Brechner leads Congregation Emanu-El in Victoria. Imam Zoheir Tahar is a leader with the Muslim Community of Vancouver Island

Source: Federal changes could make it impossible for private groups to sponsor refugees, say faith leaders

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Refugee children don’t place significant demands on health care: Ontario data

2022/12/05 Leave a comment

Of note. No surprise the differences between private and government sponsored:
Refugee children and youth do not place substantial demands on the health-care system in Ontario when compared with their Canadian-born peers, new research indicates.
A study led by SickKids hospital in Toronto and non-profit research institute ICES compared 23,287 resettled refugees to 93,148 Ontario-born children and youth aged under 17 from 2008 to 2018.

Source: Refugee children don’t place significant demands on health care: Ontario data

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USA: Asylum rates drop as immigration cases are fast-tracked, research finds

2022/12/02 Leave a comment

Balance between speed/efficiency and fairness, there are trade-offs:

Fast-tracked immigration cases appear to be hurting migrants’ chances of being granted asylum, researchers are finding.

“The big takeaway message is that the Biden administration really is trying to speed up cases but data shows when you speed up cases they lose,” Syracuse University professor and researcher Austin Kocher told Border Report as he toured the South Texas border on Wednesday.

Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, orTRAC, one of the nation’s leading researchers on immigration court cases, on Tuesday released a study that found that since July, asylum grant rates have fallen and it “coincides with the extremely rapid increase in expedited cases.”

Although Fiscal Year 2022 had the largest number of individuals granted asylum of any year in immigration court history, in digging into the data, researchers found that the quicker the cases went through the courts, the lower the asylum seekers’ chances.

TRAC found that when asylum cases were completed within three to 18 months, only 31% of cases were granted asylum.

“More asylum cases were granted last year than any other year but the grant rate is actually going down in recent months,” Kocher said.

(TRAC Graphic)

Border Report met up with Kocher on Wednesday as he was on day 5 of his visit to South Texas as part of a seven-week research tour of the entire Southwest border.

He said immigration cases require collecting massive amounts of evidence and documents, and TRAC data has found that migrants who retain lawyers have a higher chance of being granted asylum. He said the rushed cases could be limiting and preventing asylum-seekers from gathering all the data they need to present full cases to the judges, and it could be preventing them from getting legal counsel altogether.

“We definitely know that the Biden administration has tried to accelerate these cases to try to clear out the backlog,” Kocher said. “They really are taking the backlog seriously and they really do want asylum cases to get decided more quickly but the problem is, as the data shows, that if you really speed cases up individuals don’t always have time to get attorneys and they don’t always have time to gather the full application materials that are necessary.”

Kocher crossed into Reynosa, Mexico, early Wednesday, and said he spoke with several migrants there who expressed their lack of resources and lack of legal aid as they wait across the border due to Title 42 restrictions.

Source: Asylum rates drop as immigration cases are fast-tracked, research finds

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Advocates urge Ottawa to remove quota on Afghan refugee sponsorship program

2022/10/31 Leave a comment

Of note – quoted:

A group of advocates is urging the federal government to remove the limit on applications to sponsor certain Afghan refugees in Canada – or at least stop counting rejected applications towards it.

The government introduced a new program last month to allow Canadian individuals and organizations to privately sponsor up to 3,000 Afghan refugees who don’t have refugee status from the United Nations refugee agency or a foreign state.

It said it will accept sponsorship applications under the new program until Oct. 17, 2023, or once it has received applications for 3,000 refugees – whichever comes first.

In a letter sent to Immigration Minister Sean Fraser last week, a volunteer with Northern Lights Canada, a non-profit that’s been helping Afghan refugees in Toronto, said the new program’s cap is “highly prejudicial,” compared to the accommodations made for Ukrainians who want to come to Canada.

“Minister Fraser, I urge you to reconsider the design of the Afghan special program,” Heather Finley wrote in her letter dated Oct. 22.

“By raising the applicant quota and removing rejected applications from it, you will allow a more fair and equitable opportunity for Afghans in Canada to sponsor their families to join them here.”

Stephen Watt, co-founder of Northern Lights Canada, said the new program doesn’t come close to meeting the needs of Afghan refugees and their families and friends in Canada.

“Just having 3,000 spots in a crisis where millions of people are very recently displaced. It is insulting,” he said in an interview.

