Con motivo del Día Mundial del Refugiado, 20 de junio, RCI conversó con dos refugiadas y dos especialistas en la materia (entre ellas, Diana Gallego, codirectora ejecutiva del FCJ Refugee Centre, y presidenta del Consejo Canadiense para los Refugiados) para conocer desde su perspectiva qué significa ser un refugiado.

Un extracto del reportaje, publicado por Maria-Gabriela Aguzzi en Radio Canada International (RCI):

[…] Para Diana Gallego, ser refugiado significa ser parte de los millones de personas que forzosamente se han visto desplazadas de sus territorios, “dejando todo, bien sea por un conflicto interno, por persecución religiosa, por ser de la comunidad LGTBQ+”.

“Pero también significa muchas mujeres que huyen de violencia doméstica y que en sus países no reciben protección. Sabemos que existen leyes en el papel, pero no existe la protección efectiva para las mujeres”.

Gallego destacó que en estos momentos ser refugiado significa igualmente “ser forzado a caminar kilómetros y kilómetros arriesgando la vida y ver que los políticos los usen para ganar votos”: “El refugiado es alguien que tiene que abandonarlo todo, no es una opción”.

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Asylum seekers are arriving in Canada in record numbers, sleeping in shelters, churches and sometimes on the street. Reception centres are a more humane approach, writes FCJ Refugee Centre’s Founder, Loly Rico, in Maclean’s Magazine.

Here is an extract ofthe article:

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Maria-Gabriela Aguzzi, RCI

La crisis de acceso a la vivienda que vive Canadá no se limita a una región o provincia, pero en Toronto y sus alrededores las ofertas de alquiler se han “diversificado” de tal manera que ahora se alquilan no solo habitaciones, sino camas y hasta colchonetas en el piso. ¿El precio? Hasta 500 dólares mensuales por dormir en un colchón tirado en el suelo.

[…]

“Desde que cerró la carretera de Roxham Road [en marzo de 2023], Toronto se volvió otra vez lo que tradicionalmente ha sido: un punto de entrada a Canadá. Bien sea para casos de refugio, para estudiantes internacionales o para quienes cruzan la frontera de forma irregular. ¿Por qué llegan a Toronto? Porque la ciudad es conocida como un santuario donde hay muchos más servicios para ellos que en otras ciudades de Canadá”, explicó en entrevista a RCI, Loly Rico, directora del FCJ Refugee Centre.

[…]

“Lo que está pasando es que alguien renta una casa. La casa cuesta, digamos, 5.000 dólares mensuales, entonces esa persona luego empieza a rentar los cuartos y las camas. Alquilar una cama puede costar 800 dólares… una cama… o incluso 1.000 dólares, dependiendo de dónde sea. Es un abuso y una explotación, porque la gran mayoría de las personas que viven en esas condiciones no tienen permiso de trabajo”, señaló Rico.

[…]

“Esta es una problemática que viene de antes de la pandemia, sí, pero este es el peor momento, y no es porque hayan venido más inmigrantes, tampoco es el número de estudiantes internacionales. Son muchos los factores, pero sobre todo es una consecuencia de que los gobiernos no hayan invertido en la vivienda. Si se hubieran hecho inversiones en ese sector, no existirían las listas de espera de más de 10 años en programas que existen en Toronto, como el Rent-Geared-to-Income Housing [Viviendas de alquiler con opción a compra]”, indicó Loly Rico.

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Alyanna Denise Chua, Broadview

Ana P* was desperate. She was sexually violated by her employer’s brother, who eventually became the father of her child. He didn’t want their son to be born—she was a low-income Black woman in Southern Africa, he was a wealthy white businessman—so he threatened to kill both of them.

[…]

In 2019, a local church helped Ana and her son—then seven years old— fly to Canada. But when they got to Toronto, Ana and her son became two of the thousands of refugees who struggled to find beds in the city’s shelter system. Demand for space only grew from there.

[…]

Tsering Lhamo, the associate director of settlement at FCJ Refugee Centre, said her organization sees 75 to 90 refugee claimants seeking shelter on intake days, but their four transition houses are always full. “Having a waiting list is just not possible anymore,” she said. “We even started letting people stay in the living rooms in emergency cases.”

Ana and her son got lucky. When they looked for beds at FCJ Refugee Centre in 2019, Lhamo was able to give them a bedroom in one of the centre’s transition houses for women and children

Two months later, Lhamo found a one-year transition house for them: in the basement of Alejandro Paz’s house.

[…]

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Tonda MacCharles, Victoria Gibson, Toronto Star

Under pressure from the City of Toronto and Quebec to foot a bigger portion of the bill for asylum seekers, the federal Liberal government announced $362.4 million in new money to shelter refugees nationwide.
​
Immigration Minister Marc Miller refused to reveal how much of that will go to Toronto, saying only it will be a “significant amount” and revealed in the coming days.
​
Meanwhile, Quebec will get $100 million or nearly 28 per cent of the new funds, he told a hastily organized news conference outside the House of Commons on Wednesday. That’s less than a quarter of the money that province has demanded.

