Every day, 40 refugees deported

Canada even expels families with children born here

BY FRANÇOIS SHALOM AND KAREN SEIDMAN, THE GAZETTE SEPTEMBER 14, 2014 9:36 PM

MONTREAL — In the end, the 50 people at the airport pleading for Winifred Agimelen to avoid deportation couldn’t stop her from returning, grief-stricken, to her homeland of Nigeria with her three young children in tow.

“She was heartbroken,” said her friend Sheila Sedinger, a volunteer with Solidarity Across Borders. “She is returning to a risky situation, to a place where her five-year-old daughter will be targeted for genital mutilation. She is so scared.”

About 40 refugee claimants are being deported daily from Canada, immigration lawyers and human rights activists say, including families with children who were born in Canada.

Agimelen and her three children are among the deportees. They were expelled Sunday night back to her native Nigeria by Border Canada Services Agency from Dorval’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (there was no stay granted even when authorities realized that Agimelen’s daughter Elizabeth, a five-year-old born in Canada, did not have a visa for Nigeria).

Attending an airport rally to protest against the deportation, Mary Foster of Solidarity Across Borders, a human rights organization, said that Agimelen’s case is particularly egregious because Immigration Canada is still studying her file, including a sponsorship application from her Canadian husband that would take another five months for a resolution.

“We’re seeing more and more families being separated every day,” Foster said. “Kids born in Canada? Who cares? Just chuck them in with their families.”

She said that about 14,000 refugee claimants are expelled from Canada each year.

Sedinger said the deportation means Agimelen will have to start her paper work all over, meaning it could take 15 months and more money to have it processed.

CBSA gives deported parents the choice to leave their Canadian-born children behind — a choice immigration lawyer Stewart Istvanffy called laughable.

“What kind of choice is it for a mother to leave a 5-year-old behind?” he said at a second rally for similar case involving another Montrealer from Africa facing deportation on Oct. 9.

Istvanffy is helping Hilary Fuh-Cham and his family, including three children, two of whom were born in Montreal, to ward off expulsion back to Cameroon.

Both cases involve refugee claimants from Africa, both claimants arrived in 2007, and both face great danger.

Hilary Fuh-Cham, his wife Yvette and their children were called by several speakers “a model family,” Catholics who are heavily involved in the activities of their church, St. Jean de Bréboeuf in Lasalle — including soccer games, raising funds for the church, diversity programs and a children’s choir. Hilary Fuh-Cham has been working for delivery UPS since shortly after his arrival, rising to a managerial post.

“If Canada is deporting people like this, who deserves to stay?” asked a Cameroonian speaker at the rally.

Istvanffy called deporting families with Canadian-born children “a really serious human rights crisis in this country” that violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Fuh-Cham “is in real danger,” he said. “He refused to become a chief in Cameroon because he’s a Catholic and that would have involved human sacrifice and female circumcision, which really go against his values. And the only way for the tribal chiefs to clear the shame his refusal brought on them is with blood. By killing him. There’s an excellent chance they’ll track him down and kill him.”

Some people do abuse Canada’s refugee system, he added, but very few — and Fuh-Cham is at the opposite end of that spectrum. “He works hard and contributes an extraordinary amount to this country and this community.”

“Canada is treating him in a very disrespectful manner. The system in Canada of decency and fair play seems to have broken down.”
Canada, he added, is “one of only a few countries that send families back with children born in the country.”

Hélène LeBlanc, the NDP member who represents LaSalle-Émard, where Fuh-Cham lives, said that she is asking Public Safety Minister David Blaney for a stay in the deportation order.

The CBSA is under his department, and “it issued the order, which is short-circuiting the legitimate process underway at Immigration Canada (for a review of the case).”

“There doesn’t seem to be any communications between (Public Safety) and Immigration,” she added.

“But I’m going to raise the issue (Monday) with the minister (Blaney) in the House of Commons.”

Jacqueline Roby, a Quebec spokesperson for CBSA, said in an email that “the decision to remove someone from Canada is not taken lightly.”

“The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act states that removal orders must be enforced as soon as possible. The CBSA is firmly committed to doing so.”

“In situations with Canadian-born children, the decision to travel or not with a Canadian child is the decision of the family not of the CBSA.”

“Our position is clear, once individuals have exhausted all legal avenues of recourse/due process, they are expected to respect our laws and leave Canada or be removed.”

Roby declined to say why CBSA would not grant a five-month extension in the Agimelen case.

She added it would take several days to come up with a figure on the number of deportations annually from Canada.

“Prior to removal, individuals may seek leave for judicial review, as well as administrative review procedures that assess the potential risk to the person of returning to the country of origin.

“Everyone ordered removed from Canada is entitled to due process before the law and all removal orders are subject to various levels of appeal.”

Foster said “it’s illogical to send someone out of the country when she could wait a few months and have her sponsorship accepted. It’s just going to cost her a whack more money.”

“And this is not an unusual case. It’s happening 40 times a day in Canada.”

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