Thread: Local refugee advocate charged

Local refugee advocate charged
Accused of immigrant trafficking at Canadian border.

By CINDY STAUFFER, Staff
Lancaster New Era

Published: Oct 08, 2007 11:21 AM EST

LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. - A refugee advocate who works out of Lancaster has been arrested at the Canadian border and charged with immigrant trafficking.

Janet Hinshaw-Thomas, 65, of Chester, is the founder and director of Prime — Ecumenical Commitment to Refugees, which has an office in St. Andrew United Church of Christ in Lancaster and another office in Lansdowne.

She was arrested Sept. 26 at a border station at Lacolle in Quebec, while escorting 12 Haitian people across the border. She was held overnight in jail and released on $5,000 bail, she said today.

Her charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

"It's very frightening, to be honest," Hinshaw-Thomas said today. "I do not relish spending my life in a Canadian jail."

Canada recently has faced a surge of immigrants, many from Haiti, traveling to border stations and seeking asylum, Hinshaw-Thomas said.

Haitians are very afraid of being deported to their country, because of unsafe conditions there, she said. If they cannot obtain legal status in the United States, they often turn to Canada for asylum, she said.

Hinshaw-Thomas said her group has made many trips to the Canadian border.

She said she e-mailed border officials five days before the Sept. 26 trip, notifying them she would be bringing the group of Haitians, which included five adults and seven children. Some of the people had been living in New Jersey, she said.

She told officials she was from a non-profit assistance group.

"There had been a lot of grumbling. They suspected that because we do this so regularly that we were earning money," which is illegal, she said.

That day, a criminal investigator at the border accused her of taking money.

She said Prime does charge a fee for taking families across the border, but it is for traveling expenses. Often, the agency loses money on the trips, she said.

Canada Border Services Agency spokesman Eric Paradis said the charges have nothing to do with whether Hinshaw-Thomas was profiting from helping the refugees, according to a story in The Catholic Register, a Canadian newspaper.

He said, "We had a person bringing in people who were there that did not have the proper documentation to enter Canada. This is not legal.

"The person knew very well what she was doing was illegal."

Hinshaw-Thomas today said asylum applicants have the right to approach the border without documents.

The Canadian law she is accused of breaking is designed to crack down on human smuggling. It is very broad, she said.

"Anyone could get targeted at any time," she said. "I am the first humanitarian worker ever arrested on this charge.

"I'm not sure whether the Canadians know what they want to do," she said. "The Canadian people are very divided about what this law was intended to do, and how it is applied."

She said she thinks there is a lot of pressure at the border, due to the influx of Haitians, and that border personnel are overwhelmed.

The Haitians, she noted, were allowed to cross the border and she believes they are doing fine.

Immigrant advocates in Canada have protested her arrest.

Hinshaw-Thomas is a granddaughter of John Foster Dulles, who served as secretary of state under President Dwight Eisenhower, and a niece of Cardinal Avery Dulles, a theologian at Fordham University in New York.

CONTACT US: cstauffer@LNPnews.com or 481-6024

http://local.lancasteronline.com/4/210572

I don't care who she, she is still a criminal! And if Canada jails her, big whoop!