Border Rights for Refugees: A multilingual guide

Posted by admin on Apr 5th, 2017

Border Rights for Refugees

A free multilingual guide for non-U.S. citizens coming to Canada from the U.S. to make a refugee claim.

Share widely: https://noii-van.resist.ca/?p=6487

Thousands of refugees are crossing the Canada-U.S. border, many fleeing escalated sociopolitical, white supremacist, misogynist violence and I.C.E raids in the U.S.

In the first two months of this year, approximately 2000 refugee claims were filed at land ports of entry along the Canadian border. In Quebec alone there are six times more land-border refugee claims than in the same period last year. RCMP have intercepted or arrested (not yet charged) 1,134 refugees – nearly half as many asylum seekers in three months as all of the previous year.

Hundreds have been forced to cross irregularly under dangerous and life-threatening circumstances. People who have contacted us and our networks are primarily from Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Djibouti, Ghana, Nigeria, and Mexico.

The Canadian government and corporate media’s rhetoric about ‘welcoming refugees’ is misleading. There are many discriminatory and unjust barriers, such as the Safe Third Country Agreement that the Canadian government refuses to rescind, and a difficult legal system for refugees to navigate if coming through the U.S. This guide is to better inform and support those making the difficult decision to cross yet another colonial border.

The guide is produced by No One Is Illegal and the Immigration Legal Committee of the Law Union of Ontario. Supported by the African-Canadian Legal Clinic.

PDF of the English here

With professional translations in:
Arabic
Amharic
Chinese (Simplified Script)
Farsi
Filipino (Standardized)
French
Haitian Creole
Kurdish (Sorani)
Pashto
Punjabi
Spanish
Somali
Tamil
Tigrinya
Twi
Urdu
Vietnamese

Freedom to stay, move, and return!

Letter to The Canadian Public From the Family Of Francisco Javier Romero Astorga

Posted by admin on Mar 26th, 2016

On Sunday, March 13, 2016, Francisco Javier Romero Astorga – our brother, our son – died in immigration detention custody. No one has told us how Francisco died, or why he was in prison. To date, no one from the federal Canadian government, including the Canada Border Services Agency, has contacted us. We do not know of an autopsy and no results of any tests or reasons for his death have been given to us.

All we know is that his body lies in a hospital, and that we must pay nearly $10,000 to bring his body home to give him a proper burial. Our brother, our son’s body has been in a hospital for ten days already, and we are in pain every minute that passes. Behind all this tragedy is a family and a mother who are grieving.

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Secrecy cloaks death of immigration detainee in Toronto jail

Posted by admin on Mar 10th, 2016

The death of a Burundian refugee being held in a Toronto jail sparks renewed calls for less secrecy and more transparency within the Canada Border Services Agency.

By: Debra Black, Immigration Reporter,

http://www.thestar.com/news/immigration/2016/03/10/secrecy-cloaks-death-of-immigration-detainee-in-toronto-jail.html

A 64-year-old Burundian refugee, who was convicted of killing his wife in 2009, hanged himself at the Toronto East Detention Centre earlier this week as he awaited deportation, sources have told the Star.

It was the 13th death of an immigration detainee in Canada Border Services Agency custody since 2000. The death has sparked renewed calls for less secrecy and more transparency within the CBSA — as well as the creation of an oversight body to hold it to account.

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Changes coming soon to Citizenship Act, John McCallum says

Posted by admin on Feb 22nd, 2016

by Katharine Starr

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mccallum-immigrants-citizenship-act-language-requirement-1.3453658

New immigrants to Canada may have an easier time qualifying for citizenship with changes coming in the next few weeks to the Citizenship Act, says Immigration Minister John McCallum.

“We are in general trying to reduce the barriers people have to overcome to become a citizen,” McCallum said in an interview on CBC News Network’s Power & Politics Thursday.

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Metro Vancouver hospitals refer hundreds of immigration cases to border police

Posted by admin on Feb 3rd, 2016

From January 2014 to October 2015, Fraser Health referred approximately 500 patients to the federal police force tasked with immigration enforcement.

by Travis Lupick on December 9th, 2015

http://www.straight.com/news/593441/metro-vancouver-hospitals-refer-hundreds-immigration-cases-border-police

Byron Cruz has encountered the sorts of situations that arise when someone is afraid a trip to a hospital could end with them being deported from the country.
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He once helped a man injured on a construction site connect with a veterinarian who stitched closed a deep cut, for example. And Cruz says it’s common for pregnant women to seek his network’s help for deliveries.

“My number works as a 911 number for undocumented people,” he said, interviewed at his office in the Downtown Eastside. “We never announced our services, but my number has been given to people as the number they can call. That is very scary, because 911 is for emergencies.”

Cruz is an organizer with Sanctuary Health, a group that promises people can access care without fear of any complication that might arise from their immigration status.

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