Almost 109,000 Ukrainians arrived to Canada between Jan. 1 and Oct. 23 under special programs the government introduced to help unlimited numbers of Ukrainians and their family members flee the war in Ukraine to safety.

Meanwhile, Ottawa has committed to resettling a total of 40,000 Afghan refugees after the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August of last year, with fewer than 23,000 having arrived in Canada so far.

Immigration Department spokeswoman Isabelle Dubois said the program that has allowed Ukrainians to come to Canada is using the department’s existing temporary resident visa processes, networks and infrastructure to bring as many of them as quickly as possible.

“This is not a refugee program, as compared to our Afghanistan refugee resettlement program, since Ukrainians have indicated that they need temporary safe harbour,” she said.

“Many of them intend to return to their home country when it will be safe to do so.”

Dubois said the government provided 3,000 additional spaces for organizations wanting to sponsor Afghan refugees in addition to the 3,000 spaces under the new special program.

“We are also processing existing and new private sponsorship applications for up to 7,000 Afghan refugees,” she said.

Watt said the new program’s application system crashed shortly after the government opened it at midnight on Oct. 17 due to many people rushing to submit applications.

He said many will likely end up rejected on a technicality because the government said it will process only the first 3,000 applicants and thus sponsors had to raise funds and write their sponsorship applications quickly.

“It’s so disappointing,” he said.

“This announcement that whether (the applications) are good or bad, we’re still going to count them towards the total. So, what that did was create this condition where people were frantically rushing to put together applications.”

Dubois confirmed the government will count all completed applications towards the new program’s 3,000 limit and said the department is currently reviewing the received applications to determine whether it reached that cap.

“We understand some clients experienced issues when submitting an application. No applications were lost as files were automatically backed up,” Dubois said.

“Applications are reviewed on a first-in, first-out basis to determine their completeness. We will continue to send out acknowledgments of receipt for applications that are determined to be complete and accepted into processing.”

Watt said the government should remove the cap on how many Afghan refugees can be privately sponsored for one year to allow people to work on the sponsorship applications – which he said can take months to put together because the requirements are so stringent and excessive.

“If you had a family of seven that may be $70,000 you have to get together. You have to get all the sponsorship documents lined up. You have to write the application,” he said.

“Filling out PDFs perfectly in perfect English when you’reanew Canadian, and having to having to rise to the challenge of these applications which are very demanding even for people who are completely fluent in English and have great use of computer skills.”

Andrew Griffith, a former director at the federal Immigration Department, said he is not aware of any government immigration or refugee program that counted rejected application towards the target other than the new special program for Afghan refugees.

He said many have been criticizing the government for apparently prioritizing Ukrainian refugees over Afghan refugees.

“The situations for both sets of refugees are dire in many cases,” he said. “I’m not (trying to) apply any value statements on that, but it does highlight another discrepancy between the two groups of refugees in my view.”

Griffith said it’s true that the Ukrainians are formally coming to Canada on temporary visas, but many of them may end up staying here.

“Realistically, how many of the people accepted from Ukraine will go back?” he said. “I think most of them would probably like to go. I don’t deny that. But it depends on the situation.”

Source: Advocates urge Ottawa to remove quota on Afghan refugee sponsorship program

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Japan has taken in hundreds of Ukrainians. The welcome for others has been less warm

2022/10/31 Leave a comment

Of note:

A dozen Ukrainian students sit in a classroom, studying basic Japanese to help them navigate life in a new country. Among them is Sergei Litvinov, a 29-year-old trained chef, who arrived in June. He says he’s been listening to Japanese rock music since his teen years.

Coming to Japan is “a dream come true,” he says with a laugh. “But I’m not happy, because it’s a terrible story in Ukraine.”

Litvinov is one of nearly 2,000 Ukrainians admitted to Japan on a temporary basis since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, according to Japan’s justice ministry.

The Ukrainians have been met with an outpouring of sympathy and hospitality in the country. “It was the first time I’ve gotten so many phone calls and emails from society, wanting to assist the refugees from Ukraine,” says Kazuko Fushimi, who handles public relations at the Tokyo-based Japan Association for Refugees.

But the warm welcome Japan has given the Ukrainians contrasts with how it has treated other foreigners fleeing conflict and persecution over the years, say human rights groups. Of 169 Afghans who fled to Japan after the Taliban took over in August 2021, 58 went back to Afghanistan “due to what they say was pressure and a lack of support from the Japanese Foreign Ministry,” Japan’s Kyodo news service reported last month.

