Ottawa accused of stalling on visa approvals for thousands of Gazans stranded at critical time

2025/02/08 1 Comment

Suspect the necessary security clearances are part of the reason for delays:

Almost 5,000 Palestinians who applied last year to take part in a special Ottawa program to help them flee war-torn Gaza and join relatives in Canada have been deemed eligible by the government, but so far only 620 – or fewer than 15 per cent – have arrived.

Immigration lawyers representing Palestinians and their Canadian relatives are accusing the government of deliberately stalling applications, and are urging officials to take advantage of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and reopening of the Rafah crossing to press Israel to allow applicants still in Gaza to exit.

They say scores of Palestinians have paid thousands of dollars in bribes to cross into Egypt to complete biometric checks in Cairo required by the Canadian government and have been waiting for months there for final approval. Others are waiting in Gaza for confirmation that their visas have been approved.

Yameena Ansari, an immigration lawyer, said Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada “is fully capable of expediting processing of applications. They do it regularly for many lines of business. So, if the Gaza applications are not being expedited, that is not an accident.”

Immigration lawyer Warda Shazadi Meighen of Landings LLP in Toronto said Canada must act swiftly to uphold its commitments under the Gazan program. “For those still seeking relocation – particularly individuals with family in Canada – this moment presents a crucial opportunity to fulfill our humanitarian obligations,” she said.

Matthew Behrens, who co-ordinates the Rural Refugee Rights Network, said “it is inexcusable” for IRCC to sit on applications for over a year, warning that “the border could be closed again at a moment’s notice.”

Ottawa’s program faced criticism over security concerns when it was announced. Last year, Marco Rubio, then a senator and now secretary of state in President Donald Trump’s administration, wrote to the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary, warning that the program raised the risk of allowing people with ties to terror groups, such as Hamas, to get easier access to the United States….

Source: Ottawa accused of stalling on visa approvals for thousands of Gazans stranded at critical time

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Canada faces calls to suspend asylum agreement with U.S., saying Trump orders undermine migrants’ rights

2025/02/06 Leave a comment

Real dilemma for the government given that USA is becoming less safe and the risk of significant increases in asylum claimants from the USA without the STCA to help control and manage inflows:

The federal government is facing calls to suspend a long-standing agreement with the U.S. to return asylum seekers at the border, with immigration experts saying the United States should no longer be considered a safe place for people fleeing persecution.

They say U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive orders that make it easier to deport or detain migrants – including plans to hold 30,000 migrants accused of criminality in Guantanamo Bay – undermine their rights to such an extent that Canada should halt returning asylum seekers to the U.S.

Under the Safe Third Country Agreement, which came into effect in 2004, asylum seekers must make a claim at the first country in which they arrive. The agreement means that most asylum seekers arriving at the Canadian border are automatically returned to the U.S., with some exceptions such as people facing the death penalty.

Immigration lawyers and refugee advocates say Mr. Trump’s policies that make it easier to deport asylum seekers without a court hearing and increase detention may breach international law and should prompt Canada to rethink or suspend the agreement.

“The executive actions in the U.S. will materially impede access to asylum, and result in the routine imprisonment of refugees, contrary to UN standards,” says Erin Simpson, a partner at immigration law firm Landings LLP in Toronto.

“When Canada returns refugees to the U.S. under the Safe Third Country Agreement, they risk deportation to persecution and torture, and prison. Canada has the authority to suspend the agreement, and should exercise that authority until it is satisfied the agreement is not harming refugees.”

…But some experts warned that scrapping the agreement could lead to an influx of asylum seekers to Canada, who could not be turned back.

James Yousif, a Toronto-based lawyer who was director of policy to former Conservative immigration minister Jason Kenney, said the move would be “reckless” and “risk destabilizing Canada’s social and economic foundations.”

“Canada would face a surge in asylum claims from undocumented migrants in the United States, overwhelming public systems. Provinces and cities would be required to provide health care, social assistance, education and housing supports,” he said, adding they would be “severely strained.”

Source: Canada faces calls to suspend asylum agreement with U.S., saying Trump orders undermine migrants’ rights

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Canadian ISIL suspect with ties to Chatham could settle in Ottawa after repatriation

2023/01/27 Leave a comment

Sigh… An overly sympathetic treatment of an apparent ISIL member, UK born and raised, whose UK citizenship revocation allowed the UK government to “offload” him to Canada, despite his having never lived here. While I understand the desire of parents to do everything for their son, government should appeal this particular case (a Canadian is a Canadian need not necessarily be deemed a Canadian in cases such as this):

An activist working with the family of an alleged terrorist connected to Chatham and held for the past five years in Syria says Jack Letts could wind up living in Ottawa with his mother if he’s brought back to Canada.

Letts, a former British national nicknamed “Jihadi Jack” by the media there, is one of four Canadian men a court ruled last week must be repatriated to Canada. Stripped of his U.K. citizenship by the British government for alleged ties to ISIL, the Oxford-born Letts still retains a Canadian citizenship through his father, who is originally from the Chatham-Kent region but now lives in England.
Matthew Behrens, an advocate with the group Stop Canadian Involvement In Torture, which has been working with the Letts family on their repatriation efforts, said the “hope is that he will join his mom in Ottawa”He said Letts’ mother, Sally Lane, moved to the nation’s capital a few years ago after her son was stripped of his British citizenship. Behrens said Lane decided to move to Ottawa to maintain pressure on the Canadian government to bring her son home “because Jack is a Canadian citizen who has a right to return here.”

Behrens said supporters hope Letts and the other three men will be repatriated by Feb. 15, the second anniversary of the Global Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention. He added that Canadian-authored declaration was signed into existence “ostensibly to bring home the two Michaels” – Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, who were detained in China for nearly three years for questionable reasons.
The Canadian government, Behrens said, “completely ignored” those principles when dealing with the four men imprisoned by Kurdish forces in northeast Syria.Behrens, who was in the courtroom when Justice Henry Brown ruled the four male prisoners must be repatriated, said the judge’s decision required the detainees to be brought back as soon as reasonably possible.

“The judge said that in the context of reminding the government that the conditions of the women and children were bad enough, but that the conditions of the men are worse. He called them dire,” the activist said.Brown’s decision was the result of a court action launched in 2021 by the Letts family and the family members of the other Canadians detained in this Kurdish prison. Lawyers struck an agreement on Jan. 19 for the federal government to retrieve six women and 13 children held in captivity, but not the four men, none of whom were named, except for Letts.

Then on Jan. 20, Brown ruled the four men must also be returned to Canada, citing the mobility rights section of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which says every citizen “has the right to enter, remain in and leave Canada.”

Brown noted in his ruling the men were in custody because the Kurds suspected they were part of ISIL. The judge, though, said federal government lawyers did not allege in court that “any of the (Canadians) engaged in or assisted in terrorist activities.”

“Canadians are entitled to have political opinions, no matter how abhorrent they may be to other Canadians,” the judge wrote in his decision. He said the line is crossed when they actually commit crimes, but “there is no evidence to that effect before this court.”

Source: Canadian ISIL suspect with ties to Chatham could settle in Ottawa after repatriation

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