FIRST READING: Migrants are being screened on the honour system, MPs told

2025/11/24 Leave a comment

Would be nice if there was government reaction included in this article. Will await committee transcript to see if any substantive response but does contribute to undermining confidence in immigration and asylum:

Canada is so overwhelmed by refugee claimants that it is now standard practice to conduct security screenings on the honour system, the head of Canada’s border patrol union told Parliamentarians this week.

To speed things up, because we are short-staffed, we are allowing people into the country without first doing … security screening,” Mark Weber, president of the Customs and Immigration Union, told a meeting of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

Right now, any foreign national showing up at a Canadian border post and claiming to be a refugee will be required only to fill out a security questionnaire via a smartphone app.

After that, the foreigner is cleared to enter Canada as a refugee claimant, a status that entitles them to free health care, access to public schools and work permits. In some cases, claimants can even receive taxpayer-funded lodgings.

In 2024, numbers released by the federal government’s Interim Housing Assistance Program showed that some claimants were receiving free meals and hotel rooms to the tune of $224 per claimant, per day.

And given the current backlog in processing refugee claims, even a false refugee claimant can expect to enjoy protected status in Canada for up to two years until their case is reviewed by immigration authorities.

As Weber told Parliamentarians on Tuesday, the only way to head off hostile actors abusing the system is to hope that they will “self-declare that they’re here for no good.”

“Our goal at the border is to build the file to be able to identify non-genuine claims, and right now we’re kind of relying on people to self-declare that they’re a non-genuine claim,” he said.

Weber said that border guards are no longer able to watch for “patterns and flags” that would show up in an individual posing a security threat to Canada.

Rather, their job is simply to collect basic personal and biometric data (such as fingerprints) before sending refugee claimants on their way.

Border guards aren’t even allowed to review the self-reported answers given by refugee claimants; that all gets sent to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

“Claimants spend significantly less time meaningfully interacting with officers, with the result of reduced security for the sake of expediency,” said Weber….

Source: FIRST READING: Migrants are being screened on the honour system, MPs told

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LILLEY: Security screening tarnished by accused terrorist’s citizenship quest

2024/08/30 Leave a comment

Understandable that this case provokes these questions. No screening system is perfect after all and likely the high numbers and resulting workload increase the risk. The one bit of good news is that his citizenship could be revoked given misrepresentation at both the Permanent Resident and citizenship approval stages.

Lilley is correct in that this will likely raise questions with Gazan refugees:

When Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi first tried to come to Canada, he was rejected. That was the right answer and I wish it had stayed that way, but sadly he was not only let in but granted citizenship.

“This is the way that the investigative and national security system should work,” Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said in his opening statement before a Commons committee on Wednesday.

LeBlanc was appearing before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, where it was revealed that Eldidi, now accused of plotting a potential terror attack, was screened by our intelligence agencies a half-dozen times. That fact alone is a damning indictment of our system and calls into question how secure our screening is as we bring in thousands of people from Gaza, an area ruled by the Hamas terrorist group.

Eldidi is the father portion of the father-son duo arrested at the end of July on terrorism-related charges. Among the charges Eldidi is facing is one for aggravated assault, contrary to Sec. 83.2 of the Criminal Code.

That section is specific to committing an indictable offence “for the benefit of, at the direction of or in association with a terrorist group.” The accusation is Eldidi was the star of a 2015 ISIS terror and torture video, in which he allegedly performed unspeakable acts on another man.

That this allegation wasn’t unearthed by our security services before he was granted citizenship has led to many questions. The Trudeau government, though, has spent the last month dodging those questions, but less than an hour before Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc showed up to testify, a chronology of events was released.

Eldidi first tried to come to Canada in late 2017, but was denied a visa because he was deemed a “potential non-genuine visitor.” That assessment seems to have been accurate because Eldidi wasn’t just looking to visit Canada from Egypt, he was looking to claim asylum here.

In January 2018, after submitting new information to Canadian officials, Eldidi was granted a “temporary resident visa” and was allowed to enter Canada. He arrived in the country that February via Pearson airport and in June 2018 claimed asylum.

In both his initial visa application (which was rejected) and the secondary one (which was approved), Eldidi was subject to security screening including biometrics, such as fingerprints.

After his asylum claim was made, Eldidi was subjected to biometrics and security screening again.

“Application was reviewed and a favourable recommendation was provided by security screening partners,” the government’s chronology said.

If hearing “biometrics” as a screening tool makes you feel better, it shouldn’t; it just means that we didn’t find his fingerprints in an existing database.

Eldidi worked the system to quickly move from asylum claimant to getting a work permit, then permanent resident status and finally citizenship in May. Then in June, security officials who had approved him at every step began monitoring him after a tip from our allies in France that something was up.

