You know things are bad in Canada when the country can’t even bring itself to deport what are obviously fake refugees.
This was the development earlier in December, when a federal judge decided last month to call off the deportation of an Eritrean family who claimed asylum status in Canada — despite already being citizens of Sweden. The judge did so because she figured the family’s children would suffer “irreparable harm” if they were made to move during the school year.
That’s the out-of-control Canadian immigration system for you, ladies and gentlemen. Instead of gatekeepers, we have gate-openers for even the most obvious deportation candidates — those who already have citizenship in safe countries.
The Eritrean family’s situation is one that screams of passport shopping that should be met, in any country that cares about maintaining order and respect for the law, with a swift correction. This family had come to Canada in 2016 with claims of persecution in Eritrea, leaving out any mention of their Swedishness in their application forms.
Though they were initially granted refugee status, immigration officials eventually figured out the ruse and revoked it in 2022. Despite this, the family managed to cling on for another two years by trying two more administrative routes that had the potential to keep them in Canada. These attempts eventually failed, and after all appeal routes were exhausted, they were scheduled to be sent back to Sweden on Dec. 28.
But a final, last-ditch measure worked: in early December, the family asked to have its deportation put off until the kids were finished with their schooling. They were initially refused by border officials, and one can see why: mid-year school transfers are tough on kids, as are mid-year international moves, but they can manage. But Justice Lobat Sadrehashemi, a former refugee lawyer herself, granted their wish a week before they were set to leave.
“I am satisfied based on the particular circumstances of this case, taking into account the evidence provided by the eldest child, who will be graduating from middle school this year, and the evidence about the school year calendar in Sweden, that irreparable harm has been established because of the short-term best interests of the children,” she wrote.
The family can now buy itself even more time in Canada by challenging border officials’ refusal to let them stay for the rest of the school year.
It’s a decision that’s offensive to common sense and basic justice. Here was a set of parents who lied by omission while reaping the benefits of Canada’s generous asylum-seeker benefits for six years — and still, they’re permitted to remain.
Now, just think of the cost of all this: state health-care coverage, housing supports, legal system bandwidth — all for a case that should have been easy to close, considering that Sweden is an advanced rule-of-law country that takes in refugees instead of producing them.
Harder to quantify, but very real, is the additional cost of a justice system doing everything it can to excuse the wrongdoing of people who came to Canada under false pretenses. How can regular Canadians trust a system that helps non-citizen fraudsters continue to tap our welfare state for help? It’s an insult to not just them, but to the many other asylum claimants who are legitimately escaping war and devastation, and genuinely need a new home.
Still, there is a bigger problem here: the system is minded by a bench that seems to be more interested in supporting those who are in Canada illegally (and those who act illegally while in Canada) — instead of enforcing basic rules that are supposed to keep rule breakers out.
It’s been a problem for a long time. In 1999, the Supreme Court’s famed Baker v. Canada decision gave a giant green light to illegal immigration. In that case, a Jamaican woman living illegally in Canada had her application for permanent residency on humanitarian grounds rejected — a decision which she managed to undo.
The Supreme Court ruled that the government was in the wrong for failing to explain why she was rejected; indeed, the court even reasoned that bias was a factor, because the immigration officer on the file noted that the woman had a mental illness and was a single mother of seven children.
Ministers have the power to step in and block deportations — I have no problem with that — but the government shouldn’t be obligated to carry out lengthy procedures designed to give those here illegally every shot at staying. In a country with supposedly fixed borders and social supports, it shouldn’t take this much state capacity to remove those who aren’t cleared to be here.
On the criminal front, it’s just as bad. Due to court precedent, Canadian judges are obligated to consider “immigration consequences” when sentencing non-citizen offenders. In some cases, it results in a sentence discount: nightclub gropers and drunken burglars from abroad have received lighter sentences under this rule to give them a greater shot at remaining in Canada.
There are plenty more legitimate refugees, and otherwise law-abiding non-citizen newcomers who are eager to adapt to Canadian life and get on the path to citizenship. Let state resources go to supporting them, and not people who abuse our rules to harm others and extend their already illegal stays.
Canadians deserve a system that works for them, not outsiders. Let that be a change that graces us in 2025.
National Post