Kenney’s system-abusing bogus refugees include those fleeing discrimination, oppression and hardship not quite horrific enough to satisfy the standards required by the jurisprudence defining and applying the refugee definition. Kenney does not mention that close to 40 per cent of the claimants were recognized as genuine refugees last year. Like falling crime statistics, that is an inconvenient truth for this government. Kenney manages to convert the fact that the system does not confer refugee protection on all who seek it into evidence of system failure.
Kenney made his views clear to voters by highlighting the issue of “bogus claims” in the last election. And he made them known to the members of the Immigration and Refugee Board — the decision-makers who are tasked with determining individual cases based on the evidence, and whose reappointments depend on Kenney’s opinion of them. And just to be sure that his views were respected, he took the unprecedented step last year of telling the justices of the Federal Court to stop thwarting his efforts to reform refugee policy by holding government officials legally accountable for their actions.
Now, with a majority government in hand, the minister proposes to change the law to make reality bend to his vision. There is no longer a need to treat refugee claimants with basic dignity, or to provide them with a fair opportunity to tell their story. Why bother, since the minister has already determined for all of us that they are bogus?
All refugee claimants will have 15 days from the moment they arrive to submit a written application (in English or French) setting out the elements of their refugee claim. If they cannot find an interpreter, a lawyer or a trustworthy person who can assist them, they will miss the deadline and be deemed to have “abandoned” their refugee claim. No need to worry that a refugee might be sent back to persecution because she missed an impossible-to-meet deadline, because the minister knows she is a fraud anyway.
The legislation also lets the minister deem non-citizens as “irregular arrivals.” These designated “irregular arrivals” will be automatically detained for one year without warrant and without review. Children under 16 won’t automatically be detained — the minister will get to choose whether to detain them with their parents or wrench them away from their parents for a full year. If one of these detained refugee claimants manages to persuade a decision-maker that she is a refugee, the law will deny her the ability to reunite with family members for a minimum of five years.
Yes, these might seem like brutal, arbitrary and cruel measures to impose on human beings who have committed no crime, especially those who have been recognized as refugees. But since the minister knows that even a recognized refugee is really bogus, punishing refugees by denying them family reunification should not bother us.
But that is not enough for the minister: Bill C-31 authorizes the government to strip refugees of their status and deport them years after they have been resettled or recognized as refugees, if the government figures that the refugee no longer faces a risk of persecution. The only protection against this perpetual threat of expulsion is citizenship, but the government is also restricting access to citizenship for refugees by elevating language requirements to a level that will make citizenship less attainable for them.
Bill C-31’s retrospective refugee stripping provision will put at risk the security of tens of thousands of refugees already in Canada, depriving them of the ability to rebuild their lives, live with their families, work and flourish, and contribute fully and fearlessly to their new country.
The legislation also gives the minister the power to decree certain countries as “safe.” This formalizes in law the presumption that a refugee claimant from one of these countries is a fraud. Many countries are safe for most people most of the time. Refugees are usually people who are marginalized and vulnerable, so designating a country as safe tells us nothing about the risks faced by the people likely to seek refugee protection.
The power that the legislation confers on the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration is broad, unfettered and virtually immunized from judicial oversight. He can throw people in jail, deny them a fair opportunity to present their refugee claim, inflict five years of forced family separation on recognized refugees, and hang the threat of deportation over their heads for many more years. All of this should be unimaginable in a country that respects the rule of law.
Remember, neither the minister nor we know with any certainty if a person is a refugee until that person has had a fair opportunity to present his or her case before an independent and impartial decision maker. The minister has done an excellent job of relentlessly vilifying refugees, and of encouraging us to believe that he “knows” that they are all bogus by the fact of their arrival. Don’t believe it.
Audrey Macklin is a professor of law at the University of Toronto. Lorne Waldman is president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers.
Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Audrey Macklin and Lorne Waldman
No comments:
Post a Comment