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Article Excerpt
Abstract
This paper is designed to provide a preliminary understanding of the barriers facing refugees in legal limbo in Canada. In particular, it will focus on the economic implications, for both protected persons and Canadian society at large, of maintaining tens of thousands of individuals in this difficult situation for extended periods of time. The findings are preliminary, and designed to indicate future avenues of research, as well as potential roadblocks to research in this area. The paper also includes some of the results of a survey of Convention refugees and the refugee-supporting organizations, conducted by the Public Justice Resource Centre. The initial conclusions indicate that the costs of limbo are large enough to warrant serious reconsideration of this stage of Canada's refugee determination policy. The rationale for this study was to help key decision makers see the futility and the unnecessary cost to the government of keeping refugees in limbo.
Resume
Cet article vise a fournir une comprehension initiale des obstacles confrontant les refugies qui se retrouvent dans un etat juridique indetermine au Canada. II se penchera en particulier sur les implications eonomiques a la fois pour les personnes proteges et la societe canadienne en general de garder des dizaines de milliers d'individus dans cette situation difficile pendant des periodes etendues. Les resultats sont encore preliminaires et sont concus pour indiquer les voies de recherche pour l'avenir, aussi bien que les obstacles possibles a la recherche dans ce domaine. L'article propose aussi des extraits des resultats d'un sondage effectue aupres des refugies et d'organismes de soutien aux refugies par le Public Justice Resource Centre (Centre de ressources pour la justice publique).
Les conclusions initiales indiquent que les couts de cet etat indetermine sont suffisamment eleves pour justifier une serieuse remise en question de cette etape dans la politique de reconnaissance des refugies. Le raisonnement pour entreprendre cette etude etait d'aider les decisionnaires-cles a voir la futilite et le gachis superflu de garder les refugies dans un etat indetermine.
Preface
Fleeing the devastating consequences of twenty years of civil war and the repressive Taliban regime, Khalida fled to Canada from Afghanistan in early March 1999. (1) To Khalida, Canada was a utopia of hope and as a refugee she wished to forget her past, start flesh, and be reunited with her children who had fled the year before and were staying with family in Toronto. But for Khalida the benevolent and welcoming Canada she expected has not been the country she experiences. (2)
In night I sometimes can not sleep and I just walk and walk around the lobby [of my apartment building]," she says. Her stress is palpable. She is not old but flail from the stress that characterizes her eyes and marks her face. Khalida is a Convention refugee and has applied for permanent resident status in Canada with her husband also on her application. When she is granted status her husband will be able to join them in Canada. However, it has been four years since she was granted Convention refugee status, much longer than official timetable of six to twelve months for determining status stated on the Citizenship and Immigration Canada Web site. She has not heard from the government officer assigned to her case in six months. When she does hear, they repeat a mantra now all too familiar to the family--they are waiting on security checks.
They are "not giving any response, but we need our dad as soon as possible," Khalida's daughter and oldest child tells me. His absence is a large part of our conversation and obviously has a depressing effect on the family's mood. "The stress of my mom is being too much for us and it is because my dad is not here," the daughter continues. "One person is supposed to stay with my morn but I can't because I have to work." Khalida concurs, "I can no longer take care of my children when they're missing all the time their father. They need their father. Even sometimes my family asking 'where is he' and other kids at [my children's] schools are asking."
The situation of Khalida and her family is not uncommon in Canada. Over twenty thousand Convention refugees like her are awaiting permanent resident status, Or what used to be called "landed immigrant" status. They are unable to get on with their lives while issues relating to criminality, security, and identity documents are sorted out. In the process, the government spends millions of dollars unnecessarily. For refugees, for the government and therefore the Canadian taxpayer, it is a lose-lose situation. During this stage in their refugee determination process, refugees are in limbo. They are withheld rights that Canada must provide under its international obligations. Refugees encounter barriers to employment, mobility, training programs, and access to adequate health care and democratic rights, ones that someday will eventually be theirs since refugees may not be removed from Canada.
Introduction
This paper was designed to provide a preliminary understanding of the barriers facing refugees in legal limbo in Canada--those awaiting, often for years, permanent resident status. In particular, we wished to focus on the economic implications, for both protected persons and Canadian society at large, of maintaining tens of thousands of individuals in this difficult situation for extended periods of time. Such research would provide an important element of a broader argument, most frequently articulated on humanitarian grounds, that suggests that the costs of limbo are large enough to warrant serious reconsideration of this stage of Canada's refugee determination policy. The rationale for this study was to help key decision makers see the futility and the unnecessary cost to the government of keeping refugees in limbo.
As of 2003, there were over 16,200 cases of refugees in "limbo," involving almost 22,000 people. (3) For many refugees, limbo in Canada is not a short-term affliction. While there is no official statistic from Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), several people in the refugee support community have stated that the current wait is at least eighteen months. (4) A variety of factors contribute to a significantly longer waiting period. Some refugees interviewed for this study have been in limbo for eleven, twelve, even thirteen years.
This study is a preliminary attempt to compare the costs and benefits to Canada of keeping refugees in limbo. This, as we anticipated and subsequently confirmed, is very difficult to quantify. Cost studies in general are complex; they demand sophisticated technical skills and training in methodology and economics. Attempts to quantify social and economic phenomena often require assumptions so that information fits reality. This study is built around the assumption that being trapped in limbo directly and indirectly creates extra costs and it is possible to quantify barriers to refugee integration. These were found through interviews with settlement agencies and our Convention refugee questionnaire. At this point an important caveat needs to be added: The economic costs to Canada found in this study are above what would normally be incurred through the refugee determination system, without an extended period of limbo as currently exists.
Our findings point to clear evidence of significant costs both to Canada as a whole and to refugees themselves who are left in legal limbo. The difficulty of obtaining information, however, makes this a preliminary study which will require further work should a policy change notbe forthcoming,
This paper is divided into four sections. The first part will review the state of refugees in Canada and how the process for In-Canada Refugee Protection operates, what has changed since September 11, 2001, and how these changes open a window of opportunity for necessary policy changes. Section two briefly discusses our research methodology and outlines gaps in the literature of economic research in refugee issues. During limbo, refugees face many barriers to integration. These will be analyzed in the third part, while the final section presents the economic costs these barriers produce.
Part 1. Refugees: Yesterday and Today
Canada has a reputation as one of the most "refugee friendly" of all...
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