Legal professionals are wondering Canada’s solution to screening visa packages for nation in Gaza with prolonged public in Canada then one applicant, a scientific workman, used to be requested whether or not he had handled individuals of Hamas.
The Canadian Press received a redacted letter despatched to the applicant via a Canadian immigration officer, which asks if he has “ever provided medical care to injured Hamas members.” If he has now not, the letter asks him to mention how he used to be ready to incorrect “without consequences.”
Kelly O’Connor, an immigration attorney in Toronto, mentioned she gasped out rowdy when she noticed the textual content. Any scientific workman who denies assist to somebody harm in a battle zone is committing a “serious breach of the Geneva Convention,” she mentioned in an interview.
“It’s completely outrageous that the government would ask these kinds of questions because it’s trying to promote that someone would violate the Geneva Conventions in wartime, which is really not something that the Canadian military stands for,” O’Connor mentioned.
Visa candidates are already being requested “very invasive questions” within the procedure, she added. “And then seeing this letter? It’s just really shocking.”
The Canadian visa program has been mired in setbacks and controversy because it opened on Jan. 9. It’s evident to Canadian electorate and everlasting citizens hoping to get prolonged public individuals out of the Gaza Strip, the place the battle between Israel and Hamas has killed greater than 35,000 Palestinians, consistent with Gaza fitness officers.
The battle started then Hamas-led militants killed round 1,200 nation in Israel, basically civilians, and kidnapped round 250 others on Oct. 7, 2023, consistent with the Israeli govt.Â
Candidates to Canada’s particular transient visa program will have to whole a number of steps. First, a relative in Canada will have to post a “statutory declaration” indicating the public individuals in Gaza for whom they’re searching for visas, in addition to voluminous information about every member, together with an outline of scars and markings on their our bodies, and an inventory of all of the jobs they have got held since they had been 16 years impaired.
A unutilized transient pier constructed via the U.S. helps convey desperately wanted backup to Gaza. The primary cargo of humanitarian backup has already began rolling into the besieged enclave, however UN officers say it’s disagree substitute for deliveries via land.
The questions exit “above and beyond what is asked in a normal immigration application,” O’Connor mentioned.
The declarations are tested via Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, which nearest sends a novel code to every public member indexed within the record. The ones public individuals virtue their code to document a 2d bundle of forms for a brief visa. They will have to nearest in some way get from Gaza to the Canadian immigration administrative center in Cairo, Egypt, to finish a last screening procedure.
Greater than 7,500 nation submitted statutory declarations between Jan. 9 and April 1, consistent with information received via an get entry to to data request. As of April 29, 179 nation have been granted transient visas.
Candidates will have to to find personal approach out
Canada has been not able to paintings with Egypt or Israel to get candidates around the border. Those that had been granted visas have made it throughout themselves, steadily via paying hundreds of bucks to a personal corporate.
O’Connor represents 3 Canadians who filed declarations for a complete of 16 public individuals in Gaza, regardless that one — a kid — has since died. She mentioned they’re all nonetheless looking forward to the codes had to move to the second one segment of the method.
The letter despatched to the scientific workman, whose identify used to be blacked out as a result of he feared aftereffects, is at the letterhead of the Canadian Embassy in Amman, Jordan, and its contents are attributed to an unnamed migration officer with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. Ahead of inquiring about assist supplied to Hamas combatants, it asks for the applicant’s paintings historical past at two Gaza hospitals.
Vancouver-based immigration attorney Randall Cohn mentioned the questions within the letter are “patently illegal and absolutely egregious.” He has unhidden two such letters asking about scientific remedy of Hamas individuals — despatched to a physician and a nanny — and he’s acutely aware of two extra, he mentioned in an interview.
The nation who won those letters and taken them to attorneys had been afraid to do it, Cohn mentioned, as a result of they anxious they’d be penalized via Canadian immigration officers. He wonders what number of alternative nation have won related letters however haven’t proven them to any individual out of worry.
Cohn mentioned he hopes the questions had been a mistake made via an “overzealous” visa officer, and that the letters have since been corrected. Both approach, he added, “Canadians should know that the immigration system works in such a centralized and messy way that it allows for this kind of discriminatory treatment, and it usually goes uncorrected and unpunished.”
Top Minister Justin Trudeau says it’s severe that alternative political events are selecting facets within the battle in Gaza for political acquire. Trudeau reiterated his assistance for a two-state answer and mentioned it’s remarkable that the Liberate Celebration has the views of each Muslim and Jewish MPs.
The federal Immigration Segment mentioned that an interview with its minister, Marc Miller, used to be now not conceivable. In an emailed observation, spokesperson Jeffrey MacDonald mentioned visa candidates is also requested alternative questions on their act and advance historical past, and their on-line presence, as a part of Canada’s screening procedure.
MacDonald declined to touch upon why it requested a scientific workman about whom that they had handled, mentioning privateness causes.
Canada lists Hamas — which has been the only real governing authority in Gaza since 2007 — as a terrorist team, and Canada has the proper to display screen visa candidates for conceivable safety blackmails, mentioned Lorne Waldman, a Toronto-based attorney who wrote a broadly worn textbook on Canadian immigration regulation.
“But this type of question is completely unacceptable,” Waldman mentioned in an interview. “If there was a shootout in Toronto between members of a gang, a doctor wouldn’t stop to ask whether a person was a gang member before they treated them.”
Canada additionally can’t ask such questions of a visa applicant strictly for intelligence-gathering functions, he mentioned.
Richard Kurland of Legal professionals for Retain Immigration, a gaggle urging the federal government to invite pointed questions homogeneous to Hamas and terrorist actions, mentioned he rejects the query on two disciplines. One, as it goals handiest Hamas and now not alternative terrorist teams running in Gaza, and two, as it’s “problematic,” he wrote in an e-mail.
“Even murderous terrorists deserve medical treatment,” he mentioned.
