Canada Immigration 加拿大移民

Supreme Court Denial of Leave On "Safe Third Country Agreement" Regretted

posted on February 05, 2009 | in Category Canada's Immigration Policy | by Brian

by Media Release
Source: Canadian Council for Refugees

Date: February 5, 2009

For Immediate Release

SUPREME COURT DENIAL OF LEAVE ON SAFE THIRD REGRETTEDThe decision of the Supreme Court of Canada not to grant leave in the case challenging the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement was met with regret today by the Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International and the Canadian Council of Churches.

“This decision means that refugees will not have their day in court,” said Elizabeth McWeeny, CCR President. “The US is not in fact safe for all refugees, so we deeply regret that the Supreme Court has not taken this opportunity to ensure that Canada provides refugees the protection they need from forced return to persecution.”

The Supreme Court of Canada was being asked by the three organizations to determine whether the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement is unconstitutional and violates refugees’ rights.

The organizations were appealing the Federal Court of Appeal’s ruling on the Safe Third Country Agreement. The appeal court overturned an earlier Federal Court decision which struck down the Agreement on the grounds that the United States does not comply with international human rights obligations.

The organizations note that the Federal Court of Appeal did not dispute the lower court’s finding of non-compliance: instead it ruled that the conclusion “that the US does not 'actually' comply is irrelevant.”

The courts have therefore permitted the continued operation of the Safe Third Country Agreement, despite the fact that the only court to rule on the question found that the US is in violation of its obligations not to send refugees back to persecution, or anyone back to torture.

The organizations will be seeking other avenues to challenge through the courts the unjust removal of refugee claimants to the US.

The organizations and John Doe launched the legal challenge to the Safe Third Country Agreement in December 2005.  Under the Agreement, most refugee claimants arriving in Canada at the US border are ineligible to make a claim in Canada. The organizations argued that some of those denied entry to Canada are not able to receive protection in the US, because the US does not comply with its international obligations towards refugees.

For further information, please contact:

Colleen French, Canadian Council for Refugees:
514-277-7223 ext. 1

Beth Berton-Hunter, Amnesty International Canada:
416-363-9933 ext. 32, (416) 904-7158 cell

Karen Hamilton, Canadian Council of Churches
416 972 9494 ext 22

See also the Canadian Council for Refugees’ page on Safe Third Country

Bad economy forcing immigrants to reconsider U.S.

/US

By Thelma Gutierrez and Wayne Drash
CNN

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Pedro Pablo slowly folds up his American flag blanket and stuffs it in his duffel bag. With it goes his American dream.

Pedro Pablo, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, headed home recently due to the bad U.S. economy.

"I left my family and lost four years with them. I will ask them to forgive me," he said.

Pablo is an illegal immigrant from Guatemala who came to the United States to support his wife and five sons back home. When he arrived, construction jobs were plentiful. Over the last year, he says, he's worked three days.

He recently boarded a bus with a one-way ticket home, paid for by the Guatemalan consulate in Los Angeles. "I thought I could get ahead here. I regret coming." Watch day laborers head home »

Across the United States, tens of thousands of immigrants -- those here legally and illegally -- are facing a similar dilemma: Do they continue to search for jobs in a struggling U.S. economy or return home to an even bleaker economic situation?

"Things are very dire, and I think it's impacting those at the very bottom even more so," said Abel Valenzuela, a professor at the University of California-Los Angeles who has spent years studying day laborers.

"Day laborers are being really, really impacted."

America's economic boom during the 1990s and 2000s created a high demand of day workers needed for anything from building homes to picking fruit and from working at slaughterhouses to working as nannies. Many of those jobs have since evaporated, resulting in more and more people -- immigrants and native-born Americans -- flooding day labor job sites and standing on street corners in search of any type of work they can get.

"All of them are competing for the few jobs being dispatched," Valenzuela said.

Immigration experts say it's not yet clear how large an immigration exodus of Latin Americans is under way. But they say anecdotal evidence suggests day laborers, like Pablo, have begun packing -- a result of the economy and tougher immigration enforcement.

For some immigrants, the experts say, the reasons for toughing out the U.S. economic recession outweigh the reasons for leaving, including:

• One or two days of work per month at $8 an hour is often better than what they can make back home;
• Tougher border enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border has made it harder for them to return once they leave;
• Smuggling costs to get into the United States from Mexico have skyrocketed from about $1,500 three years ago to about $6,000 today.

"I'm not convinced it's a tidal wave of exodus," Valenzuela said. "There really is a fear mentality [of leaving], and as a result many immigrants are buckling down -- that is they're hiding or living in the shadows of our law. So they think more than twice about whether or not they want to go back to their country of origin, because they know very well that it's going to be extremely difficult and very expensive to come back if they want to pursue their dream."

Steven Camarota with the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based think tank that seeks a "pro-immigrant, low-immigration vision," said Census data indicate that more than 1 million illegal immigrants left last year, a departure that began even before the nation's economy took a turn for the worse toward the end of the year.

