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December 03, 2004 Denounce the deportation of Ahmad Nafaa Stateless Palestinian Refugee is now in a US jail, eventually to be deported to the refugee camp!Denounce the deportation of Ahmad Nafaa, demand his return to Canada! December 1. 2004-- Tuesday morning, Ahmad Nafaa was deported from Canada to the United States. Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) and the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) turned Ahmad over to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS), who immediately locked him up in the Clinton County Jail in Northern New York. All of this occurred despite the week-long efforts of the Coalition Against the Deportation of Palestinian Refugees and allies, who had been working, since Ahmad was detained on November 23, to prevent his deportation. The night before Ahmad was deported, friends went to visit him in the Laval detention center, Ahmad was very afraid of what is awaiting him in the US and felt that his last hope for living a life in peace and dignity was being crushed in those few hours. Ahmad removed a map of Palestine from his necklace and gave it to a friend for fear of being harassed in the US by immigration officials or in the US jail. At this moment, Ahmad is being transferred from the Clinton County Jail to the INS detention center near Buffalo, NY. The situation he faces in the US, in addition to the injustice of an arbitrary detention, is difficult and dangerous. It is unlikely that the US will not eventually deport him back to the 56-year-old Palestinian refugee camp of Ein El Helweh in Lebanon, back to a life of statelessness and a life void of all fundamental civil and human rights. It is crucial to recall that occurs against the background of the Canadian government’s continued support of Israel and the illegal occupation of Palestine. Ahmad will probably be found ineligible to claim asylum as a refugee in the US. US immigration law imposes a one year time limit for the filing of a refugee claim, and the time starts running at the moment the claimant first enters the country. Because Ahmad first entered the US, on his way to Canada, in 2001, that time period has expired. He can apply for a 'Withholding from Removal', but the standards applied to such an application are much higher than for a refugee claim, and it does not confer the same status. The acceptance rates in the US for both types of claims are disturbingly low. Even if Ahmad is released from detention during the time that his claims are processed, he will not be eligible for a work permit for six months. While Ahmad was being forced into this situation by CIC and the CBSA, the Minister of Immigration Canada, Judy Sgro, ignored a wide variety of efforts to convince her to stop Ahmad’s deportation. Several members of Parliament, including Bill Siksay (NDP), Meille Faille (Bloc), and Alexa McDonough (NDP), personally pressured the Minister to review Ahmad's file and stay his deportation. On Monday morning, Bill Siksay asked the following question in Parliament: “Could the Prime Minister assure us that Canada will live up to its obligations under the UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and, given his personal commitment to the protection of Palestinians, will he ensure that stateless Palestinian refugees are not deported from Canada?” Over the past week, the Minister and several high-level bureaucrats in CIC received thousands of faxes, phone calls and emails explaining Ahmad's situation and demanding a stay of deportation. Despite all of this, the Minister remained intransigent. The Coalition organized four demonstrations in support of Ahmad, two in front of Immigration Canada’s Montreal office, one at the Laval detention center where Ahmad was being held, and one in front of the Ministry of Citizenship & Immigration in Ottawa. The Coalition’s allies in Toronto organized a demonstration at the riding offices of Minister Sgro. Several major media outlets, including the CBC, Radio Canada, La Presse, Le Devoir, The Gazette and Global Television, provided extensive coverage of these demonstrations and Ahmad's plight. Journalists were able to interview Ahmad over the weekend while he was in detention in Laval. These interviews appeared on television and in the print media. Still, Sgro, who was surely made aware of the extensive media coverage and public awareness regarding Ahmad, refused to act.
For a sampling of the media coverage, visit the following: The Federal Court also failed to prevent this injustice. On Monday afternoon, Judge Beaudry rejected an application for a stay of deportation, which had been filed by Ahmad’s lawyer, Annick Legault. The judge, incredibly, found that Ahmad would not face ‘irreparable harm’ if deported to the US. One wonders what reparations Judge Beaudry would therefore find adequate for the indignity and loss of liberty that Ahmad has already suffered during just his first 24 hours in the US. Judge Beaudry also denied the application on the grounds that Ahamd did not have ‘clean hands’ because he had been living underground for over a year before being detained (he way, as they say, ‘illegal’). In essence, the judge refused the application because Ahmad had been forced underground in order to avoid deportation to the poverty and persecution that are daily life in the refugee camps of Lebanon. This despite the fact that the initial refusal of Ahmad’s refugee claim was clearly unjust. A clear indication of that is that fact that his own brother, who has exactly the same case, was granted refugee status in Canada and is allowed to stay simply because a different Immigration & Refugee Board member heard his case. The Coalition is now organizing to arrange to pay a $10,000 (USD) bond so that Ahmad may be released from detention while he awaits his virtually guaranteed deportation back to Lebanon. PLEASE CALL, FAX and EMAIL THE MINISTER OF IMMIGRATION We ask you to again write, call or email the Removal Officer in this case and the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, expressing your outrage and disgust at the failure of the government to prevent this gross injustice.
