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.

Follow Travis Lupick on TwitterFacebook, and Instagram.

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

Metro Vancouver hospitals refer hundreds of immigration cases to border police

Byron Cruz of Sanctuary Health warns undocumented immigrants that if they go to a hospital, they might be reported to the Canadian Border Services Agency. Travis Lupick photo.
Byron Cruz of Sanctuary Health warns undocumented immigrants that if they go to a hospital, they might be reported to the Canadian Border Services Agency. Travis Lupick photo.

Byron Cruz has encountered the sorts of situations that arise when someone is afraid a trip to a hospital could end with them being deported from the country.

He once helped a man injured on a construction site connect with a veterinarian who stitched closed a deep cut, for example. And Cruz says it’s common for pregnant women to seek his network’s help for deliveries.

“My number works as a 911 number for undocumented people,” he said, interviewed at his office in the Downtown Eastside. “We never announced our services, but my number has been given to people as the number they can call. That is very scary, because 911 is for emergencies.”

Cruz is an organizer with Sanctuary Health, a group that promises people can access care without fear of any complication that might arise from their immigration status.

He said that recent months have seen Metro Vancouver’s community of undocumented immigrants—which he estimated numbers between 3,000 and 5,000—grow increasingly reliant on such services that exist outside the province’s health-care system. A troubling statistic obtained from Fraser Health, which operates 12 hospitals throughout the Lower Mainland, may reveal why.

From January 2014 to October 2015, Fraser Health referred approximately 500 patients to the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA), the federal police force tasked with immigration enforcement.

“When we learned this, we were very shocked,” Cruz said. “This has to be taken very seriously.”

The issue of CBSA referrals gained widespread attention in 2014 when it was reported that the previous year transit police forwarded 328 incidents to CBSA. Those calls resulted in 62 investigations and at least one death: in December 2013, Lucia Vega Jiménez committed suicide while in CBSA custody after transit police arrested her for fare evasion.

Since then, the City of Vancouver has worked to designate itself a “sanctuary city”, where undocumented immigrants can access municipal services regardless of their status. But the rest of the region has not shown the same enthusiasm for such policies.

In a telephone interview, Fraser Health spokesperson Tasleem Juma confirmed that 500 calls to CBSA was an “approximation” for the period January 1, 2015, to October 7, 2015.

Juma claimed that Fraser Health does not know how many of those referrals resulted in CBSA launching an investigation, nor could she say how many ended in deportation. “Once the information goes to CBSA, what they do with it they don’t report back to us,” she said.

CBSA refused repeated requests for an interview. A spokesperson for the B.C. Ministry of Health told the Straight the province does not have a policy on immigration referrals and leaves those decisions to each service provider.

According to Juma, Fraser Health primarily contacts CBSA for billing purposes. She explained that nonresidents are charged different rates from residents and sometimes a call to CBSA is required to confirm a patient’s status. However, a Fraser Health policy document obtained by the Straight states that both physicians and nurses have “responsibilities” to attempt to see a nonresident discharged back to their home country.

Juma maintained that those sections are written to mean staff should ensure a nonresident will have access to health services after they leave Canada.

“We are not in the business of dealing with immigration issues,” she said. “When somebody needs emergency care and they come to us, we will take care of them.”

Juma added Fraser Health is open to revising guidelines for dealings with CBSA to harmonize its policies with providers across the region. “I think that would go a long way in relieving people’s concerns about coming to get health-care services,” she said.

Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) and Providence Health Care, which operate Vancouver General and St. Paul’s hospitals, said they could not supply numbers for CBSA referrals by deadline.

Juan Solorzano, VCH executive director of population health, told the Straight VCH now requires that a patient give their permission before a call is made to CBSA. He noted they can refuse, in which case, if residency status cannot be confirmed for billing purposes, the patient will be charged the higher rates of a nonresident.

“That policy was updated in August 2015,” Solorzano said. “We will no longer call the border services agency without consent from the client.”