He said better border enforcement and workplace raids on illegal immigrants "let people know that the immigration law was back in business."

With illegal immigrants returning home, he said, "It's certainly good for two groups: taxpayers and less educated natives."

The lack of work in the United States has had a trickle down effect in the immigrants' countries of origin. The money sent back home by Mexican immigrants in 2008 fell for the first time since record-keeping began 13 years ago. Watch lack of remittances has "real large economic implications" »

The remittances dipped 3.6 percent, from $26 billion in 2007 to $25 billion, according to Mexico's central bank. Remittances are Mexico's second-largest source of foreign income, behind only oil. Other Latin American countries also have seen money sent from immigrants in the United States slow.

Erik Camayd-Freixas, a professor at Florida International University who has served as an immigration court interpreter for two decades, recently traveled to Guatemala, where he saw the effects of less money being sent home by immigrants.

"Everybody was talking about it," he said. "The local economies are severely impacted and the unemployment is rampant."

He said scores of people deported from the United States are trying to find any type of job in Guatemala. "They've been there six months and they have no work," Camayd-Freixas said.

That's why he said he believes most immigrants already in the United States are willing to stick it out, despite the hard-scrabble times in America.

"The truth of the matter is, despite our 7.6 percent unemployment, most Americans are not going to do those jobs that migrant workers do," Camayd-Freixas said. "They're certainly not going to pick tomatoes, grapefruits and oranges."

Camarota disagrees. He said Americans most likely to compete for day labor jobs -- those with a high school degree or less -- are currently unemployed at an astounding rate of about 15 percent. "It's very hard to argue that we're desperately short of unskilled workers," he said.

Jeronimo Salguero is the director of a day labor site in Los Angeles. He says employment for day laborers has dipped 75 percent over the last year. He said on any given day three years ago, his center found work for nearly 50 percent of the people who gathered there. Now, that figure is about 5 percent of the 250 men who huddle daily searching for work.

A study issued in January by the Pew Hispanic Center found that nearly three of four Latinos surveyed said their personal finances were in fair or poor shape, compared to 61 percent of the general U.S. population. Among Hispanic immigrants who sent remittances home over the last two years, about 70 percent said they sent less in 2008 than in 2007.

Salguero said to help offset the hard times, immigrants are crowding about 20 men into apartments. He's now working with the Guatemalan consulate. Once a week, he said, the consulate purchases a bus ticket for an immigrant to go home.

"They are completely desperate," he said. "Each day, I have workers coming into the office and say, 'Geronimo, help me. I want to go back to my country.' "

Pablo was one of those men. He had lived in a one-bedroom apartment with seven other men. His "bedroom" was a corner of the living room where he kept his blanket, duffel bag and picture of his family.

"I can't make it here," he said. "If I have to suffer, it's better to suffer in Guatemala with my family."

Windsor man with two wives cleared of bigamy

Sarah Sacheli, Canwest News Service  Published: Tuesday, February 10, 2009

WINDSOR, Ont. -- An Iraqi-Canadian was acquitted of bigamy Tuesday by a Windsor judge who said that while he had no doubt the man has two wives, it could not be proven the man left the country "with intent" to take a second partner.

The incident began on Valentine's Day in 2004 when Sahib Abid Ali Al Jibouri went before a county judge in Jefferson, Ohio, and married Katharine White. But he already had a wife and baby back home in Toronto.

Mr. Al Jibouri, 46, now lives in Windsor.

After hearing testimony from Mr. Al Jibouri's first wife and that of a Canadian immigration officer who discovered the Ohio marriage, Ontario court Justice Guy DeMarco said he didn't doubt Mr. Al Jibouri had two wives.

Yet he acquitted because of what Judge DeMarco called a "stringent requirement" under Canada's bigamy law in which the Crown has to prove the man had left the country with "the intent" to take a second wife.

"The intent requirement is very stringent," the judge said, commenting on the case after giving his judgment. In 35 years since being called to the bar, it was Judge DeMarco's first involvement with a bigamy case.

Mr. Al Jibouri's first wife, Nagham Muhammed, testified she married the Baghdad-born man on Dec. 31, 2002, while the couple was living in Toronto. Mr. Al Jibouri is a Canadian citizen and was sponsoring Muhammed in her claim for refugee status, the woman testified through an Arabic interpreter.

In 2006, the couple met with immigration officer Judith Rugless. Ms. Rugless testified that in reviewing the sponsorship file, she ran a computer check on Mr. Al Jibouri which showed he was also married in Ohio.

She brought a copy of the Ohio marriage certificate to court Tuesday.

Ms. Muhammed said it was the immigration officer who broke the news to her that her husband had taken a second wife. "I cried," Ms. Muhammed said.

Ms. Rugless testified Mr. Al Jibouri admitted to being a bigamist.

