Thread: Shock as Canada rejects Iraq refugees

Shock as Canada rejects Iraq refugees

Instead of joining kin here, applicants directed to ancestors' homeland

Jun 23, 2008 04:30 AM
Nicholas Keung
IMMIGRATION/DIVERSITY REPORTER

Azad Sarkissian's Armenian great-grandparents settled in Iraq more than a century ago, and none of their descendants has stepped on Armenian soil since.

His sister and her family fled the violence in Iraq and are living precariously as United Nations-recognized refugees in Jordan. Sarkissian, in Toronto, has tried and failed three times over the past six years to bring them to Canada through a refugee resettlement application sponsored by the Assyrian Methodist Church of Canada.

But they were startled and angered by the latest response by a Canadian visa officer in Damascus, who said the family should go to Armenia instead.

"We were shocked by the decision," said Sarkissian, a telecommunications technician who came to Canada as a regular immigrant in 1997 and is a Canadian citizen. "They have nobody in Iraq or Armenia. Everyone else is in Canada. Why would Canada want to separate our family?"

Anjeal Sarkissian, her husband Karabet Aram, and their three boys, Shant, Agob and Apel, are what refugee advocates say are part of a worrisome trend as a growing number of Armenian Christian refugees from Iraq are being rejected and asked to go to Armenia despite having family connections in Canada. "We are surprised and concerned that the possibility of residency in Armenia is being used as a basis to refuse these applications," said Janet Dench, of the Canadian Council for Refugees.

"As far as we are aware, Canada is the only country that is reaching the conclusion that Iraqis of Armenian ethnicity are not eligible for resettlement because of the Armenian option."

A Canadian immigration spokesperson said the department cannot comment on individual cases out of privacy concerns, but said each application is assessed on a case-by-case basis and the option to resettle someone to another country as a "durable solution" is always a factor.

The treatment of Armenian Iraqis reminds Toronto immigration lawyer Chantal Desloges of how Jewish refugees fleeing the Soviet Union after its collapse in the 1990s were denied refugee status and told to resettle in Israel instead.

A client of hers in Syria already tried to go to Armenia after being rejected by Canada and was refused. "The (Armenian) embassy wouldn't give them a refusal letter, so my client can't even prove it to the Canadian (officials)," she said.

Under refugee case law, Canada can only refer a refugee claimant to another state when it is "guaranteed" they would be accepted there, Desloges said.

Armenia already needs UN help to cope with an influx of Iraqi refugees and Angus Grant, lawyer for the Sarkissians, said the residency program that Canadian officials have been citing doesn't apply to refugees – a point an Armenian embassy spokesperson in Ottawa confirmed.

"It only allows well-established people in the Armenian diaspora to come and live in Armenia," explained Arman Akopian.

"We welcome people of Armenian descent to return, but in the time of the country's economic transition it's not encouraged because we simply can't absorb an influx of refugees."






http://www.thestar.com/article/447476

We welcome people of Armenian descent to return, but in the time of the country's economic transition it's not encouraged because we simply can't absorb an influx of refugees."

No country is handling the influx of all the people, no matter where they are comming from. Unless you are already extreemly wealthy, the rest are suffering greatly as a result.