Tag Archives: metro vancouver

Undocumented immigrants raise alarm as border cops appear to up enforcement towards year’s end

No One is Illegal organizer Harsha Walia is calling attention to a noticeable increase in calls for assistance the organization has received from undocumented immigrants. Harsha Walia photo.
No One is Illegal organizer Harsha Walia is calling attention to a noticeable increase in calls for assistance the organization has received from undocumented immigrants. Harsha Walia photo.

A sizable community of Metro Vancouver residents is on alert this holiday season, fearing raids by the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA).

In a telephone interview, Harsha Walia, an organizer with No One Is Illegal (NOII), reported that the organization has seen a sharp spike in calls from undocumented immigrants asking for assistance.

“We usually get three to five calls a week, and the last month we got probably close to double,” she said. “We are getting more calls from people who are in detention, more calls from people who had just been visited at their homes or workplaces with deportation orders.”

Walia added that NOII observed a similar increase in calls last year and in 2013 at this time. She said that has her wondering if CBSA intensifies enforcement activities toward the end of each year in an effort to meet quotas for deportation orders.

“We aren’t trying to be alarmist, but we want people to know that this is going on,” she said.

CBSA refused requests for an interview. The CBSA annual report for 2013-14 only quantifies immigration-enforcement actions as a percentage. It states that of foreign nationals identified as inadmissible, 15 percent were removed from the country (exceeding the 12-percent “target”). CBSA also failed to supply more meaningful numbers despite the Straight repeatedly requesting that information since November 26.

According to Byron Cruz, an organizer with the group Sanctuary Health, there are between 3,000 and 5,000 undocumented immigrants from Latin America living in Metro Vancouver.

Cruz said he has observed the same increase in CBSA enforcement noticed by NOII.

“I have been putting things on Facebook, telling people in Spanish: ‘Be careful if you go to the hospital; this can happen to you,’ ” he continued. “So we are making people aware of this.”

On December 9, the Straight reported that during the past two years, Fraser Health’s 12 Lower Mainland hospitals collectively referred about 500 patients to CBSA.

Cruz said that has undocumented immigrants struggling to access health-care services because of fears that a trip to the hospital can end with them being deported. He noted there is a high degree of public support for Syrian refugees and suggested that undocumented immigrants from Latin America aren’t so different.

“Most of them come from situations or from states in Mexico where the war on drugs has hit those provinces,” he explained. “The drug cartels in Mexico are worse than ISIS.”

Cruz recounted a recent trip to Guatemala where he heard stories similar to those of life under ISIS, which is also known as ISIL, Islamic State, and Daesh.

“Guys are beheading people, playing soccer with their heads,” he said. “People who are undocumented are afraid to go back to Mexico or to go back to Guatemala. It is a life-or-death situation there as well.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pledged to bring 10,000 Syrian refugees to Canada before the end of the year, plus another 15,000 by the end of February 2016. In 2014, Canada accepted 665 refugees from Haiti, 655 from Colombia, 625 from Mexico, 190 from El Salvador, 165 from Honduras, and 105 from Guatemala.

Refugees admitted from Syria in 2014 numbered 1,290. That was up from 145 the previous year and 85 in 2012.

Daniel Tseghay is an advocate for refugees from the East African nation of Eritrea. He argued that undocumented immigrants are a symptom of larger problems with Canada’s system for processing refugees. Tseghay explained that many Latin Americans who enter B.C. under the temporary-foreign-workers program fear returning to their home country but do not have a legal route to remain in Canada.

“Their conditions are, to me, fundamentally the same as those of refugees,” Tseghay said. “Refugees and undocumented immigrants are not just fleeing the same things, but they are forced to flee sometimes in the same ways and forced to remain under the radar because of Canada’s border system.”

Vision Vancouver city councillor Geoff Meggs recently gave the Straight an update on the implementation of so-called sanctuary city policies designed to ensure that undocumented immigrants can access municipal services. He said staff have produced a draft document he hopes will go before council in the first half of 2016.

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This article originally appeared in print and online at Straight.com on December 16, 2015.

Varied takes on marijuana turn Metro Vancouver into a patchwork of unpredictable enforcement

Sarah Bowman was handcuffed by Burnaby RCMP after smoking a joint.
Sarah Bowman was handcuffed by Burnaby RCMP after smoking a joint.

