Posted by admin on Jan 15th, 2010
January 15, 2010, CBC News
The federal government is prepared to release the remaining 25 Tamil migrants held in Vancouver on suspicion of links to terrorism since they arrived in Canada three months ago. The men were among the 76 passengers and crew of a ship seized off Vancouver Island Oct. 17. All of the men claimed refugee status, saying they were fleeing the aftermath of the civil war in Sri Lanka. Fifty-one of the men were eventually released after posting bonds and agreeing to appear when summoned for hearings on their refugee claims.
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Posted by admin on Jan 11th, 2010
By Kathleen Harris, 11th January 2010, Toronto Sun
OTTAWA — The number of suspected illegal immigrants and criminals detained at the border has soared by 33% in the past five years. Records obtained by the QMI Agency under Access to Information from the Canada Border Services Agency show 14,362 people were detained last year and held an average of 17 days at cost of $200 a day for each detainee, according to data for the 2008-2009 fiscal year. That’s up from 10,774 five years earlier.
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Posted by admin on Jan 7th, 2010
By Darah Hansen, Canwest News Service, Thursday, January 07, 2010
Vancouver — A Sri Lankan man who came to Canada aboard a human-smuggling ship is still fighting for his release more than three weeks after he was ordered freed from immigration lock-up because of a lack of evidence linking him to the Tamil Tigers. The case went before Vancouver’s Federal Court on Thursday after government counsel applied to have the original Dec. 16 release order issued by the Immigration and Refugee Board overturned. The government suspects the man – whose identity is banned from publication – is a member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a group the Canadian government considers a terrorist organization.
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Posted by admin on Jan 5th, 2010
Jane Armstrong and Colin Freeze, Globe and Mail, Jan. 05, 2010
With the power of security certificates being nullified in the courts, Ottawa is wielding a rarely used section of federal immigration law in their place to ensure that 25 migrants they suspect are Tamil Tigers remain behind bars. Starting as early as this month, secret evidence will be used in closed hearings at the Immigration and Refugee Board in Vancouver. Government lawyers will introduce evidence they hope will persuade the board to continue the incarceration of about two dozen Tamil migrants, who arrived in a ship off Canada’s West Coast last fall claiming to be refugees from postwar Sri Lanka. Unlike ordinary detention hearings, these sessions are closed to the public, to the migrants involved and to their lawyers, and the evidence given is secret. Special advocates, appointed by the government, represent the migrants’ interests.
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Posted by admin on Dec 25th, 2009
By Tamsyn Burgmann, Canadian Press, Dec 25, 2009
VANCOUVER, B.C. — About 50 Tamil migrants taken into custody off B.C.’s West Coast will soon be released and allowed to settle with their families already living across the country, says an immigration lawyer representing several of the men. Immigration officials will be working through the holidays to process many of the men held in detention for two months after arriving on the Ocean Lady freighter in October, said Narindar Kang. “The writing is on the wall and we’re just waiting to schedule a date. It is, in essence, an agreement between both counsel,” he said Friday.
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