For now, the Japanese government has given the Ukrainians residency and work permits lasting up to a year. But for those from other countries, it’s often a years-long struggle to attain similar benefits and privileges.

The central government has provided visas and work permits. Local governments have provided food, housing and living allowances.

Litvinov is one of a group of 70 Ukrainians sent to the port city of Yokohama – 17 miles from the Japanese capital Tokyo — where local authorities are providing for temporary accommodation, food and living expenses.

Significantly, Japan is not calling the Ukrainians refugees, but “evacuees.” That is because Tokyo expects them all to go home eventually.

Historically, Japan accepts very few refugees. Last year, it granted just 74 applicants refugee status — the highest number ever, but less than 1% of the total who applied, according to the Japan Association for Refugees.

Some in Japan see their country as mono-ethnic — not a nation of immigrants. But the idea is a matter of debate.

Human rights groups and refugee advocates say the system is deliberately designed to set a high bar for successful refugee applications. Refugees applying for asylum in Japan must demonstrate they face life-threatening persecution at home.

Heydar Safari Diman has been trying to do just that for more than 30 years, since fleeing from Iran to Japan, which he became interested in through watching TV dramas and movies, including the films of director Akira Kurosawa. He does not want to say exactly what persecution he faced in Iran, because he fears it could jeopardize family members still in the country.

But authorities have repeatedly rejected his bids for refugee status. They detained him for a total of more than four years without any explanation, he says, in what he calls hellish conditions.

“I like Japan and Japanese people, but I hate the ones in the detention center,” he says, speaking fluent Japanese. “How could they bully us like that? What did we do? We are refugees. I have no criminal record.”

In 2019, Safari Diman was one of about 100 detainees who went on hunger strikes to protest their detention. Safari Diman says he sank into deep depression and thought about ending his own life.

“You need a lot of courage to commit suicide. It’s very difficult to kill yourself in there. And I did not have that courage,” he says.

Tokyo-based attorney Chie Komai, who represents Safari Diman and others seeking to stay in Japan, took his case to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in 2019. She argued that her client’s detention was arbitrary because Japanese immigration authorities can detain foreigners indefinitely, without any judicial review.

The U.N. working group agreed with her. “They made it clear that the Japanese immigration detention system is in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

The Japanese government objected to the U.N. working group’s findings, saying they were “based on factual errors” and disputing that its detentions were arbitrary. But it did not dispute the details of Safari Diman’s case. He is now out on what is called “provisional release,” and has not been detained since the ruling.

Safari Diman, who’s subsisted in Japan on donations from friends and supporters, says he does not expect the sort of benefits the Ukrainians are getting.

“I’m not asking for Japanese taxpayers to support me,” he says. “If authorities recognize me as a refugee, I will work and pay taxes.”

Other cases have also fueled debate over Japan’s treatment of refugees. They include the death in an immigration detention center last year of 33-year-old Sri Lankan Ratnayake Liyanage Wishma Sandamali, detained for overstaying her visa.

Prosecutors dropped charges against immigration officials accused of responsibility for her death.

In another case, last month a Japanese court ordered the government to compensate the family of a 43-year-old Cameroonian man who died in an immigration detention center in 2014.

The public outcry over deaths in immigration detention centers appears to have prompted the government to drop controversial amendments to immigration laws. The amendments would have made it easier for the government to deportforeigners whose bids for refugee status had failed.

Japan’s government says it will extend financial assistance to the Ukrainians for an additional six months. The double standard is not lost on officials like Kazuhiro Suzuki, a Yokohama city official who is involved in running the program for Ukrainians.

“We’ve only been supporting the Ukrainian evacuees,” he says, observing the students from a corner of the classroom. “While the situation of refugees from other countries hasn’t changed.”

He adds: “Every day we keep working, but this discrepancy bothers us.”

Source: Japan has taken in hundreds of Ukrainians. The welcome for others has been less warm

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Will a former refugee’s trip to see his dying father cost him his status in Canada?

2022/10/26 Leave a comment

Understand the personal pain but it does undermine his claim to refugee status as it does with others who return to the country they fled. Hard to have it both ways:

When Medhi Ghamoshi Ramandi was finally granted asylum in Canada in 2019, one of the first things he did was leave the country.

