VANCOUVER - Refugee advocates have blasted Citizenship and Immigration officials for handing out golf shirts to staff with the inscription "Class of 90". That refers to the 90 illegal migrants deported to China last month.

'A bit of a trophy shirt'

They were among the 600 boat people who arrived off the B.C. coast last summer.

"I think it's very harmful to this whole process to be celebrating the deportation of 90 people," says Victor Wong, an advocate for the migrants, "because those 90 people right now are languishing in a Fujian jail. It makes the golf shirt a bit of a trophy shirt."

Rob Johnston, the manager of Immigration's Vancouver Enforcement Office, says the shirts were supposed to acknowledge his staff's many months of long hours of committed work with the migrants.

"They've done this in a very caring manner. If you saw the way that our staff dealt with people you'd have a totally different outlook," he says. "It really saddens me that an effort made to try to recognize employees for all that hard work was taken totally out of context."

Johnston says there was no intention to make the shirts a celebration at anyone's expense.