Posted by admin on Mar 14th, 2010
Robin Arthur, Chronicle Herald, March 14, 2010
An Eritrean refugee in Halifax killed himself in late February after losing an asylum appeal to Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board. Habtom Kibraeb, 40, was found dead, hanging from a tree in the Clayton Park area. Kibraeb had spent several years on the run from Eritrea’s military, says Beku Feshaye, who owns Kilimanjaro Café, a store on Titus Street in Halifax. Feshaye and fellow Eritrean Nazareth Yemane, a radio show host on CKDU 88.1 FM, raised the money to bail out Kibraeb when he was detained by the Canada Border Services. Feshaye also offered him shelter while his asylum appeal was being processed.
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Posted by admin on Mar 10th, 2010
By TOM GODFREY, Toronto Sun, March 10, 2010 5:49pm
Canadian border agents are routinely using confidential banking and credit card information to arrest illegal immigrant account-holders for deportation, a Toronto lawyer says. Officers of the Canada Border Services Agency are using information from private banking records or credit files of illegal immigrants to target and arrest them, lawyer Guidy Mamann said this week.Mamann said the policy surfaced after a Toronto man facing removal to Costa Rica received two letters from his bank alerting him that the CBSA was searching for him.
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Posted by admin on Mar 10th, 2010
2009 figures released by the Canadian government available here.
Posted by admin on Mar 8th, 2010
Mon Mar 08 2010, Toronto Star, Nicholas Keung Immigration Reporter
Women’s and refugee rights groups are demanding homeless shelters be declared safe sanctuary from removal enforcement officials, who recently entered a Toronto shelter looking for a Ghanaian woman in hiding. Shelter workers, residents and advocates worry that the February 27 incident at Beatrice House, a downtown shelter for women and children, would scare non-status women in need from seeking help in order to avoid potential arrests and deportation. They will gather Monday morning, on the International Women’s Day, at the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre on Phoebe St. to condemn the action by the Canada Border Services Agency.
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Posted by admin on Jan 29th, 2010
ANDREA HAYWARD, January 29, 2010 – 2:19PM
A group of asylum seekers staging a peaceful protest claim to have started a hunger strike at the Christmas Island Immigration Detention Centre (CIIDC), the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) says. About 130 Tamils from Sri Lanka started protesting about processing times at the CIIDC on Thursday afternoon. The protest is peaceful and the mood throughout the centre is calm, a DIAC spokesman said on Friday. “Staff are monitoring the situation and encouraging those involved to end the protest action,” the spokesman told AAP. The protesters have signaled that they have started a hunger strike. “They have been monitored by staff and have been seen to be observing fluids,” the DIAC spokesman said. The group of Tamils made a sign comparing their six month detention with the six-week processing for those onboard the Oceanic Viking, who struck a deal with the federal government after refusing to disembark from the vessel in Indonesian waters.
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