WHEN YOU CALL, DEMAND FROM CITIZENSHIP & IMMIGRATION:
1) To accept Ahmad Nafaa’s humanitarian and compassionate grounds
application, which was filed over 6 months ago, so that he may return to
Canada.
For more information, contact the Coalition Against the Deportation of
Palestinian Refugees:
Removal Officer
Judy Sgro RE : STATELESS PALESTINIAN REFUGEE AHMAD NAFAA (4277-4326) Honourable Judy Sgro, December 1 2004 - AHMAD NAFAA has been deported from Canada to the United States, and after being locked in the Clinton County Jail, he is being transferred to an INS detention center. We, therefore, respectfully request that, as Citizenship and Immigration Minister, immediately accept his application for permanent residence on compassionate and humanitarian grounds so that he may return to Canada. The Canadian government has already failed Mr. Nafaa once, by failing to stop his unjust deportation, and the only way to remedy that wrong is to allow Mr. Nafaa to return to Canada as soon as possible. Mr. Nafaa was born a stateless Palestinian in Ein El-Hilweh refugee camp in Lebanon. Fear, poverty and persecution are daily facts of life in the Ein El-Hilweh camp, and the present and future are grim for resident Palestinians. They are banned from an ever-expanding number of trades and professions. Unemployment among them, as a result, is extremely high. Poverty rates are also astronomical. The restrictions on new construction within the camp means its residents are forced to live in dilapidated, hopelessly abject housing. All these factors lead to a situation so bleak for Palestinians that suicide in the camp is an everyday tragedy. After 24 years in the camp and suffering its endemic racism, discrimination, fear, violence and poverty, Mr. Nafaa fled Lebanon and claimed refugee status in Canada. His claim was denied on February 20, 2002. On the other hand, his brother Mohammad¹s refugee claim, heard by a different member of the refugee board, was accepted. Since arriving in Canada, Mr. Nafaa has become fully integrated in Canadian and Quebec society. He has been reunited with his brother, and they have renewed their close family ties. Mr. Nafaa currently works full-time in a restaurant and is a self-sufficient and contributing member of his community. He dreams of returning to school and finishing the nursing degree he began in Lebanon. After suffering for so many years as a refugee, his greatest desire is to alleviate the suffering of others. In every sense, Mr. Nafaa has found a home in Canada. Ahmad Nafaa now faces deportation from the U.S. to the refugee camps of Lebanon, where the conditions faced by Palestinians are dangerous, degrading and, beyond dispute, in clear violation of international law. This situation, over half-a-century old, is directly related to the statelessness of Palestinians. Because of their unique situation, Palestinians have been denied not only rights accorded ordinary citizens but also genuine access to the international system for the protection of refugees. The fact that Mr. Nafaa’s immediate deportation was to the United States does not materially affect his plight. Eventual deportation to his country of origin is virtually automatic. In signing the United Nations Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness in 1978, the government of Canada championed the cause of stateless refugees. If Canada allows Mr. Nafaa to return to Lebanon, it would be abdicating that noble responsibility. The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration must therefore act now to grant Mr. Nafaa, and the other stateless Palestinian refugees facing deportation from Canada, permanent residence on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, pursuant to s. 25(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. We thank you for your attention and efforts in this urgent matter. Sincerely, (YOUR NAME, ADDRESS)
CC:
-Office of the Prime Minister of Canada: pm@pm.gc.ca, Fax: 613-941-6900
-Michel Dorais, Deputy Minister CIC: Fax: (613) 954-3509 or (613)
954-5448
Posted by aderkon on December 3, 2004 04:23 PM
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