Recent articles dealing with different subjects, one on deportation of a long-time Canadian and the other about detention, reflect the
new reality of Canadian immigration; the focus is no longer on attracting
people to Canada, but rather, on kicking people out.
Few are safe from this trend. As can be seen from the deportation story,
even people who have been citizens for decades are not exempt from losing their
citizenship, and facing deportation.
Permanent Residents should be aware that they are most
vulnerable to this problem when they are applying for citizenship, as the
government is checking carefully not only that you meet the residency
requirements for citizenship, but also going back to check for other problems
of possible misrepresentation (for example failing to declare a spouse at the
time of landing).
The government is also evaluating other inadmissibility
criteria including examining whether individuals have met the residency requirement for maintaining one’s
PR status. In fact, it seems that the government is deliberately delaying processing of
citizenship applications across the country, not only to ensure that persons have
maintained the Permanent Residency requirement prior to applying for
citizenship, but also ensuring that they have stayed in Canada and maintained
their residency requirements after they applied for citizenship. That is, if you applied in 2012, and the application is not processed until 2014, the government may
check whether you have been out of the country since 2012, and may look as far
back as five years prior to your date of application, in this case, looking to
2009, if during that time period, you have been out of the Canada.
As for detention, it is becoming a reality for an increasing
number of people, including tourists. It
is not only alarming that tourists who
happen to be confused at the port of entry and do not answer questions to the satisfaction
of the very aggressive CBSA are increasingly
being detained, but even more alarming is the length of time for which
they are being detained. They are often being detained for a month or more without being allowed out on
bond and then deported back. Even when
released, their bonds are often astronomical compared to what you see in
criminal cases. In these detention cases, bonds are often in the tens of
thousands of dollars. The new reality of Canadian immigration is casting an increasingly wider net and legitimate applicants, even Canadians, may risk being caught up in it.
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