Turning to your community: the final bulwark against deportation from Montreal

Simmi arrived in Canada at the dawn of adulthood. It was in Montreal that her mother, her sister and she herself settled down and applied for asylum in a country that was presented to them as open and welcoming. The people were welcoming. It is rather the openness of bureaucrats that they are up against today.

To avoid deportation to India, Harpreet Kaur and his mother, Paramjit Kaur, are reduced to trying their last chance: they decided to apply for humanitarian consideration. In migration jargon, this is the last step available to them, after the rejection of their asylum application, to try to regularize their situation.

A look at the journey that many asylum seekers in Canada follow in silence.

The path that leads to a request for humanitarian consideration

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People who are not eligible to become permanent residents and who cannot be classified in other categories may apply to remain in Canada permanently for humanitarian reasons.

Several factors can be taken into consideration when analysing a request for humanitarian consideration, for example:

• Connections with the community in Canada
• Best interests of a child
• Reasons related to the health condition of the applicant
• Factors in the country of origin not related to the request for protection

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Source: https://www.canada.ca/fr/immigration-refugies-citoyennete/services/demande/formulaires-demande-guides/guide-5291-considerations-ordre-humanitaire.html

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Uprooting: back to the unknown

Simmi Sunshine — the name Harpreet is known by in the yoga and personal development community — and her mother, both from Punjab, a state in northern India, could be deported and forced to leave Montreal at any time.

“I've been keeping this fight in the dark for 14 years. It's a battle, and we fought alone, me, my mom and my sister,” Simmi explains. I only shared our immigration situation with a few people because I was very ashamed and thought that people were going to judge us.”

“For me, the priority when I arrived in Canada was to learn French. So I devoted four years to my apprenticeship. Not because I was forced, but because I told myself that I wanted to be part of this society,” she reports.

As a last resort, they have taken steps to request humanitarian consideration. It was rejected in the early days of the pandemic. Simmi and her lawyer must now appeal a rejection of this request.

Simmi, 32, doesn't really know Punjab, which she left as a child. She lived in Montreal for 14 years and made her living there.

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Money, the lifeblood

On November 25, Simmi tried everything for everything and launched a crowdfunding campaign on The GoFundMe platform. It was this cry from the public heart that made it possible for us to meet.

” A few thousand dollars can make a difference, but not having them is terrifying. You say to yourself, “Here I am in this situation that could change my whole life.” I know what anxiety is. I know what fear is. They make you feel so small. You understand that what is happening is reality,” she said. A reality that could change overnight, and for the worse.

Simmi decided to seek donations from the public and seek help from her social circles because she believes that she and her mother have not always been well represented.

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Open up to your community

A few days after our first meeting, we see Simmi again at a Christmas market organized by her and friends. A bazaar in the O.Noir restaurant, where several tables are lined up with jewelry and natural teas or soaps. A DJ is concentrated behind his sound table and plays music that recalls the atmosphere of certain electronic festivals.

Simmi sells second-hand clothes and chat with several people who now know her situation. She did not sleep the night before and is worried about the procedures, which are ongoing.

Her stall neighbor is a friend: Laurence Boisseau. She has a degree in psychology and is now Coach. She and Simmi met in a yoga studio.

“I had heard between the branches that her situation was complicated, but I could never have suspected that this is what she was going through,” she says, as we sat on a carpet in her corner of the market. She is an inspiring and strong person [...] You always feel welcomed by that person, and it feels safe to go to that person.”

“I had no idea what she was going through,” Laurence repeats when talking about Simmi's migration situation. She discovered it when she saw, to her surprise, the crowdfunding campaign on GoFundMe. “I was proud of her that she was telling her story,” says the young woman. I ask him what Montreal would lose if Simmi and her mother were deported: “I think Simmi here has a lot of friends. She brings a lot to the people around her; so, of course, it would be a big loss to take her away from her family. She has cultivated a network for 14 years, and someone we care about would be taken away from us. I think it's really sad [...] You get the impression that it's just a bureaucratic situation.”

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Administrative imbroglio

This situation is far from being isolated, testifies Mr.^E Mylène Barrière, lawyer at the Migrant Justice Clinic. In recent years, this immigration law specialist has observed a deterioration in access to justice.

“We see people who are in a precarious situation and we ask them for high fees. There are some who will manage, who will borrow everywhere, but it makes them very precarious,” indicates M.^E Barrier.

A report by researchers Craig Damian Smith, Sean Rehaag, and Trevor Farrow, of York University, finds that the quality of representation is one of the biggest factors that have an impact on the conclusion of a refugee claim: “It is a significant and long-standing problem in terms of its impact on efficiency, outcomes, and access to justice,” the report reads.

A conclusion that can be extended to the world of requests for humanitarian consideration, Simmi believes.