[…]

Loly Rico, executive director of Toronto’s FCJ Refugee Centre, also sees the depth of need across the city today — when, as its intake opens each Monday, a crowd of 70 to 80 people arrive looking for aid. Rico is not optimistic Toronto will receive the full amount of funding it has requested.
​
“We welcome the help — the support the federal government is doing,” Rico noted. “We are hoping that (the $250 million) will come, because if not, we’ll go again into the situation we’ve seen last year.”

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Nicole Williams, CBC News

A federal humanitarian program to bring migrants from the Caribbean and South America to Canada has reached capacity fewer than two months after its launch, prompting criticism that it’s an inequitable approach to immigration from certain countries.

Ottawa resident Nixon Valere, 54, was ecstatic when the federal government announced in October it would open the door to 11,000 people from Colombia, Venezuela and Haiti who have immediate family members living in Canada, either as citizens or permanent residents.

The program was officially launched the following month.

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Syed Hussan and Mary Gellatly Contributors, Toronto Star

Many Canadians grappling with skyrocketing rent and home prices are being led to believe that an influx of immigrants outpacing the construction of homes is causing the crisis.

But that’s not true. The real issue is that investors and builders are building fewer homes to keep prices high.

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Maureen Silcoff, Ottawa Citizen

[…] Regularization programs should not be restricted to people who lack any immigration status. Including those who are in the refugee determination system would help resolve another issue. Canada has seen an uptick of refugee claimants, even after the expansion of the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement earlier this year, which bars most refugees from entering Canada at the land border. As with the Guardian Angels program, regularization programs inclusive of individuals in the refugee stream can relieve pressures on the refugee system and provide a pathway to permanent residence for those who have contributed to the Canadian economy. […]

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Nicholas Keung, Toronto Star

Operating like a non-profit version of Airbnb, an online home-sharing platform has been launched in the face of Canada’s housing crisis, addressing the needs of at least one particularly vulnerable group.

The new tool by Refugee Housing Canada matches asylum seekers in need of safe, secure accommodation with Canadian hosts who are willing to open their home and offer their spare rooms at an affordable rent.

It works like a dating site, where both the hosts and renters undergo vetting and create a detailed profile of what they are offering and what they are looking for before making a connection to decide if they would be a right fit in terms of considerations such as asking rent, location, lifestyle and daily routines.

[…]

Tsering Lhamo of Toronto’s FCJ Refugee Centre said asylum seekers face tremendous obstacles in securing housing due to social stigma, and landlords often turn them away because they have no references or credit and job history in Canada. (Though many asylum seekers are eager to work, they must still wait for a few months for a work permit.)

“They arrive here with no means and have to rely on social assistance, which gives $733 a month for a single person,” said Lhamo, whose centre runs four transitional homes that house 40 women and children, and now has to rent on Airbnb to accommodate more than 50 others monthly.

“That money includes all the basic needs and shelter. Where can we find a place like that?”

Read the full article »

Peter Zimonjic, CBC News

A new report from the auditor general of Canada released Thursday warns that while progress has been made, the federal government must improve how it manages immigration programs to reduce permanent residency backlogs.

[…]

Auditor General Karen Hogan’s office audited eight permanent residency programs and found that despite efforts to reduce pandemic backlogs, most people applying for permanent residency were still waiting a long time for their applications to be processed.

Keep reading »

The Agenda with Steve Paikin, TVO

New research reveals most Canadians are unaware that labour trafficking is a major issue across the country. But Canadian authorities recently shut down an international labour trafficking ring operating in York region and across the GTA and rescued 64 Mexican nationals who were being exploited. Steve Paikin talks to experts about what labour trafficking entails, why this issue flies under the radar, sweeping changes to the Temporary Foreign Workers Program, the pandemic’s impact, and policy recommendations.

With Loly Rico, Executive Director of the FCJ Refugee Centre; Julia Drydyk, Executive Director of the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking; and Syed Hussan, Executive Director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change.

Nicholas Keung, Toronto Star

[…] Loly Rico, the executive director of Toronto’s FCJ Refugee Centre, said Canada has a more fair asylum system that processes cases faster and allows claimants to work while waiting for their hearings. With Biden’s administration continuing Trump’s policies, Rico said the push for irregular migrants to Canada won’t end anytime soon.

[…] Abolishing the border agreement “is not going to open a flood gate but would distribute migrants more evenly across Canada,” said Rico, who with her late husband, Francisco Rico Martinez, fled El Salvador in 1990 under a program to grant asylum to those trapped in their own country that was spiked by the Harper government in 2012.

Read the whole article »

Nicholas Keung, Toronto Star

Rose Celest always fancied the idea of visiting the picturesque Rideau Canal and seeing the gothic architecture of the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, but the Canadian capital just seemed so out of reach for the Toronto woman.

In her 14 years in Canada — the last nine spent as an undocumented migrant — the former live-in caregiver’s travels have been limited to accompanying her employer’s family to their cottage in Collingwood and to their hometown, Montreal.

Celest avoids leaving her tiny apartment, except for work, to prevent any encounter with authorities — and possible deportation to her native Philippines.

Keep reading »