The Iranian man wanted to see his wife and two children, whom he had not seen for six years since his escape from that country’s regime.

Aware of the safety risks of returning to his homeland, he got a refugee travel document from Canada and flew his family to Armenia, where he rented a place for three months so they could try to make up for some of their time lost.

“We had not seen each other for six years and we reunited in Armenia,” recalls Ramandi. “We did a lot of sightseeing there. We had very good memories of the first weeks there. I felt alive again.”

But then came the news of his father being diagnosed with an acute form of colon cancer.

“We didn’t think my father would last six months. There were photos of him with his stomach torn open and stuff like that,” says Ramandi. “My father was pleading, ‘Please come back so I can see you one last time.’ That’s what made me decide to go back.”

Unable to travel to his homeland with his refugee travel document, Ramandi took a chance to apply for an Iranian passport in Armenia and crossed a land border into Iran, at 2 a.m., hoping he wouldn’t be flagged.

Once inside the country, he says, he holed up in his parents’ house before sneaking into the hospital late at night and staying at his father’s bedside till the morning for fear of being spotted and reported to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards.

After 12 days in Iran with his dying father, the 50-year-old returned to Toronto on Sept. 23, 2019, via Armenia. 

He was immediately stopped and held for an investigation by the Canada Border Services Agency.

His offence was possessing a passport from the same regime that he had run away from and “reavailing” himself to Iran. 

To the Canadian authorities, that suggested he no longer required Canada’s protection and that he could be stripped of his refugee status.

“I had to go and see my father. He was dying,” said a sobbing Ramandi, whose application for permanent residence has been suspended since 2019 while officials are investigating whether to refer him to the refugee board and have his protected status ended.

It is a process known as cessation. The number of new cessation applications against individuals who have been granted asylum in Canada — many of them already permanent residents, sometimes for years — rose to 399 in 2021 from just 137 in 2013. The then-Conservative government, looking to crack down on bogus refugees, changed the law to not only go after former refugees’ protected status but also their permanent residence.

Those who return to their country of origin or simply apply for or renew their old passports, even just to visit a third country, can be pursued by Canadian border officials and lose both their refugee status and permanent residence, and ultimately face deportation.

“Technology is improving, so people’s movements are easier to track,” says immigration lawyer Mario Bellissimo. “There is a backlog that has now slowly moved through the system and there are investigations going on. 

“We’re seeing now an apex of cases.”

As of the end of June, there were 572 cessation applications before the Immigration and Refugee Board, down from a backlog of 781 cases in 2020.

Under the immigration law, Canada can take away someone’s protected status if they have:

  • “Voluntarily reavailed” themselves of the protection of their country of nationality;
  • Reacquired their nationality, as in obtaining or renewing a passport from the country of persecution;
  • “Re-established” in that country; or
  • When the reasons for which the person sought refugee protection no longer exist.

Lawyer Justin Jian-Yi Toh said investigations in cessation proceedings are often triggered when individuals are flagged by border agents upon returning from their country of origin or when they are found to have travelled back from a third country with a passport issued from the state they fled. 

Many are also caught when they are asked to provide detailed travel records to fulfil the physical residence requirement for the renewal of their residence cards or citizenship applications.

“Of course, for the average person, they don’t think about all that stuff when they get a passport,” said Toh. “They think, ‘I need a passport to travel. A passport is a travelling licence.’ That’s it.”

In the eyes of Canadian officials, when that happens, it means the refugee traveller has restored relations with their country of origin and no longer needs Canada’s protection.

“Then you see a situation where, for example, people get refugee status in Canada,” said Toh, “but then their parents get very sick and they say to themselves, ‘I’m in danger in this country, but this is my mom, and this is my dad. Maybe I can pop in and see them one last time without people noticing. I’m there and then get out quickly.”

How a court ruling could change things

The refugee board has allowed the majority of the cessation requests referred to it by the border agency, with an acceptance rate above 80 per cent. In 2020, it reached an all-time high, at 95 per cent.

But both Bellissimo and Toh hope that the rising trend will be blunted by a Federal Court of Appeal decision earlier this year that found each cessation proceeding should be “fact-dependent” and should not be applied in “a mechanistic or rote manner.”

The case, represented by the two lawyers, involved Maria Camila Galindo Camayo, who came to Canada for asylum with her mother and brothers from Colombia when she was 12 and who was granted protection in Canada in 2010 as a minor dependent.