Late one evening last February, Sarah Bowman was on her way home when she was approached by two RCMP officers at the Edmonds SkyTrain Station in Burnaby.

She had just smoked a joint, Bowman recounted in a telephone interview, but she didn’t think she was in real trouble. Bowman explained that she had a doctor’s prescription for the drug and had obtained it with that document at a medicinal-marijuana dispensary in Vancouver.

“I saw police officers making the rounds, so I threw my joint away,” she said. “They walked straight up to me, a gentleman showed me his badge, grabbed my hands, and handcuffed me without me even responding.”

Bowman sat on the ground as officers searched her bags. They didn’t find any marijuana and eventually located both Bowman’s prescription for cannabis and her dispensary membership card. But the RCMP officers dismissed those documents as irrelevant.

They argued that under existing laws, medicinal marijuana must be obtained via mail order from a certified Health Canada supplier. That is accurate (with exceptions) and remains true today.

On November 13, Liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau issued a mandate letter that stated the Ministry of Justice should “create a federal-provincial-territorial process that will lead to the legalization and regulation of marijuana”. But Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould (MP for Vancouver Granville) has yet to act on that directive.

Both the Justice Ministry and the RCMP refused to grant interviews. Cpl. Janelle Shoihet, a spokesperson for the B.C. RCMP, did however confirm officers are still enforcing cannabis laws including those that prohibit possession.

Dana Larsen is vice president of the Canadian Association of Medical Cannabis Dispensaries. He told the Straight that although the country remains in a period of transition on marijuana, municipal jurisdictions are policing cannabis as they see fit. Larsen suggested that situation has turned an urban region like Metro Vancouver into an unpredictable patchwork where some jurisdictions zealously enforce drug laws while others turn a blind eye to petty crimes like possession.

“In B.C., it totally depends on the mayor and the mayor and city council,” he said.

Bowman was travelling from Vancouver to New Westminster but stopped in Burnaby to visit her boyfriend. The Vancouver Police Department has long maintained it does not consider marijuana possession an enforcement priority. Meanwhile, in 2014, the New Westminster Police Department recorded a seven-year low for drug offences (going as far back as data is publicly available). But Burnaby is policed by the RCMP.

“They left me shaking uncontrollably and terrified,” said Bowman, who was eventually released without charges. “I used to think that police officers were there to help. Now, I’m paranoid. I’m afraid of police.”

Murray Rankin, opposition critic for justice and NDP MP for Victoria, told the Straightthat stories such as Bowman’s should serve as a warning. He said cities like Vancouver and New Westminster may not consider it a priority to go after someone with a joint but anecdotal evidence suggests the situation is different in jurisdictions covered by the RCMP.

“It’s quite a varied landscape out there,” he said. “We want a coherent position across the country.”

Rankin added that the situation on Vancouver Island is similar to that of Metro Vancouver. The City of Victoria (which has its own municipal police force) has tacitly accepted marijuana storefronts and is drafting regulations comparable to those Vancouver adopted last June. Meanwhile, Rankin continued, in Nanaimo (where the RCMP patrols the streets), marijuana is still getting people into trouble with law enforcement.

Barely an hour after Rankin’s call with the Straight, the RCMP issued a news releasestating they had executed search warrants at three marijuana dispensaries in Nanaimo.

Rankin acknowledged that legalizing marijuana—that is, creating a framework for sales similar to rules that cover tobacco—will be complicated and take time. But he argued it would not be hard for the federal government to decriminalize possession of small amounts of cannabis. Rankin noted the Liberals have discussed this as a likely first step, and he wondered when that will happen.

As few as seven percent of B.C. marijuana violations result in charges, according to a 2011 analysis published by the University of the Fraser Valley. But according to B.C. Justice Ministry numbers, from 2003 to 2012, police across the province recorded 173,157 offences related to cannabis.

Larsen emphasized that even without a charge, an apprehension such as the encounter with RCMP Bowman experienced is usually entered into a police database, where it can remain for years and create problems for someone when the apply for a job or travel to the United States.

Like Rankin, Larsen said he accepts that full legalization will likely be a long process. “But there is no reason to continue arresting people for possession,” he said. “Especially when those charges are likely going to be dropped in a few months anyways. What’s the point?”

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This article was originally published in print and online at Straight.com on December 2, 2015.