“Refugees and migrants should always be treated with respect and dignity, and in accordance with existing international law. Children must not be traumatized by being separated from their parents. Family unity must be preserved.” – UN Secretary-General António Guterres, June 18, 2018
“We are the people you do not see. We are the ones who drive your cabs, we clean your rooms...” – Okwe, Dirty Pretty Things
JOIN/ORGANIZE MONTHLY FAMILY REUNIFICATION VIGILS
Beginning February 15, 2022, join us on the 15th of every month as we gather for peaceful, public vigils in our communities to demand immediate reunification of hundreds of thousands of long-separated refugee, immigrant, and citizen families; build networks of mutual support while sharing personal stories and discussing legal strategies; and seek institutional change to end the cruel, racist limbo imposed on millions of people for whom “temporary” status, total lack of status, and family separation result in endless pain, fear, and suffering. (Details on how you can arrange a vigil are below!)
The Rural Refugee Rights Network and Voices4Families strongly believe that it is critical to expose and end the silent suffering endured by those who, due to institutional indifference, racism, and misplaced political priorities, are unable to enjoy the internationally and domestically guaranteed legal right to live together as family. By coming together in public venues (offices of the federal government, MPs, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, aka IRCC, and high-profile public squares), holding large pictures of long-separated loved ones, sharing stories of the mind-numbingly ridiculous reasons that have been used to justify arbitrary and unaccountable denial of visas, and building networks of support based on a commonly shared trauma, we believe we can put additional pressure on a federal government whose sweet tweets on reunification have no basis in reality.
We live in a society that is by its very nature disempowering and disconnecting. We are told from an early age that you can’t fight city hall, you can’t change anything, no one will listen, you need millions of people on your side. We are also told that if you have a problem, it is always your fault, you are to blame, and don’t air your dirty laundry. We are made to feel guilty or selfish if we demand rights that we deserve. But these are all myths used by the powerful to convince us there is no point in trying, even as history shows us otherwise. The words of the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass ring loudly over a century later: “If there is no struggle, there is no progress….Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” Anthropologist Margaret Mead echoed that sentiment, reminding us: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”
The Scale of the Problem
The Toronto Star reports that as of July 31, 2021, more than 561,700 people were awaiting permanent residence, and 748,381 had a pending temporary residence application as students, workers or visitors while the backlog for citizenship stood at 376,458 people. Le Droit reported in May, 2021 that the average processing time for permanent residence applications that could reunite long-separated families was 39 months. It is so bad that even the Liberals ran on a platform that recognized the need for “a program to issue visas to spouses and children abroad while they wait for the processing of their permanent residency application, so that families can be together sooner.”
The failure to prioritize families was illustrated yet again with the Liberal government’s proposed immigration levels for 2021-23, in which Canada projects twice as many economic/business immigrants as family reunification numbers (and with refugees accounting for 75% fewer spots than economic immigrants)
Family separation is also a public health crisis. It is played out in emergency rooms and medical clinics every day: countless thousands who have not been able to hug their spouses or kids or parents for years are trying to beat back the wave of deep depression, anxiety, and suicide attempts while suffering stress-induced physical maladies. Their nights are full of tears and heart palpitations, trying to maintain relationships through phone apps and choppy videos, compulsively checking the IRCC portal for signs of progress on their files, fearful that taking public action will push their file deeper into the abyss indefinite separation.
Happy political photo-ops to the contrary, Canada is not a country that prioritizes the welcoming of families. Instead, it privileges wealthy and business-class immigrants while it relies on the precarity of migrant workers, the under-the-table economy staffed by hundreds of thousands without status, and the fear of speaking up as a means of exploiting a cheap labour force. Refugees and immigrants are not seen as human beings fleeing persecution and abominable living conditions, but rather as impersonal tools whose only use is for economic strategy and “labour market” placeholders.
While Canada as a nation has been challenged to reckon with the genocidal roots of its founding – a country build on the forced separation of Indigenous families – we are similarly called to eradicate the racism and cruelty that are embedded in immigration bureaucracies and result in unspeakable amounts of stress, suffering, and trauma. While this campaign cannot solve all the problems associated with the huge structural barriers that make this country a less than welcoming place for far too many, we believe that the public awareness, education, advocacy, and mutual support arising from it will contribute to the broader discussions about and efforts to institute the types of major change necessary to ensure an end to these abusive practices.
Institutional Barriers
Part of the problem is that Canada employs twice as many people on the enforcement end of immigration – working to deport the most vulnerable back to the countries they fled – than it does to facilitate their entry. Indeed, some 14,000 people work day and night at Canadian Border Services Agency to meet arbitrary deportation quotas, throw refugees into prison on the flimsiest of grounds (in 2019/20, over 8,800 refugees were detained without charge, including 136 children), and work overseas to prevent migrants from getting here in the first place. By contrast, IRCC has just over 7,000 workers, many of whom tend to play a role similar to CBSA, finding excuses to delay or reject applications in a work environment that its own employees say is rank with racism.
A 2021 report on IRCC’s work culture found that “significant proportions of racialized employees consider racism to be a problem within the department,” pointing to hurtful comments, “blatantly racist tropes,” and “racial biases in the application of IRCC’s programs, policies and client service that are believed to result from implicit biases among decision makers, as well as administrative practices that introduce biases or the potential for bias over time.” These focus groups also pointed to “a deep imbalance in racial representation in management that inherently militates against progress on dealing with racism in the department.”
That racism is often exhibited in the very overseas visa posts that are apparently tasked with the Afghan refugee crisis. As one participant noted in the focus group, they “decided not to accept any postings to countries in the region their ancestors came from, as the emotional toll of being exposed repeatedly to racist comments against people of their background had become too heavy.”
NEXT STEPS
Every community across this land has individuals and families who suffer from these abusive government practices. There are also advocates who are willing to work alongside of those whose suffering voices need to be shared and magnified. We are encouraging anyone directly affected alongside those who believe such abuses must end to plan public vigils at the place and time of day of your choosing on the 15th of every month. February 15 marks the day after any provinces celebrates Family Day.
A public vigil is a perfectly legal undertaking for which no permit is required. You have a Charter right to assemble and express yourselves. How you organize a vigil is completely up to you. You can have a speak-out in which families share their stories of separation, governmental barriers, and political negligence. You can stage theatre pieces, read poetry, sing songs, hold large signs with pictures of your separated loved ones. Invite the media. Encourage members of local churches, student groups, and more to attend with you. If you have never done something like this before and need some help with ideas on how to approach it, let us know and we’d love to hear from you and talk it through. If you are prepared to commit to gathering on the 15th as much as you can during 2022, please let us know as we build this network of support and solidarity. You can reach us at tasc@web.ca
Together, let’s end the suffering of family separation while challenging a system that, absent major overhaul, will continue to perpetuate this misery.
The Rural Refugee Rights Network
2583 Carling Ave., Unit M052
Ottawa, ON K2B 7H7
tasc@web.ca, (613) 300-9536, http://rrrncanada.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Rural-Refugee-Rights-Network-105352081349200
Voices4Families
https://www.facebook.com/groups/voices4families
