Interview: Francisco Rico-Martinez on the FCJ Refugee Centre
Since the pandemic, the lives of refugees and asylum claimants has changed. The vast majority of the people that make a claim between November 2020 up to January 2021 are in limbo.
The number of Asylum Claimants processed by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has drop significantly from around 4000 to 1000 between January 2020 to December 2020.
Francisco Rico-Martinez was a refugee himself and now he is the co-director of the FCJ Refugees Centre. He speaks to CJRU about his own trajectory, services offered by FCJ Refugees Centre and how the pandemic is changing operations.