Regarding the 328 cases transit police sent CBSA in 2013, Anne Drennan, a spokesperson for the force, told the Straight her organization has implemented similar reforms. She revealed that in 2014, there were only 48 referrals. And so far in 2015, transit police have called CBSA just 18 times.

“We had no interaction with CBSA in November,” she said. “What changed was the policy. We no longer ask people about their status in the country.”

City councillor Geoff Meggs delivered an update on Vancouver’s efforts to become a sanctuary city. He reported that a draft document is essentially finished and expected to begin circulating among advisory councils before the end of the year. From there, he said, he hopes it will go before city council during the first half of 2016.

Meggs acknowledged that immigration is primarily a federal issue and so the city’s authority on such policies is limited. But he added that Vancouver is acting where it can.

“Immigration and residency status is not relevant to us,” he said. “So you are safe to do business with us.”

Follow Travis Lupick on TwitterFacebook, and Instagram.

This article originally appeared in print and online at Straight.com on December 9, 2015.

Ivorian refugees forgotten in Liberia in no rush to leave

A version of this article was originally published at Al Jazeera English on October 12, 2012.

Zwedru, Liberia – Djéwé L’or Gueï was bathing her infant daughter when the explosion of gunfire burst out in her Côte d’Ivoire village in August. She didn’t know who was shooting or why. Everybody just ran.

With her one-year-old girl and two other young children, she bolted one way while, in the confusion, her husband ran another.

Gueï became a refugee when she escaped Côte d’Ivoire and crossed the border into eastern Liberia, fleeing a conflict declared over by her government more than a year earlier.

At Duogee Refugee Camp, Gueï recounted her ordeal. Speaking through a translator, she described how they spent the next five days walking through thick forest, surviving on water and raw cassava, a type of root. On August 18, she reached Duogee and found members of her extended family there – but no sign of her husband.

Since then, delays in registering with the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) have prevented her and her three children from receiving monthly food rations. Gueï said for the first time in her life, she’s been reduced to begging.

“She had her own farm and did everything by herself back home,” the translator explained. “She says this makes her think too much. The only thing that she is happy about is she has her life.”

In November 2010, former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo refused to concede that he had lost an election that was internationally recognised as free, fair, and won by his opponent Alassane Ouattara. For the next five months, a civil war claimed the lives of more than 1,500 people, until Gbagbo was finally apprehended in April 2011.

While the world has moved on, some of Gbagbo’s supports have not.

Continue reading “Ivorian refugees forgotten in Liberia in no rush to leave”

The Independent: A grotesque symbol of starving Africa


Photo Per-Anders Pettersson / Save the Children.

The latest on the drought and humanitarian disaster currently unfolding in the Horn of Africa. A tragic story at Independent.co.uk, with each paragraph more horrific than the last. Posted on July 17, 2011.

Increasing numbers of children are dropping dead on the long trek to refugee camps. Those who do get there are more severely malnourished than ever before. And, says the UN, the number of people under threat has now reached 11 million – equivalent to every man, woman and child in Belgium facing starvation. Thus, the chronic food crisis of the Horn of Africa edges with every hungry day towards full-blown famine.

One image captures the degrading awfulness now facing millions. It is not that of a wide-eyed, swollen-bellied child crying for food – although there are countless numbers of them. It is the sight of mothers using rope to bind their stomachs so they will deaden the pangs of hunger as they give what little food they can get to their children – a grotesque parody of the gastric bands used for slimming in the West.

Continue reading “The Independent: A grotesque symbol of starving Africa”

BBC News: Horn of Africa drought ‘A vision of hell’

Posted at bbc.co.uk on July 8, 2011:

The UK’s Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) has launched an emergency appeal to help the more than 10 million people affected by severe drought in the Horn of Africa. The BBC’s Ben Brown reports from the Dadaab refugee camp in eastern Kenya, where more than 1,000 people arrive each day seeking help.

Dadaab refugee camp now sprawls out over 50 km sq with a population approaching half a million people.

I feel like nobody even knows that this is happening. Read the story.