In July, Maxen, a Haitian man who lived in Hamilton, led to the border with Canada-United States in Quebec, where he had agreed to pick up his two sisters from Miami, but the meeting did not happen as planned.
The sisters, who fled Haiti last year due to violence, hoped to settle in the United States, but when the administration of President Donald Trump ended a humanitarian program for people from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti, they decided to come to Canada where Maxen already lived. Having a relative here meant that they could claim asylum.
They arrived at the border after a two -day bus trip, but Paulna, the younger sister, who was traveling with her husband and three children of 12, eight and two, was not there when Maxen arrived.
He soon learned that Canadian border agents rejected her due to an irregularity with her paperwork, which he suspects that she is due to an additional name in her documents that her parents gave her to birth.
The five family was taken to a detention center for the application of Customs and Customs (ICE) in southern Texas, where they have been since then. Maxen says they have been held in two separate cells and have been taken to the hospital at least twice. A recent demand alleges that families in downtown Dilley, Texas, including children, face a lack of clean water and inadequate medical care.
CBC News does not publish Maxen’s surnames and family members because they fear that he can endanger his immigration case or result in retaliation in Haiti if they are deported. The older sister, who claimed asylum in Canada, did not want to be identified.
The lawyers who work with the family told CBC that Maxen’s case is part of a worrying tendency of asylum claimants who are erroneously rejected by Canada, then caught in a increasingly more opaque American immigration detention system where legal advisors cannot easily access.
Canada does not apply safeguards, says the lawyer
“It is almost certain that anyone who has returned to the US is going to be … delivered to ice,” said Heather Neufeld, an immigration lawyer and refugees based in Ottawa who has been working so that the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) redeet the case of the Haitian family.
TO 2023 Supreme Court of Canada The decision asked border agents to consider the options called “security valves” that should prevent people from being sent back to dangerous situations, but Neufeld has never seen them apply.
It is also supposed to interview relatives to clarify inconsistencies with paperwork, but Neufeld says that does not always happen, and if he does, it is not very thorough.
“On the one hand, we denounce what the United States is doing and, on the other hand, we do not apply safeguards to ensure that we are not sending people who are incredibly vulnerable to being detained and deported,” he said.
Hana Marku, immigration lawyer and refugees based in Toronto, represented a Cuban man Trying to join his wife in Quebec this summer. He was rejected on the border and detained by ICE for a month, only for the officials of the Canadian Justice Department to correct an agreement to reconsider their case and then approved in what she says she felt as an arbitrary fashion.
Marku said the experience highlighted how much has changed south of the border and How difficult it is for people to claim asylum In Canada.
“What we are doing when pushing people is to throw them into this black hole where the law is not on stable terrain,” he said, added that while his client was lucky, he still fought to communicate with him.
“I don’t know how to navigate a system that is so punitive and unpredictable.”
As happensReport paints a bleak image of life in ice arrest
A report by Human Rights Watch and two other non -profit documents for overcrowding, unbridled abuse and denial of medical care in three migrant detention centers in Florida amid the repression of immigration of US President Donald Trump. Belkis Wille de HRW spoke as it happens, the guest presenter Megan Williams.
Separated family at the Texas detention Center
Maxen says that his sister and family have had a lot of health problems since he was arrested.
Paulna has developed high blood pressure and passed out several times. The eldest son of the 12 -year -old couple has been having nightly bleeding in the nose.
Maxen only listens to Paulna when he can call relatives in Florida who put her on the speaker’s phone. He often stops herself or Maxen to say certain things because Ice told her that the guards supervise the phone calls.
Paulna and the children are in a cell different from her husband, Edy, and Maxen says that they are usually seen during meals.
“Every time we talk to them, the children or the husband or my sister, they often take them to the hospital,” said Maxen, who is a medical care worker who studies to become a nurse. “We don’t even know exactly why.”
CBC News has communicated with ICE to comment, but did not hear in time for publication.
Long stays in improvised detention
Saba and Abdul Raqeeb arrived in the United States from Pakistan with their little child, Haider, on January 14. Saba says they left Pakistan after Abdul received death threats for helping a man who did not know violence.
They came in a business and tourism visa and expected to stay, but once the Trump administration promulgated its immigration policies, they decided to try to claim asylum in Canada.
The family tried to cross Canada on July 13 at the Pace Bridge entrance port between Buffalo and Niagara Falls, Ontario. They planned to meet with Abdul’s uncle on his late father, then request refugee status.
Saba says that Canadian border agents told them they needed more documentation to demonstrate the relationship. The next thing he knew was that they were being taken to CBP nearby offices in Buffalo.
The CBP website says that “try not to keep people in custody for more than 72 hours”, but there have been increasingly long stays as immigration arrest in the United States becomes the norm.
Saba says they were held at Peace Bridge CBP for 11 days. During that time, he says he fought to get food and milk for his son.
“I kept asking them, ‘At least give me a bottle of milk for my son,” said Saba. “They said: ‘This is not a kitchen or cafeteria’.”
On July 31, Saba and his son were released, but CBP gave Abdul to ICE. The experience was so traumatic Saba says that Abdul collapsed and was taken to the hospital in Buffalo, where he was treated before being taken to an ice installation in Batavia, New York, where he remains. Saba and his son stay in Vive, a shelter in Buffalo.
Saba says that since she was arrested, her husband has lost about 65 pounds and has been diagnosed with diabetes. He also says that Abdul, who suffered a heart attack in Pakistan, had denied his cardiac medication for five days while he was in ice custody.
Yohannes Hiluf, who directs the legal services of Vive Shelter, is trying to make CBSA listen to his case again, but says he needs notes of his first interview, which he cannot get without Abdul’s signature, something he has not been able to obtain while Abdul is in custody.
Hiluf says that CBSA seems to be more rigorous in the investigation of asylum applicants at the border than before Trump was re -elected.
“They demand evidence that it is extremely difficult to satisfy,” he said.
Canadian actress Jasmine Mooney tells CBC News about her terrible 11 -day experience in ice arrest after trying to enter the United States to renew her work visa. Mooney describes what he saw as “unpleasant”, saying his detention cell: “That place breaks you.”
Some choose to depend
In a statement sent by email, the spokesman of CBSA, Luke Reimer, said that the officers consider all the relevant information, including the claimant’s own statements and documentary evidence. He also said that if a claimant cannot understand or communicate completely in English or French, the agency will provide an interpreter.
Reimer said that under the Law of Immigration and Protection of Refugees in Canada, “there is no formal right of appeal on the determination of eligibility.” Although people can seek a judicial review before the Federal Court, he said that this does not prevent them from being eliminated.
The US CBP said in a statement that the people rejected by Canada “return to the state they had before”, which means that they can be eliminated.
At the most recent United States immigration audience at the end of August, he chose to deport Pakistan, which is expected to take place imminently.
Saba says she feels that her husband was pushed to self -esteem due to how bad she was treated while she was in ice arrest, and says she received her heart medicine half an hour after that audience.
She says he said: “It is better to die in my country of origin instead of dying in a cell.”
