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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