Canada must stop jailing immigration detainees: rights groups
Human rights groups are calling on the Canadian government to end its controversial practice of holding immigrant detainees in provincial prisons.
“The conditions faced by people in immigration detention are deeply distressing…even relatively short detention can be devastating to the mind,” reads the open letter, which will be sent Monday to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his immigration and public order ministers. safety.
The letter’s signatories include at least 40 Canadian and international organizations, such as Amnesty International Canada and the Rexdale Community Legal Clinic in Toronto, that champion the rights of migrants and asylum seekers.
Canada’s use of maximum-security provincial prisons to hold immigrants – who are not charged with a crime or serving a sentence, but can be held indefinitely – has drawn condemnation from human rights groups, including the United Nations, for years.
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), which administers the country’s immigration detention system, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The agency has said it is “actively working” to reduce the use of county jails, a longstanding commitment that dates back to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s first term.
“The health and safety of those entrusted to our care is of the utmost importance to the CBSA,” the agency said. “We take this responsibility very seriously.”
Eight counties have canceled or are in the process of canceling their immigration detention agreements with the CBSA, meaning they will no longer use their prisons for immigration detention. (The counties must give the CBSA a year’s notice, so their decisions won’t take effect until this summer at the earliest.)
The Ontario government’s announcement in June that it is ending its agreement came after a Toronto Star survey found that more than 80 percent of immigration detainees held in Ontario prisons last year were only held because it was “unlikely was that they would show up” before their deportation – not because they were considered dangerous.
Star immigration detention studies have found that detainees can get stuck in deportation limbo, sometimes for yearsand that hundreds of nonviolent inmates end up in maximum security prisons, where they are treated in the same way as convicted criminals.
Many immigration detainees also experience mental health problems, a Star analysis found.
After an arrest, detainees may be held at one of the CBSA’s three immigration centers in Toronto, Ont., Laval, Que., or Surrey, BC. a provincial penitentiary,” according to the CBSA website.
The CBSA said it considers several factors when deciding whether to hold people in immigration detention, including whether they have criminal convictions, ties to organized crime or “community ties.”
The letter’s signatories expressed concern that the CBSA is transferring detained immigrants from Alberta provincial prisons to its Immigration Holding Center (IHC) in Surrey, BC.
The open letter asks the federal government to invest in local programs that can provide an alternative to detention and operate independently of the CBSA.
“We urge the government to invest in support services that take a holistic view of an individual’s needs … and ultimately end the practice of immigration detention in Canada,” the letter reads.
