Some Refugees  Should Be  Deported  (Part 2)

Canada is a cosmopolitan nation that has people from all over the world who came to Canada to live. We welcomed them with open arms because we recognize how their cultures add to the fabric of our own. Since we are also a compassionate nation, our doors are also open to refugees who need to live in a country that is at peace within its borders.

As a nation, every year on average, Canada admits 257,000 permanent residents. It is the highest sustained level of immigration in Canadian history and the highest per capita levels of immigration in the developed world, adding almost 0.8% to our population per year.

Alas, we get regular immigrants and refugees who don’t recognize the advantages given to them when they come to Canada and instead, they prefer to break our laws and commit crimes such a fraud, robberies and even murder despite the fact that we gave them our most precious gift—citizenship. Well, Canadians have had enough of this kind of garbage bringing their smell into our country.

Before I tell you what Canada is going to do about these felons, I will give you a brief background about our current immigration laws.

Canadian immigration policy allows several classes of people to enter. The Family Class allows permanent residents or citizens to sponsor a family member's entrance into the country. The Economic Class provides admission to applicants (and their immediate families) who are supposed to be likely to find employment and contribute to the Canadian economy. This is determined by the weighing of factors such as education, language skills, and work experience. Currently, they must also speak English or French.

Claims for refugee status and for admissibility as well as appeals of the decisions of the immigration officers are directed to the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) of Canada. The Board is the largest tribunal in Canada and hears over 25,000 claims a year. Decision of the Board can be appealed to the Federal Court, which hears about 2,500 appeals on immigration and refugee matters each year.

Sweeping changes proposed in a new immigration bill will give new powers to the minister of immigration, including the ability to deny entry to visitors for public policy reasons and to override the rules that previously permitted inadmissible people coming to Canada.

Currently we have an immigration law that makes it easier for the government to deport refugees, permanent residents and visitors for serious criminality—crimes where the punishment is six months or more in jail. Further, the minister of citizenship has proposed that people who have dual citizenship who commit serious crimes should also be deported.  This would mean that a person who has a passport of the country he came from and is also a Canadian citizen; he too can also be deported. In Canada's multicultural society,  Christian, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and followers of other faiths and those without faiths, live in peace, harmoney and respect and freindship. Intermarriages are also increasing to the chagrin of certain racists people who feel that their traditional values face erosion.     

Hate, religious intolerance, virulent Judeophobia, be it promoted by one individual or many, is not be allowed in our society, irrespective of where one lives.

Terry Jones, the notorious Florida pastor—his doctorate in theology obtained online from a non-accredited obscure California university, was thwarted in bringing his Bible-thumping Qur’an-bashing to Toronto. Attempting to cross the border from Detroit, Jones was held up by customs officials in Windsor for four hours of questioning and then denied entry into Canada. There was no way that piece of feces was going to get into Canada so he could spout his hatred on the citizens of Canada.

The imam of the Grand Mosque of Mecca, Sheik Sudais, who has called for violent jihad, had also been denied entry to the US and Canada after describing Jews as “the scum of humanity” and “pigs and monkeys”.

Alas, sometimes we get foreigners coming into Canada who do not have a criminal conviction and are therefore not strictly inadmissible to Canada under our current law, but who have a long track record of promoting violence or hatred against vulnerable groups such as an imam who calls for the execution of gays and lesbians, justifies domestic abuse and makes anti-Semitic remarks.

We don’t need these kinds of people in our country and if they slithered into Canada, they should be turfed out of Canada.  Unfortunately, Canada has no legal tool to keep such a hate monger out of Canada right now because he hasn't committed a crime in Saudi Arabia or any other mid-eastern country. Had he committed a crime in the country he came from, he wouldn’t be permitted to remain in Canada however what do we do if he obtained his Canadian citizenship and then he spews his hatred all over the people he hates? That is the predicament we are currently in. If hate mongers who are merely landed immigrants and not citizens, then they can be removed from Canada but once they obtained their citizenship, they are anchored in Canada and it may be impossible to remove them.  

The Canadian Citizenship Minister, Jason Kenny had brought to the Canadian parliament, C-43, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act on February 6, 2013. It was by then at its third and final reading. When he addressed parliament, he said in part;

“I remind members that under the current provisions of the Immigration Act, a foreign national who is given a custodial sentence by a Canadian criminal court of six months or longer is criminally inadmissible to Canada and a deportation order is issued for them. They have lost the right, the privilege, of living in Canada by virtue of their serious criminal activity and the finding of a Canadian court in that respect. That was not a decision made by the government, by law-abiding citizens or by the Minister of Immigration. The decision to commit a serious criminal act is the decision of the criminal, who must be held responsible for his act.

