Refugee Realilty in Canada
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U.S. Citizen Denied Refugee Status; Forcibly Removed From Canada
By Judith M. Hansel
Katrina produced refugees. Some commentators find the word “refugee” distasteful and insist on “evacuee” instead. Webster states that a refugee is anyone who flees a life-threatening situation such as war, famine, flood, hurricane or other natural disasters and who then seeks safety in another community.
In 1951, the United Nations enacted the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees partly in response to the refugee problems created by World War II. The Convention describes a refugee as anyone who flees persecution because of his ethnic, religious or racial identity or because of persecution for his political opinion. Anyone who seeks asylum in countries that have signed the Convention is labeled a Convention Refugee claimant.
When a refugee arrives in a foreign country, there is no guarantee that she will find safety or how long protection may or may not be provided. Refugees flee with their lives and, if they are lucky, a few documents that prove their identity. Every refugee is thrust into an unknown society where a different culture, language and climate exists.
The UN Convention delineates rules for determining who is and who is not a valid refugee. Countries that have signed the Convention have bureaucracies in place to process people who claim to be refugees. Often these countries also have their own immigration rules and regulations. Ideally, this system is just and does not rely on propaganda issued by the refugee claimant’s home country to determine the validity of the refugee’s claim.
Unfortunately, this system does not work if you happen to be a United States citizen who has been persecuted for one of the reasons listed in the Convention and who can prove the persecution with documentation. Citizens of the United States are put through the bureaucratic process and accorded hearings that seem to be run in a fair manner. Fair, that is, until a decision based on lies is issued and a quick trip in handcuffs back to the United States is arranged. Often the time spent waiting to be deported is in a jail.
From 1989 to 1994, forty-five US citizens claimed Refugee Status in Canada. None were granted that status and all were ordered to leave Canada. The more intransigent, such as me, were deported.
U.S. citizens seeking refuge in European countries are also treated in a cavalier manner. One U.S. citizen was recently ordered to leave Norway after she spent 16 months seeking political asylum. A married couple, both U.S. citizens, left Canada upon orders from that government and are now bouncing from country to country in Europe, homeless and stateless. These are Americans whose civil and political rights are supposed to be protected by the U.S. Constitution and government, but who are, instead, running in fear from it.
Since the 1951 Convention, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees has devised an alternate form of supposed safety for refugees called “internal flight.” In this scenario, persons are advised to not return to the region of their country where the alleged persecution took place, but to live in another part of the country which is why I live in Nevada and not Wisconsin. This is a ludicrous policy since the long arm of the government of any country reaches everywhere.
In retrospect, it appears that the U.N. 1951 Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees was enacted to give protection to people fleeing Communism. No one, it seems, deemed it possible that citizens of the West might need protection. With the demise of the Communist States, the U.N. now plans to return refugees to their countries of origin as soon as practicable in order to reduce the impacts the refugees have on receiving countries. In other words, with Communist dictators gone from the scene, refugee protection is no longer needed.
The most alarming fact about the U.N. Convention is that it contains no enforcement provisions. Individual governments can decide whether or not a Convention Refugee claimant meets the requirements set forth in the Convention and in its own immigration law. Convention Refugee claimants who are U.S. citizens are regularly denied Refugee Status based on political considerations rather than on the unbiased merits of the case.
Denial of Refugee Status by a government’s bureaucracy can be appealed through that government’s legal system, but this is an expensive and lengthy process. Higher courts can simply refuse to hear a case with no reason given. Although the United Nations can declare a person or a group a Convention Refugee, it has never done so for any American.
The media, either by design or ignorance, does not inform the public of these facts. While corporate media heads are lodged in the sand, (or ordered to keep quiet), those of us who flee persecution are left in limbo. Under international law every government is required to legally repatriate returned refugee claimants. The U.S. government just pretends that we do not exist. Repatriation can be accomplished by the returned refugee herself if she has a permanent address, pays taxes and/or votes. No government involvement is required. Since November 25, 1998, I have paid no federal or state income taxes, do not vote and do not have a permanent address. This has not been easy to do, however being a sovereign nation of one has its own reward—absolute freedom.
Despite the propaganda spewing out of Washington, citizens of the United States have a right to know that some of their fellow citizens are fleeing the United States in fear of losing their lives or their liberty and are seeking asylum in other countries.
@ January 8, 2006