Why not everyone can get permanent residency in Canada

According to new data released Tuesday by the Migrant Rights Community, Canada has recently doubled the number of refusals of permanent residence permits on humanitarian grounds: while 35% of applicants were denied in 2019, the figure was already 70% in early 2021. Human rights activists see this situation as a serious problem that particularly harms low-wage racial migrants.

Syed Hussan: "Arbitrary officials are the potential for exploitation"

"Permanent resident status is the only mechanism that ensures equal rights for all migrants. By doubling down on rejections, Prime Minister Trudeau is doubling down on the potential to exploit the most vulnerable people in the country," Syed Hussan, secretary of the Migrant Rights Community, said in a video conference for the press on Tuesday.

"The first thing to do is to legalize all migrants already in the country, including undocumented people, and give them residence permits. Instead, we see immigration officials allowing complete arbitrariness and doing just the opposite," he said.

These are applications for immigration made on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. These grounds include discrimination in the applicant's country of origin, having worked or volunteered in Canada for a long time and having raised an aboriginal child.

Toronto-based immigration consultant MacDonald Scott called such applications for residency on humanitarian grounds "a last resort for women fleeing gender-based violence, homelessness and other undocumented families."

Immigration to Canada has fallen sharply due to the pandemic in 2020, according to Statistics Canada Statistics Canada. The December report says Canada welcomed 40,069 immigrants in the first quarter of 2020, down 61.4% from the same period in 2019. During the same time period, 66,000 people who were not permanent residents left the country.

Toronto-based immigration lawyer Nastaran Rushan, in an interview with online portal CTVNews.ca, noted that at the time, visa issuance was delayed mainly because of the introduction of quarantine regulations. However, back last year, to improve the immigrant intake situation, the government promised that Canada would already have 401,000 new permanent residents in 2021.

Quinn Gabriel: "The process that's killing us."

Quinn Gabriel's permanent residency application from the Caribbean, who worked as an elderly caregiver in Toronto, was denied in October 2020.

"There is no life without status in Canada, only existence. The immigration process is slowly suffocating us," a woman said during a virtual press conference, calling on the Canadian government to begin urgent change:

"Many of us died without access to simple medical care during the COVID-19 pandemic. We did not take sick leave for fear of being unreasonably reprimanded by our superiors. Life shouldn't be constantly on the edge of stress, it shouldn't be so exhausting, nerve-wracking and scary for anyone."

At the same press conference, an immigration consultant from Toronto noted that many migrants do not qualify to apply for asylum on humanitarian grounds, or asylum that is based on fear or risk of persecution. In addition, hundreds of thousands of migrants are undocumented, many of them arriving on temporary permits that have not been renewed.

MacDonald Scott also noted that the process of applying for permanent residency in Canada, on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, can take three to five years and cost applicants more than a thousand CAD. But the final verdict comes down to one person — the immigration official who makes that decision. And it cannot be appealed in court.

"No one knows how or why the sudden increase in denials was decided, and that makes it difficult to challenge. The arbitrariness of officials has cost humanity dearly," Scott said.

Syed Hussan called on all human rights defenders to grant permanent residency status to all migrants in Canada, pointing out that existing government programs do not take into account too many people.

Back in May, the Migrant Rights Community said the federal plan to grant permanent residency to 90,000 temporary workers does not take into account the thousands of migrants who are and are working in the country without the right documents. The community secretary also noted that the permanent residence for health care workers in Canada, which was announced in January, also excludes many of the Canadian migrants from obtaining Canadian residency status.

Lorley Pud: "They could call at any minute."

Also during the press conference, Syed Hussan said that "in the last two years there has been a clear, systematic pattern of denial" that has primarily affected working-class racial candidates.

Marisol Bobadilla, who lives in Toronto, moved to Canada to work nine years ago from the Philippines. The woman recounted the following:

"My refusal to get a permanent residence permit shows that working class applications, especially those of undocumented workers, are simply ignored. And this is very unfair, as each of us is experiencing serious difficulties in life".

Lorley Pud, a public school custodian in Edmonton, has lived in Canada since 2012. She tells us that life in her hometown in the Philippines is not safe. She is worried about her future because her last application for permanent residency on humanitarian and compassionate grounds was rejected earlier this year, and her open work permit expires at the end of July.

"Anytime they [the Canadian government] can call me to come home because my open work permit is not permanent," said Pud, who is also a member of an Alberta migrant advocacy group. — So I worry a lot about my seven-year-old daughter, who has already adapted to life in Canada.

Vancouver health worker Laura Lopez shares similar concerns, as her young family has been living in the country for seven years. The woman said they have already spent a lot of time and most of their savings searching for various legal ways to stay in the country:

"My eldest daughter has lived here most of her life. She feels Canada is her home".

Laura also noted that her child dreads the thought of having to return to Mexico. Lopez urges the government to reconsider the situation, as she fears her family will have to "start from scratch" after living in Canada for almost a decade.