After she became a permanent resident in 2012, she was found to have obtained and renewed her Colombian passport, and visited her homeland five times as a teen and adult to visit and care for her father, who suffers from mental illness and recurrent cancer, and to attend a humanitarian mission to aid children in poverty. She also used the passport to travel to Cuba, the United States and Mexico.

When in Colombia, concerned for her own safety, she hired professional armed guards, travelled in multiple cars, taking different routes, and remained inside family members’ homes as much as possible, she told the refugee board.

In 2017, border agents referred Camayo to the refugee board, which took away her protected status and permanent residence in 2019, despite her arguments that she was unaware of the cessation laws and their consequences.

Although on paper Camayo met the three key elements in assessing someone’s return to a country of persecution — voluntary, intentional and actual physical visit — the Federal Court overruled the refugee board decision, saying that the conclusion was unreasonable.

In dismissing the government’s appeal, the Federal Court of Appeal said the test for cessation should not be applied in “a mechanistic or rote manner” and it provided detailed guidance to assist the refugee board in assessing individual nuances leading to someone reavailing themselves to the country that they once feared.

“The focus throughout the analysis should be on whether the refugee’s conduct — and the inferences that can be drawn from it — can reliably indicate that the refugee intended to waive the protection of the country of asylum,” the appeal court said in sending the case back to the refugee board for redetermination.

‘My father was dying of cancer’

Ramandi said no one ever advised him not to use an Iranian passport or about the potential consequences. He said he tried to keep a low profile when sneaking back into Iran because he worried about his safety. The visit to Tehran wasn’t even part of his plan as he only learned about his father’s hospitalization toward the end of his three-month trip in Armenia.

“My father was dying of cancer. … The immigration issue didn’t even cross my mind,” said Ramandi, a Protestant Christian, who fled religious persecution in Iran and arrived in Canada in 2013 with the help of smugglers.

Still distraught from leaving his father and family behind, he said he was terrified when he was stopped by the border agents at Toronto’s Pearson airport.

“I told them about seeing my family in Armenia and about my father in Iran. I told them everything about the trip,” Ramandi, a baker, said through an interpreter. “I had no idea about the immigration implications.”

His father died a few months after his visit and Ramandi has not travelled or seen his wife, son, 18, and daughter, 14, while his permanent residence application is on hold.

“I came here when I was 41 and I’m now 50. It’s been almost 10 years and I’ve only been able to spend three months with my family in Armenia,” said Ramandi. “It’s so hard. I don’t have any direction for my life anymore.”

Immigration lawyer Richard Wazana said those with “ceased” status are also barred from appeals and risk assessments before removals for a year and are only eligible for humanitarian considerations if there are children involved and their interests are affected, or if there’s a serious mental or medical health issue.

The law, he said, has caused a lot of misery for these former refugees, few understanding that their protected status can be taken away even after they become permanent residents.

“Many people don’t apply for citizenship because they’re under the mistaken impression that permanent residency is, as it sounds, permanent. Unfortunately, it’s far from it,” he said. “Really, no one is safe until they obtain citizenship.”

Wazana has a client who fled political persecution in Libya and returned to see family only after the authoritarian regime of Moammar Gadhafi fell and it was safe for him to visit. Even though Canada has deferred all removals to Libya due to the volatile political situation there, the border agency pursued cessation of the man’s permanent resident status.

“Even using that passport from your home country to travel to a third country could potentially lead to a cessation application,” said Wazana. “My advice is just to forget about that passport, put it away and never use it again.”

Source: Will a former refugee’s trip to see his dying father cost him his status in Canada?

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with ,

Canada deports more than 200 North Korean escapees who took South Korean citizenship

2022/10/18 Leave a comment

Of note:

Canada has deported 242 North Korean escapees since 2018, and is in the process of sending home 512 more, after finding that many had gained South Korean citizenship before coming to Canada, RFA has learned from two Canadian government agencies.

Most of the deportees are sent back to South Korea, where they initially landed after escaping from the North – usually a harrowing journey through China where they must avoid capture and forced repatriation. And because Seoul claims sovereignty over the entire Korean peninsula, escapees are granted citizenship upon arrival.

But some then go on to Canada, after having a hard time adjusting to life in the South – and that’s where the problem arises in obtaining refugee status.

