Just after 6 pm EST on September 26, we celebrated a moment that has been months in the making. Sarah, Jean-Pierre, Jean-Moise, Jean-Jacques, and Eva Maria have arrived safely in Canada. Canada belatedly issued the Temporary Resident Visas late Friday night while the family were in flight to Seattle, finally doing what they should have done months ago (instead of fighting this family by insisting that their two adoptive, legal guardian, dependent kids were not immediate family members!)
But because Canada failed to issue the requisite travel letters, the family were not allowed to connect with the Vancouver flight, and had to spend the night stateside. Thankfully, a wonderful member of our care team, Angela Pinchero, was there at the airport and, in a most loving embrace, took the family back to her house. The delayed flight letters arrived this morning, the flight was rebooked for this afternoon, and this time, everything fell into place!
We could not have celebrated this moment without your incredible support. Over 19,000 wonderful people signed the petition, and thousands of you emailed and called throughout our campaign. Words cannot express our incredible gratitude for your generous, loving support. As difficult as this journey has been, it has also been a real learning experience for those who discovered that this was not an isolated case. So many other families are forced to deal with the kinds of bureaucratic immigration obstacles that are not only cruel, but also wholly inconsistent with Canada’s own laws, court precedents, treaty commitments, and basic common sense.
While the family is happy that the Canadian government finally did the right thing, it concerns them that they – like thousands of others – were forced to go through so many hoops, hurdles, sleepless nights, and unnecessary stress for what was in the end a very simple matter. They continue scratching their heads, wondering what it was that made the Canadian government fail to see what was plain as day: this is a family, and families should never be separated or forced to consider the impossible choices that were presented to Sarah by her own government.
Going forward, Sarah and her family will be going into quarantine for two weeks as they eagerly await the safe delivery of the newest member of the family.
In the meantime, many of you expressed interest both in the work that Sarah does in Haiti and the work of those who helped in this campaign to bring her family home. To learn more about the project Sarah founded, Olive Tree Projects (which is about keeping Haitian families together!), please visit http://www.olivetreeprojects.com/
In addition to the wonderful legal counsel of Hadayt Nazami (Nazami and Associates), the family worked closely with us at the Rural Refugee Rights Network (http://rrrncanada.blogspot.com/), which works both on individual cases as well as the systemic changes we need to see to ensure families like Sarah's and so many others never go through this kind of nightmare again.
While today is a day to celebrate, it is also an opportunity to acknowledge that we are angry. Angry that Canada’s immigration system callously proceeds on a daily basis as if people are mere file folders. Angry at a system whose employees far too often refuse to recognize the humanity of those who suffer as a result of cruel and often illegal decisions. Angry that far too many decisions are made by those who never consider – much less care about – the consequences of what they do.
Last December, in the landmark Vavilov decision, the Supreme Court cautioned: “Many administrative decision makers are entrusted with an extraordinary degree of power over the lives of ordinary people, including the most vulnerable among us. The corollary to that power is a heightened responsibility on the part of administrative decision makers to ensure that their reasons demonstrate that they have considered the consequences of a decision and that those consequences are justified in light of the facts and law.”
In this case – as in so many others we have worked on – the decision makers failed to act responsibly and with justification, much less legally. There must be accountability for the suffering they inflict.
Indeed, as Sarah herself said three days ago, “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. 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.”
And so we remain committed to pushing for the systemic changes we need.
But for tonight, we pause to celebrate, and trust that this long-delayed success story provides hope to others who remain separated by borders and heartless bureaucracies. It is a reminder that when we organize together, when we commit ourselves to the Gandhian concept of satyagraha – “the pitting of one's whole soul against the will of the tyrant” – we can individually and collectively make a difference.
Stay tuned. And Stay in Touch!
Matthew Behrens
Rural Refugee Rights Network
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