“When Canada has opened the doors of generosity and opportunity to a foreign national, essentially all we ask [of them is] to maintain that privilege in perpetuity if they live in Canada for two out of five years as a permanent resident or become a citizen or simply do not commit a serious criminal act. To suggest that the government would somehow be responsible for “dividing family members” if a serious foreign criminal is removed is perverse. The decision to become inadmissible, to be deported, is a decision the criminal has taken by virtue of his act, a decision that has been confirmed following due process by a Canadian court of law.

“Should that permanent resident being removed following deportation have family members in Canada, they are not required to stay here. They are welcome to go back to their country. The notion that Canada is dividing a family is absurd. There is a certain, I would call it, soft bigotry implicit in the attitude that people can only stay in Canada and they cannot go back to any other country in the world with their family members. How condescending to suggest that people cannot pursue fulfilling lives in other countries around the world. I reject that categorically. I say that if people commit serious crimes, they have lost the privilege of staying in Canada as a permanent resident.

“However, over the past five years we see on average about 800 permanent residents (who are not yet citizens) per year who commit serious violent crimes that carry penal sentences of six months or more. In 2010, it was 849; in 2009, 1,086; in 2011, 564. It is about 800 on average. That is a tiny fraction of a per cent of the number of permanent residents in Canada. At any given time we have about 700,000 to 800,000 permanent residents, so about one-tenth of a per cent actually commit serious crimes. Therefore, to suggest that the bill has a general application to all or most permanent residents is perverse. To the contrary, it focuses only on the tiny minority who commit serious crimes.

“The crimes that would be affected by the bill by removing the right to appeal, which is used as a delay tactic for deportation, would be those sentenced to six months (and up to)  two years less a day, that is, 10% of custodial sentences. Again, only 33% of criminal convictions lead to a custodial sentence. We are talking about 10% of the most serious crimes committed in Canada. In fact, it is even less than that. It is the 10% of those that get custodial sentences, so we are talking about the most serious crimes.

“We are talking about serious crimes and I have repeatedly referenced the cases of Vietnamese gangster, Jackie Tran; the Guyanese criminal, Patrick De Florimonte; the Romanian fraudster responsible for forgery and conspiracy to commit fraud, Gheorghe Capra; Cesar Guzman from Peru, who sexually assaulted a senior citizen. The Liberals would allow that man to still access an appeal and delay his removal by four years. Then there is the case of the assault with a weapon, drug possession, drug trafficking and failure to comply with court orders of Jeyachandran Balasubramaniam, who managed to delay his deportation for seven years.

“Canadians do not think that is acceptable. To the Liberals, sexually assaulting a senior apparently is not a serious crime. That is explicitly their position on the bill, that it is not a serious crime and that a foreign national who has raped a senior citizen should be able to delay his deportation. We respectfully disagree. We suggest that the moment the penal sentence is done, in this case that of Mr. Guzman, the person should be taken in a paddy wagon from prison to the plane and removed from Canada because they have lost the right to be here.

“On November 6, 1989, Clinton Gayle was convicted of the offence of possession of a narcotic for the purpose of trafficking. He was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of two years less one day. Those are the kinds of sentences that have led to such appeals. Often courts have given sentences of two years less a day specifically to give access to these appeals. Indeed, Mr. Gayle used that loophole and on March 1, 1991, the deportation order was filed against him and on that same day he filed an appeal against the decision. It took 16 months, until June 29, 1992, for the Immigration Appeal Division of the IRB to dismiss the appeal of his deportation order.

“It is true that after 1992, through incompetence on the part of law enforcement agencies, he was not removed. He ought to have been removed. However, here is the point. If Bill C-43 had been in place back in 1991-1992, the paddy wagon would have gone to the prison on the last day of Mr. Gayle's custodial sentence, put him in the back and taken him to Lester B. Pearson Airport and put him on a plane back to Jamaica. He would never have been allowed to get out on our streets in the first place and Todd Baylis would be alive today.

Editor’s Note: Gayle had previously been deported to Jamaca but he slipped back into Canada and later he murdered Todd Baylis, a Toronto Police Officer. I later represented a woman who told the prosecutor how many shots she heard when the officer was shot to death.  Gayle is currently still in prison serving a sentence of 25 years to life. Now back to Kenny’s address to parliament. Now back to the ministers speech to parliament.