Typically, to be granted refugee status, an asylum seeker must present evidence of being persecuted in their home country. But because the North Korean escapees found refuge in the South, and were granted citizenship there, they could be excluded from refugee protection, the government agency that provides protection to refugees, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), told RFA.

Essentially, if the asylum-seekers had gone directly to Canada, they would have a better chance of gaining refugee status and be allowed to stay in the country.

The IRCC said that while there may still be instances in which a North Korean requires protection, many asylum petitions have been turned down due to applicants’ South Korean citizenship.

The statistics on deported North Korean escapees were compiled by the Canada Border Services Agency, which is responsible for border control, immigration enforcement and customs services.

“The Canada Border Services Agency places the highest priority on removal cases involving national security, organized crime, crimes against humanity, and criminals – regardless of country of origin,” the agency told RFA’s Korean Service.

“Removals of failed refugees and individuals with other immigration violations are also necessary to maintain the integrity of Canada’s immigration system,” it said.

Difficult Adjustment

More than 33,000 North Koreans have found their way to the South and resettled over the years, most of them having arrived after the 1994-1998 North Korean famine that killed as many as 2 million people by some estimates,  and pushed the country to the brink of collapse.

They risked their lives to escape, most having traveled more than 3,000 miles through China, all the while avoiding capture and forced repatriation and dealing with shady brokers and traffickers. From there they navigated through several southeast Asian countries in the hope of one day boarding a plane headed for Seoul’s Incheon International Airport.

The South welcomes such escapees. They are sent to government-funded orientation programs and given startup money and a living stipend as they settle into their new lives.

But for many escapees, the South is not the land of milk and honey they expected.

The fast-paced life of South Korea seems too hectic, and the people speak Korean peppered with unfamiliar loan words from the English language. Job skills the escapees may have had in the North might not translate into an equivalent position in the South Korean workforce.

And while they may physically blend in, many are made to feel that they are on the lower end of the social hierarchy in the South, due to discrimination and a resulting lack of opportunity to make their situation better.

Almost half of all North Korean refugees that settle in the South said they experienced discrimination in a 2017 poll by the South Korean government-backed National Human Rights Commission of Korea.

“Discrimination against North Korean defectors [in South Korea] is a very serious problem,” Ethan Hee-Seok Shin, a legal Analyst at the Seoul-based Transitional Justice Working Group, told RFA’s Korean Service.

Shin used the politically charged colloquial term “defector” which describes both defectors, who were part of the military or government at the time of their escape, and refugees, civilians who flee starvation or North Korea’s depressed economic situation. The term can, in some contexts, carry a negative connotation.

International Rights groups prefer to differentiate between defectors and refugees, depending on the circumstances of their escape.

“Of course, going abroad does not mean that there is no discrimination, but there is no such thing as being branded as a defector [outside of South Korea],” he said.

Hundreds therefore made the decision to move on from South Korea to Canada, where under the Resettlement Assistance Program they can get benefits that may include a household startup allowance and monthly income support.

Hiding immigration history

Since having a Republic of Korea passport is grounds to immediately reject an asylum application, many of the North Korean asylum-seekers in Canada try to hide evidence that they ever naturalized in South Korea.

According to a Canadian federal court document published Sept. 16, a North Korean refugee surnamed Kim, her husband with the family name Shin and their children were deprived of their refugee status in 2018 for concealing their South Korean citizenship. The document said deportation proceedings were to start.

Another refugee, surnamed Kang, was on the verge of being deported after it was discovered that he resided in South Korea in 2019.

Once the deportation order goes out, the refugees have a few options if they wish to remain in Canada.

According to a 2019 RFA report, over an 18-month period starting in January 2018, some 352 North Korean refugees in Canada lost their refugee status as the government at that time began revoking it in cases where they had lived in South Korea in 2013 or later.

The Canada Border Services Agency explained that a removal decision by an immigration officer can be subject to judicial and administrative review, during which the individuals involved in the case may seek leave to remain in the country.

Additionally, many of the refugees can apply for the Humanitarian and compassionate considerations program, said Sean Chung, the executive director of HanVoice, a Toronto-based nonprofit organization that assists North Koreans with settling in Canada.

Successful applicants to the program can obtain permanent residency in Canada if they are an exceptional case, such as when they have lived in Canada for a long period of time, or if there are special reasons that prevent someone from returning to their home country, he told RFA.

Source: Canada deports more than 200 North Korean escapees who took South Korean citizenship

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with , ,

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