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Thursday, August 19, 1999

New stories emerge as Chinese migrants ask for asylum
Official denies any political pressure to send them home

Stewart Bell
National Post

ESQUIMALT, B.C. - All of the adult Chinese migrants who arrived on the West Coast last week aboard a Korean ship have now asked for asylum, even though Canadian immigration officials have said they were seeking to improve their economic standing rather than fleeing persecution.

As the first of the 131 boat people began appearing before an immigration adjudicator yesterday to determine whether they should remain in custody, lawyers submitted written refugee claims and accused immigration officers of ordering the migrants to leave Canada despite their fears of mistreatment in China.

One of the refugee claimants says he was beaten, tortured and fined by Chinese authorities following a previous failed attempt to migrate to North America, while another says she was forced to have a late-term abortion because of China's one-child policy.

Another migrant travelled to Canada with her two sons, and may base her refugee claim on the fear she could face persecution because China prohibits more than one child per family, a source said.

"There are some horrific stories," said Rory Morahan, who is representing some of the migrants.

The refugee claims have further confused the processing of the migrants. Initially, the immigration department ordered 78 to return to China and said only 10 had sought asylum, while the fate of the other 43, all unaccompanied youths, had not been decided.

But after the Canadian Council for Refugees wrote to Elinor Caplan, the Immigration Minister, asking for an independent investigation of the way immigration officers handled the boat people, the department reviewed its files and said it was mistaken and there were actually 30 people making refugee claims.

The error occurred when senior immigration officers failed to read the notes of the officers who conducted the first round on interviews.

But lawyers said yesterday that many others had also clearly indicated they wanted to make refugee claims, but were ordered to leave Canada anyway. All 58 of the migrants who have been ordered to return to China filed refugee claims yesterday.

Because the immigration department has already issued exclusion orders against them, meaning they cannot make a refugee claim, the lawyers plan to appeal the cases, which will likely prolong their stay in Canada.

Lawyers fear immigration officers are overstepping their authority by deciding refugee claims are unfounded, when they are only supposed to decide if a person is seeking a refugee hearing. In one case, a migrant told an immigration officer he had a "fear of returning" to China but was still not deemed to be seeking refugee status, a lawyer said.

But Lorna Tessier, a spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada, said with few exceptions, the migrants had not indicated they wanted to be treated as refugees. "The information that they gave did not bring us to the conclusion that they were making refugee claims," she said.

She denied allegations that officials were responding to political pressure to send the boat people home, saying they were being treated the same as any migrant at any other port of entry.

At hearings yesterday, lawyers also argued for their clients' release. Mr. Morahan told Immigration and Refugee Board adjudicator Pierre Turmel they should be freed because immigration officials have failed to make reasonable efforts to establish their identities.

Mr. Morahan said his clients had given immigration officials the names, addresses and telephone numbers of relatives but nothing had been done to confirm their identities. "Not one phone call has been made, not one effort to support the statements that were obtained," he said.

Mr. Turmel ordered them to remain in custody for another week, saying immigration officials had acted properly given the large volume of work caused by the arrival of the two smuggling ships. "Considering all the circumstances in these specific cases, I find that what has been done is very reasonable."

An adjudicator was to decide today whether the youths should be released or remain in custody.




RELATED SITES:

(Each link opens a new window)

  • Citizenship and Immigration Canada

    The brand-new white paper on immigration policy

  • Statistics Canada: Immigration and Citizenship

    Statistics from the 1996 national census that look at where Canadians came from.

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