“Consider Léon Mugesera, a Rwandan national responsible for genocide in his country. According to our legal system and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Mr. Mugesera was one of the people responsible for inciting the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Rwandan civilians 20 years ago. It took us 21 years to deport Léon Mugesera. I believe that one of the reasons for the delay is that he applied for permanent residence on humanitarian grounds twice. Léon Mugesera showed no humanitarian compassion toward victims of the Rwandan genocide. In my opinion, Canada is in no way obliged to provide special consideration on humanitarian grounds to a person who has committed genocide. unquote  

                                                                                                                                                                                      On January 23, 2012, a Quebec Superior Court judge rejected Léon Mugesera's bid to avoid deportation. Mugesera was then immediately deported after being taken to Montreal's international airport the same day bound for Rwanda to face trial there. He was flown in a private plane and was arrested as soon as he arrived in Rwanda.  On February 2, 2013, he was formally charged with “planning genocide, inciting the masses to participate in genocide and distribution of arms” at the Nyamirambo court in Kigali.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Farhad Abdule Fatah, 28, was born in Afghanistan and he arrived in Canada as a refugee after having previously lived in France.  Rather than lead a peaceful life in his adopted home, he chose to live a life of crime. The tattoo on his right shoulder is that of an AK-47 assault rifle over a burning Afghan flag.  The tattoo is the mark of an Afghan street gang in Toronto, Ontario.  Over time, the gang armed itself with handguns, clashed with the rival ‘Flemo Boys’ (who live in the Thorncliffe Park neighbourhood in Toronto) and shot a member of the ‘Rascals’.  The activities of the members include simply ganging up on a fellow student, evolving to possession of multiple weapons.   Between 2006 and 2011, he amassed a criminal record involving weapons, threats and drugs. He was convicted of possession of a prohibited weapon (brass knuckles) and possession of cocaine and magic mushrooms. He was arrested following a 2009 stabbing and acquitted after the victims recanted their statements at trial. Gang members sometimes escape prosecution because victims won’t cooperate and witnesses fear retribution. In December 2010, Toronto police responded to a shooting and found Mr. Fatah in a car with three others. A Bryco 380 automatic handgun was found under his seat. Mr. Fatah claimed he found it in bushes outside a Tim Hortons. He pleaded guilty to unauthorized possession of a firearm. In addition to a 224-day sentence in jail, he was banned from possessing weapons for 99 years. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   The Canada Border Services Agency brought Mr. Fatah’s case to the Refugee Board last year, arguing that as a foreign national and a member of a criminal organization, he should be deported. Mr. Fatah denied any gang affiliation and portrayed himself as a peaceful person with no interest in weapons or violence. The Board did not believe him.   

                                                                                                                                                                          Fatah has been in custody since October, 2011. The government is currently deciding whether his deportation is justified when the danger he poses to Canadians is balanced against the risks he could face in Afghanistan, a country he last saw in 1991 when he was six years old. Quite frankly, I think he should be returned to Afghanistan. I would rather see his life at risk in Afghanistan than the life of an innocent person in Canada at Fatah’s hands.

What should Canada do with foreign terrorists who are in Canada as dual citizens with two passports—one Canadian and the other from the country of their births.

                                                                                                         

There was a deadly tour bus bombing in Bulgaria on July 18, 2012 and it was later learned that one of the bombers was a Canadian citizen who had left Canada a long time ago and who was also a member of the terrorist organization, Hezbollah.

                                                                                       

The Canadian minister of Citizenship announced in parliament recently that Canada should consider new legislation that would revoke the citizenship of dual nationals if they are terrorists or support terrorism.  He said that Canadian citizenship is predicated on loyalty to Canada and he can’t think of a more obvious act of renouncing one’s sense of loyalty to Canada that committing acts of terrorism in Canada or elsewhere.  

                                                                                                  

I am in total agreement with his proposal on this issue. I would like the government and parliament to go further. It seems to me that if any Canadian terrorist kills a Canadian somewhere in the world, he is in fact declaring war on Canada. Such a person’s Canadian citizenship and passport should be immediately revoked, even if he was born in Canada.

Canada’s 1947 Citizenship Act included the power to revoke the citizenship of any Canadian who is found guilty of treason against Canada. Is it that great a leap to revoke the citizenship of a Canadian who commits acts of terrorism in Canada or elsewhere?  I think not. In Australia and the United Kingdom, the government has the authority to revoke the citizenship of anyone if it is in the public’s best interest.  For example, the UK revoked the citizenship of Mahdi Hashi last year because of his involvement in extremist activities. In my opinion, it is in the best interests of law-biding and peace-loving Canadians to turf terrorists out of Canada even if they were born here.