Pregnant Mother Facing Complications Worries About Friday Night Refusal at U.S./Canada Border, Pleads for Temporary Resident Permits

 

Sarah Wallace rescued Eva Maria at one day old (she was found in a cement bag) and Jean-Moise when no one else would care for him at age 6 months. They are family. But Canada insists the dependent kids are not "immediate family members" even though Sarah and her husband have legal guardianship and have raised them into healthy and happy kids. Sarah urgently needs to get back to Canada to address pregnancy complications, but needs Ottawa to issue Temporary Resident Permits so her kids can come with her. She refuses to abandon them, and Canada's mistreatment of her family is cruel and heartless.

Pregnant Edmonton Mother Faces Possible Rejection of Her Dependent Children at Canadian Border

 

            In a stunning development that shines a highly negative light on Canadian immigration authorities, an Alberta mother – who must urgently return to Canada on September 25 from her work in Haiti because of potentially serious complications with her full term pregnancy – may see her two dependent, legal guardian adoptive children, aged 2 and 4, stranded at the U.S. border unless Ottawa takes immediate action to issue them Temporary Resident Permits.

            Sarah Wallace, an aid worker who has worked tirelessly since 2008 to keep Haitian families together through her highly respected charity Olive Tree Projects, applied for temporary resident visas for two children she and her husband, Jean-Pierre, rescued from certain death when both were abandoned at the ages of 1-day old and 6 months. But the Canadian government informed the parents, remarkably, that Jean-Moise, 4, and Eva Maria, 2, were not considered “immediate family members.”

            “Frankly, I was shocked,” says Wallace. “My whole life is about trying to keep babies with their families, and yet here the Canadian government is forcing me to make an impossible choice between my own health and that of my soon to be born baby and that of my two dependent children. How on earth are Eva Maria and Jean-Moise not immediate family members? These beautiful children were abandoned once already in their lives, one of them left in a cement bag immediately after birth. There’s no way I can leave them behind. We are family.”

            Wallace, originally from Devon, Alberta, has booked tickets for a flight home on Friday, September 25 for her two adoptive children, her biological child (Jean-Jacques, aged 3), and her husband. While the United States has granted them all entry visas to land in Seattle, they have yet to hear from Ottawa about whether they will be issued Temporary Resident Permits to continue their flight into Vancouver. The family have return trip tickets to Haiti booked for January, and Haiti has approved exit visas for Eva Maria and Jean-Moise.

            “I can’t believe my own government is being so cold-hearted when they have the ability under their own legislation to show humanitarian and compassionate consideration of our case,” says Wallace. “It’s been a real eye-opener when Haitian officials share their frustration with me that Canada is the only country that doesn’t help its citizens in circumstances like these, and yet the United States has no problem whatsoever in recognizing that we are a family and my two kids are immediate family members.”

            While Wallace and her family are hoping for a last-minute reprieve, they are concerned about the level of stress this ordeal has had on them as they prepare for what could be a difficult birth. “What are we supposed to do on Friday night, sit at the border until they issue us the permits for kids who are totally dependent on us at the ages of 2 and 4?"

            According to Matthew Behrens of the Rural Refugee Rights Network, “We saw this in another case earlier this year when an elderly care worker in Haiti with ill-health needed to return to Canada with his two adoptive children, and they had to go through three months of needless suffering and anxiety until a massive public campaign was able to win them temporary resident permits,” says Matthew Behrens of the Rural Refugee Rights Network. “There’s plenty of precedents for Ottawa to step in here under their own laws and jurisprudence and issue the permits so Sarah and her family can cross the border, quarantine in place for 14 days, and prepare for what should be a special family moment of a new life coming into this world. In addition to being cruel and illegal, it would really look bad on Canada that it might tell a pregnant mom that she can come in but her dependent children cannot. The family doesn’t want publicity, they don’t want a confrontation, they just want the Canadian government to do what is right. But they’ve been placed in an impossible situation.”

            To arrange an interview with Sarah Wallace, call 011-509-4700-3511

            To reach Sarah’s Canadian counsel, call Hadayt Nazami at 416-627-4379

RURAL REFUGEE RIGHTS NETWORK

PO Box 2121, 57 Foster Street

Perth, ON K7H 1R0

(613) 300-9536