“We hired someone we thought we could trust to speak for us. I feel that the way this lawyer presented our case, and represented us, was, let's say, approximate. It had an incredibly negative impact. That's why having a lawyer who knows the system, who knows how to present your situation so that it can actually be heard by the judge, is essential,” reports Simmi, who did not have sufficient funds at the time to pay for a lawyer.

“If you have a lawyer, or just someone who acts a bit like a lawyer but doesn't know what they're doing, that puts you in a situation like mine, where you find yourself in a 14-year battle to prove that yes, that's my story. For us, our story was clearly not presented properly. Now my intention is to have the support I need to be able to present my case.”

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A life under threat in India

For safety reasons, Simmi's family has to flee India.

“First we immigrated to the United States, my father, my mother and my sister. We then sought asylum in Canada, so it complicated our case.” Note that the asylum request was made after she saw her father being deported to India.

“My father was detained for a year before being deported. At that moment, it was extremely scary for us, three single women. We were advised by people around us who told us to seek asylum in Canada.”

Because of their irregular status, Simmi and her mother have not been able to leave Canada for 14 years, waiting first for their refugee status and then for their humanitarian request. So many years where they were in some way stuck in Canada. Without being able to see, one her father, the other her husband.

(PHOTO from a trip on the river)

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Structural problems

In 2023, nearly 56% of humanitarian applications were rejected in the country, according to the most recent figures sent to La Converse by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). And in 2021, 70% of requests for humanitarian consideration were answered in the negative.

At the time, organizations such as the Migrant Justice Clinic denounced the situation, recalling that before 2020, the acceptance rate of such requests was 64%.

More recently, the same organization noted an increase in deportations. These almost doubled in the first part of 2023 compared to previous years. On average, 39 people per day were deported this year, compared to 21 and 23 in the last two years.

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Prove your value through your involvement

Simmi submitted more than 30 letters of support when she submitted her file on 13 December. These are essential elements in a request for humanitarian consideration, as integration into the community is a factor taken into account by the immigration officer who makes the decision to accept or reject the application.

An asylum seeker can apply for humanitarian consideration when asylum is not granted by a member of the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB).

“It can be so random, what decision we can receive [for asylum] can be received. [...] There are a lot of decisions that could, at times, have been positive”, believes Mr.^E Barrier.

For a few moments, let us turn our gaze to the past. It is 2012, the Maple Spring is in full swing in Quebec and Barack Obama is re-elected President of the United States. 2012 was also the year in which the Conservative government of Stephen Harper adopted a series of immigration reforms.

The consequences of the Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act are still being felt, more than 10 years later.

“Before 2012, when they submitted their asylum application, people could also submit a humanitarian request in parallel.” Why? “Because a lot of people don't fit into these [asylum] criteria, which are extremely restrictive,” says Mr.^E Barrier.

“It was much more flexible, everything we could make use of, and there were often very well-founded requests,” she reports. But since 2012, you just have to fight for a decision on a humanitarian request before you proceed with the removal.”

A situation that Simmi knows all too well.

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Emotional merry-go-round

“The whole emotional process of going back and forth in court and having your case refused all the time is very difficult. We have been on the deportation list for three years. So basically, having filed a humanitarian claim does not necessarily guarantee that we are granted the right to stay here. Even if we wait to see if our request for humanitarian reasons is accepted, the government still has the right to deport us,” explains Simmi, with despair in her voice.

Meeting at the premises of the Center for Immigrant Workers (CTTI), an organization that defends the rights of migrant persons, Mostafa Henaway adds: “It's a structural problem! ”

According to him, “agents must take into account the whole situation, the way in which the person integrated into Quebec, the risks to which they are exposed if sent back.” But during all this waiting time, “how do you want people to integrate fully when you know that a request does not cancel out the risk of deportation? ”

He also deplores a situation that he and his CTTI colleagues have been observing for some time, namely the deportation of migrants of Indian origin: “What the agents are telling them is that it seems safe to be relocated in some parts of India, but not in others. Unfortunately, if you come from one of these regions that are not safe, you will be doubly uprooted because you are relocated to a place that you do not know. It's like telling someone from Quebec to take refuge in British Columbia.”

While diplomatic relations remain tense between Canada and India, especially after the assassination on Canadian territory of a Sikh separatist activist from the state of Punjab, the specter of deportation to this country may cause concern.

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Learning to make your own home

The risk of deportation and the submission of incorrect documents seems to haunt Simmi and cause her great psychological distress.

“I have had the privilege and the honor of serving and supporting several people, whether in my yoga class or my dance classes. What people often tell me is that every time they are in my presence, they feel like they are at home. And I realized that for most of my life, I felt like I didn't have a home, that my home was going to be taken away from me at any moment. And so, over the years, I've learned to build a home inside of me, a home that no one can take away from me, a home that will always be there,” she said, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Emotions are rising: “I have been trying to build a home for the past 14 years, putting down one brick at a time, alone with my mom. And over the past seven days, where I've opened up to just get support, I feel like I've got my whole community coming to help me lay the bricks and build this home.”