Law Times

Law Times • march 13, 2017 Page 9 www.lawtimesnews.com Immigration chaos in U.S. masking Canadian problems BY MICHAEL MCKIERNAN For Law Times R efugee advocates say the Canadian government's shortcomings in the area are being masked by the immigration chaos south of the border. In the hours after U.S. Presi- dent Donald Trump announced his original travel ban on citi- zens from seven Muslim-major- ity nations, Prime Minister Jus- tin Trudeau caught the imagina- tion of Trump opponents in the U.S. and around the world with a single tweet: "To those f leeing persecu- tion, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada," Trudeau wrote in late January. But Janet Dench, execu- tive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees says 2017 has actually been a "deeply dis- appointing" year so far when it comes to Canadian resettle- ment. "We appreciate the posi- tive comments made by the prime minister. "It's important to make those statements of support, but it's also important to marry some actions to those words," Dench says. "That's what we have been looking for, and we're still wait- ing for them to take some ac- tion." Dench says her dismay dates back to late 2016, when Immi- gration, Refugees and Citizen- ship Canada unveiled its immi- gration level targets for 2017. Of the 25,000 refugees Can- ada intends to resettle this year, just 7,500 will come in under the government-assisted category. Dench and the CCR have suggested that number alone should be closer to 20,000. "We have taken in roughly the same number of government-assisted refugees for many years. "We were shocked they would maintain this low level, especially given the growing in- ternational need for refugee re- settlement," Dench says. While the CCR was happier with the 16,000 spots allocated for privately sponsored refugees, Dench says that level still falls way short of the demand among private sponsors who want to bring people in. In any case, she says she's un- comfortable with the lopsided balance of the two main streams of entry for refugees. "The government should not be off loading responsibility for refugees on to the private sec- tor, and that's what is happening when you have all the number of government-assisted refugees to be so much lower than the pri- vate levels," Dench says. Jacqueline Swaisland, a law- yer with Toronto immigration and refugee law boutique Wald- man & Associates, has seen first- hand the enthusiasm for private refugee sponsorship. Just more than a year ago, she co-founded the Refugee Sponsorship Support Program, a scheme designed to connect groups of sponsors with experts in the process, as well as com- munity organizations and pro bono legal support. She says the program has kept up the momentum gained in the wake of the Syrian crisis, with more than 1,300 lawyers and law students now signed up to guide prospective private sponsors through the process. "The positivity toward refu- gees has been phenomenal, es- pecially when you see it in con- trast to what is happening in the States. That said, the numbers we are taking, especially in light of the cuts in the U.S., are still not where they could be," she says. Another recent policy change has hampered the work Swais- land and her colleagues are try- ing to do for private sponsors. At the turn of the year, the federal government capped the number of refugees it would ac- cept from Syria and Iraq under its community sponsorship pro- gram at 1,000. The program allowed private sponsors to bring in applicants from those two countries before they had obtained proof of their refugee status from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, but the new quota for 2017 was already filled before the end of January. "More than 90 per cent of Syr- ians simply don't have the docu- mentation they would need from the UNHCR, so it's effectively capping the number that can come in from that country via private sponsorship," Swaisland says. "It would be great to have that cap lifted, especially since Syria was one of the countries affected by the U.S. travel ban." Dench says she was par- ticularly disappointed by the Canadian government's deci- sion not to change its refugee targets in response to the events in the U.S., where the executive order that imposed the infa- mous travel ban also promised to halve the number of refugees the country had previously said it would accept in 2017, down to around 50,000. "The situation in the U.S. is absolutely devastating for refu- gees, because they are the lead- ing resettlement country. "Even in years when Canada is doing something exceptional in terms of resettlement, we're still doing less than the U.S. does in a regular year," she says. "It comes at the worst possible time, as the UN is looking for countries to increase the number they will take." During an emergency debate in the House of Commons fol- lowing President Trump's execu- tive order, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen stood firm on Canada's immigration intake, noting that the planned 2017 lev- els included a refugee allocation that was "historically high." In the same debate, the min- ister also rebuffed calls for Can- ada to abandon the Safe Third Country Agreement, which is designed to stop refugees from shopping for the country of their choice to claim asylum. Under the agreement, refugees who at- tempt to cross the border into Canada are returned to the U.S. The Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers called for an immediate suspension of the agreement after the Trump ex- ecutive order. "We are witnessing a dramat- ic shift away from basic norms of human rights and refugee protection in the US. In this en- vironment, we simply cannot rely on the Trump administra- tion to protect the refugees we turn away at our borders," said CARL's president, Mitch Gold- berg, in a statement. "Canada has a duty to sus- pend enforcement of the STCA immediately." IRCC spokeswoman Na- thalie Schofield said in a state- ment to Law Times that the U.S. "has long been an ally in global resettlement" and that "the STCA remains an important tool for Canada and the U.S. to work together on the orderly handling of refugee claims made in our countries." However, she also noted that the IRPA mandates "continual review" of all nations Canada designates as safe third coun- tries. CARL member Ronalee Carey, an Ottawa-based immi- gration and refugee lawyer, says she understands the difficulty of interfering with immigra- tion levels that take months of preparation for officials inside IRCC to set. "It's not like you can turn a machine like that around on a dime," she says. "But I don't think that should mean you can't respond to ex- traordinary circumstances. I think there are ways they could be f lexible." LT 5 th Annual Anti-Bribery and Corruption Compliance Toronto • Online | April 2017 COURSE LEADER John W. Boscariol, Partner, McCarthy Tétrault LLP COURSE HIGHLIGHTS • Anti-Corruption Landscape For Canadian Companies • Review Of Key CFPOA Convictions • The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act • World Class Ethics & Compliance Program: The View From SNC-Lavalin • The UK Bribery Act: Extraterritorial Application To Canadian Companies • The Perspective From In-House Counsel: Compliance Challenges And Solutions • Investigating Potential Breaches Within The Company And Dealing With Enforcement DATE & LOCATION Toronto: April 25th, 2017 St. Andrews Club and Conference Centre 150 King St West, 27th Floor, Toronto, ON M5H 1J9 Live webinar: April 25th, 2017 FOR QUESTIONS AND GROUP RATES, PLEASE CONTACT: Toll-Free: 1-877-298-5868 • Direct: 416-609-5868 Fax: 416-609-5841 • Website: cpdcentre.ca Email: lexpert.questions@thomsonreuters.com Register online at www.lexpert.ca/cpdcentre For more information, please contact Lexpert® Professional Developments at 1-877-298-5868 NAVIGATING MUDDY WATERS EARLY BIRD ENDS MAR.24 Untitled-2 1 2017-03-09 9:37 AM FOCUS Ronalee Carey says she understands the difficulty of interfering with immigration levels that take months of preparation for officials inside IRCC to set. 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