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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 3:10 am
Time: 3:10 am
Results for illegal immigrants (canada)
1 results foundAuthor: Global Detention Project Title: Immigration Detention in Canada: A Global Detention Project Special Report Summary: The issue of immigration detention has been at the centre of a burgeoning public debate in Canada since the summer of 2010, when several hundred Sri Lankan asylum seekers arrived on Vancouver Island aboard a rusty Thai cargo ship called the MV Sun Sea. Several political figures used the event to stoke fears among the public that the country’s asylum system could be used by Tamil terrorists (Naumetz 2011). Authorities detained all 492 asylum seekers, including 63 women and 49 children, for several months at a cost of several million dollars (AI et al 2011). Although boat arrivals represented only a tiny fraction of the total number of asylum claims made in Canada in 2010, the incident spurred the Conservative Party government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper to introduce that year controversial “anti-smuggling” legislation that would impose mandatory 12- month detention without access to independent review for certain categories of arriving non-citizens. The legislation, currently under consideration in Parliament as part of Bill C-31 (Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act), has been widely condemned by national and international rights groups, as well as opposition political parties. One opposition member of Parliament argued that if the anti-smuggling legislation passed it would “put a lot of emphasis on putting people behind bars before they get due process” (Naumetz 2011). The Sun Sea episode and the ensuing debate over the anti-smuggling law are only the latest manifestations of what some observers claim is Canada’s increasingly restrictive approach to immigration and asylum. This trend has been bolstered by a number of opinion polls in recent years that reveal growing negative attitudes among large swaths of the Canadian public. A government poll conducted in 2007 found that a majority of Canadians think that immigrants who are in the country illegally should be deported, even if they have family members living in the country (Aubry 2007). In a 2008 poll by the Globe and Mail, 61 percent of respondents said that Canada makes too many accommodations for minorities (Laghi 2008). And a September 2010 poll found that 50 percent of Canadians thought the passengers and crew of the Sun Sea should be deported back to their countries even if they have legitimate refugee claims and are not linked to terrorist activities (Vision Critical 2010). Many of Canada’s detention practices compare unfavourably to those of other key destination countries. Thus, for example, although there are widely recognized international human rights norms against using criminal facilities for the purposes of immigration detention, Canada remains one of only a handful of major industrialized countries to make widespread—and, in the case of Canada, increasing—use of prisons to confine non-citizens in administrative detention, where immigration detainees tend to be mixed with the regular prison population. As the Global Detention Project has found in other federal systems like Switzerland and Germany, Canada’s use of local prisons makes accessing up-to-date information about detention activities extraordinarily difficult, raising questions about the overall transparency of the Canadian detention estate. Also, in contrast to other major detaining countries, Canada has no institutionalized framework for independent monitoring of detention conditions and making reports on these conditions publicly available. Additionally, Canada’s lack of detention time limits places the country in the company of a dwindling number of states. On the other hand, Canada has made an effort to reform some detention practices (including detaining fewer numbers of minors in recent years); the detention capacity of its three dedicated facilities is quite small (currently less than 300 total places, though this number is set to expand); its average length of detention (approximately 25 days) places it in the median with respect to other key detaining countries; and the total number of detainees (less than 9,000 in FY 2010-2011) is comparable to that of other countries facing similar migratory pressures, though these numbers could surge in the near future. Additionally, despite the increasing securitization of immigration in public discourse and steadily decreasing numbers of accepted refugees, Canada has continued to settle more than ten thousand refugees yearly and in 2010 it admitted nearly 300,000 permanent residents. As Canada continues to debate its social attitudes and legal responses to immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees, this GDP special report aims to focus attention on one aspect of its immigration policy—detention—which could be significantly impacted by this debate. This report offers a comprehensive review of Canada’s immigration detention regime and attempts to situate its policies and practices in an international context to enable observers, policy makers, and engaged individuals—both in and outside Canada—to better observe how the country stacks up to its peers and the potential ramifications of its political decision-making. Details: Geneva, Switzerland: Global Detention Project, 2012. 42p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 2, 2012 at: http://www.globaldetentionproject.org/fileadmin/publications/Canada_special_report_2012.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Canada URL: http://www.globaldetentionproject.org/fileadmin/publications/Canada_special_report_2012.pdf Shelf Number: 125123 Keywords: Asylum SeekersIllegal Immigrants (Canada)Immigrant DetentionImmigrationRefugees |