In July, Eldidi and his son Mostafa were arrested and accused of an alleged terror plot aimed at Toronto’s Jewish community.

Asked time and again about the failure to stop a man who allegedly starred in an ISIS torture video from entering the country, LeBlanc refused to say it was a failure. Clearly it was, though Liberal MPs on the committee tried to portray his arrest as a success.

Sure, the cops stopping an alleged terror attack before it happens is a good thing, but we are supposed to have layers of security to stop those who were allegedly involved in terrorism from coming here and getting citizenship.

Right now, the Trudeau government is in the process of bringing in thousands of people from Gaza. They are trying to assure the public that there is no threat thanks to “biometrics” and “security screening.”

Based on what you have heard about the Eldidi case, do you still feel confident or secure?

Source: LILLEY: Security screening tarnished by accused terrorist’s citizenship quest

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Conservatives call for audit of immigration system after gangster twice released in Canada

2018/12/17 Leave a comment

His case should not have fallen through the cracks, suggesting communications issues between CBSA and the IRB, particularly in terms of timeliness. While in the end, the system did work, the issues should have been caught and acted upon earlier.

But it is somewhat ingenuous for Conservative immigration critic to state that the Liberal government is undermining public confidence in the immigration system while ignoring the contribution that some of her over-the-top language and positions (e.g., opposition to the Global Compact on Migration) also play. Fine line between legitimate criticism and stoking the fires:

Abdullahi Hashi Farah had an extensive criminal record, ties to a violent gang, and a long history of breaching probation. But Canadian immigration officials still released him after he crossed illegally into Canada in October 2017. (Supplied)

Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel is again calling for a complete review and audit of the immigration screening system in response to a CBC News investigation that revealed a Somali gang member with an extensive criminal record was twice released in Canada.

“The government has to acknowledge that there are serious flaws in the process and commit to fixing the system,” the Calgary MP said in a telephone interview Thursday.

In an earlier scrum outside the House of Commons, Border Security Minister Bill Blair was asked about the case of Abdullahi Hashi Farah.

Blair conceded Farah would not have been released had the full extent of his gang ties and criminal record been known. But he said he took “some comfort in the fact that the system has worked and we’ve identified the individual, and he is subject to deportation.”

Rempel said Blair’s response will only serve to further undermine public faith in the system.

‘This is pretty bad’

“People will read [the CBC News story] and they will look at the minister’s response and go, ‘This is somebody who is not taking this situation seriously, and it is a serious situation,’ ” Rempel said.

“And I worry that by doing this, the Liberals are actually eroding public confidence writ large. And that is not where we want to be in a pluralism like Canada. They need to restore order to the system. This [case] is pretty bad.”

As CBC News first reported Thursday, Farah was fleeing an arrest warrant and deportation in the U.S. when he crossed illegally into Canada at Emerson, Man., in late October 2017.

Then 27, Farah told Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officials about his criminal record and gang ties. The agency wanted him held for a few more days until it could retrieve his full criminal record from the U.S.

But an Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) hearing officer, impressed with Farah’s seeming honesty, ordered his release.

As a condition of release, Farah surrendered his cellphone to the CBSA so that it could be checked for evidence of criminal activity

Six days after Farah was set free in Winnipeg, he breached his release conditions and was arrested again.

That same day, the CBSA gained access to Farah’s cellphone. They found recent photos and videos of Farah playing with loaded handguns, doing cocaine, concealing cocaine, and flashing wads of cash. There were also photos of what authorities believed was a stolen credit card.

Released despite evidence of criminal activity

The CBSA has declined to explain why the evidence from Farah’s cellphone was not immediately provided to the IRB.

Without that evidence, another IRB hearing officer again released Farah in March 2018 and allowed him to move to Calgary.

In June, Edmonton police arrested Farah as a suspect in a string of armed convenience store robberies after a CBSA officer in Winnipeg picked him out of robbery photos taken from store security camera footage.

Edmonton police have declined to say why Farah is no longer a suspect in the robberies. He is now jailed in the Edmonton Remand Centre, awaiting deportation to Somalia.

The CBC News investigation revealed Farah had lied repeatedly about the extent and seriousness of his criminal record and the length of his involvement with the Somali Outlaws gang in Minneapolis and Nashville.

The investigation also revealed Farah had breached immigration and parole conditions more than 30 times in the U.S and in Canada. He had also been imprisoned for contempt after he reneged on a promise to testify against his former gang in relation to a major sex-trafficking case in Nashville involving girls as young as 12.

Rempel stressed her party is pro-immigration but said this case, and others like it, show the system can’t handle the volume of immigrants while ensuring adequately rigorous screening.

“While certainly not every case is going to be like this, even one is unacceptable, and even one puts the integrity of the system — and the perception of the integrity of the system — at risk.”

Source: Conservatives call for audit of immigration system after gangster twice released in Canada

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