"He indicated he only married her [Ms. Muhammed] because she was pregnant by him at that time and he wanted the child to have his name ... I told him it was illegal in Canada for him to be married more than one time."

Mr. Al Jibouri and Ms. Muhammed continue to live together in Windsor with their three children. They attended court together, Mr. Al Jibouri pushing a stroller carrying the couple's infant while Ms. Muhammed guided their two young sons from the courthouse. As Ms. Muhammed testified, the judge assigned a court constable to babysit the children in the hallway.

Defence lawyer Frank Miller said Mr. Al Jibouri comes from a culture where polygamy is accepted, even encouraged in some cases. "He's just an average working guy from Iraq."

Mr. Al Jibouri is no longer involved with the second wife in Ohio, Mr. Miller said, refusing to comment on Mr. Al Jibouri's purpose in marrying the American woman. Mr. Miller said the case of Bountiful, a polygamist community in British Columbia, shows it is difficult in Canada to prosecute bigamy cases. "It's a religion-based crime," said Mr. Miller.

He said the courts would struggle with what to do with a Muslim man who comes to Canada after marrying multiple wives in his home country. It's common in Canadian society for men to have children with multiple women. "What is the real societal benefit to have laws against multiple marriage?" Mr. Miller said.

Bigamous marriage, he said, "shows some degree of commitment. At least it's better than a guy running around and impregnating a bunch of women."

Mr. Miller said that while his client could be prosecuted for bigamy in Ohio, authorities there are not pursuing charges.

Windsor Star

Expo connects students with their community

By: Julia Le

 

February 11, 2009 10:21 AM

 Staff photo by Daniel Ho
The HJA Brown Education Centre hosted the first annual Youth Exchange Community Expo on Saturday. The event provided students who are newcomers to Canada with an opportunity to network for future education and summer jobs.

Peel youth connected with employers, volunteer programs and community agencies last Saturday at the HJA Brown Education Centre in Mississauga.

About 50 students, some of whom are newcomers to Canada, attended the first Youth Exchange Community Expo, hosted by the Mississauga-based Centre for Education and Training. They were there seeking summer employment, part-time jobs and volunteer opportunities, but were also treated to live entertainment, a fashion show and a presentation on how to become an entrepreneur.

CET director Moya Mackinnon said the expo was the first major event for Youth Exchange, a community-based program that helps young newcomers become integrated into the community.

Funded by Citizenship and Immigration Canada, the program also motivates young people to help their new peers through various activities and events.

Lance Constantine, 20, who participated in the fashion show, said the event is a great way to network with the right people.

"Right now, youth are looking for things to do," said the Malton resident, who wants to become a teacher and was at the expo seeking information on post-secondary school. "The reason (youth)...get involved with criminal activity is a lack of opportunity."

Emma Zhang, 15, who moved to Brampton from China five years ago, said she's looking to connect with volunteer opportunities, and maybe land a job for the summer.

"There's a lot of tables and a lot of information, so it's pretty good," said the Fletcher's Meadow Secondary School student. "I'm looking for a part-time job, maybe at one of the grocery stores or a fast-food restaurant."

For more information, visit www.tcet.com/youthexchange.
jle@mississauga.net

Widow fights to stay

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

News Toronto & GTA

Widow fights to stay

Family outraged at deportation order

By TOM GODFREY, SUN MEDIA

Last Updated: 11th February 2009, 4:53am

The widow of a North York man who was murdered five months ago is fighting a deportation order, saying she wants time to grieve and to attend the trial of two men accused of killing her husband.

Nadine Lidona Searles, 31, has been ordered to report for removal to Grenada on Feb. 23. She got married in 2006 to Darnell Grant, who was killed by gunmen last September on Driftwood Crt. Two men appeared in court yesterday charged with second-degree murder in his death.

"I am still saddened and devastated," Searles said yesterday. "I want to stay here and grieve with my family. I want to see justice served for those who shot and killed my husband."

Searles entered Canada as a visitor in 2001 and sought visa extensions. Grant, 31, a father of five and the city's 52nd murder victim in 2008, had sponsored Searles to stay in Canada after their marriage and she was approved in principle, her lawyer said.

Searles said she's been busy helping to raise the children Grant left behind.

Her lawyer, Courtney Betty, said a motion will be filed before the Federal Court of Canada to stop the deportation. He said Searles has family support in Toronto.

"This is a totally unbelievable situation," Betty said. "This case has to be looked at on a humanitarian and compassionate basis."

Grant's sister, Dianne, said Searles should have an opportunity to obtain grief counselling before she goes anywhere. "My sister-in-law is stressed out and has been crying all day," Dianne said. "The family is outraged because immigration are in such a hurry to get rid of her."

Dianne suspects the removal was moved to the front-burner because Grant was killed on Driftwood Crt., in the Jane-Finch area, which has a history of shootings and gang activity.

Officer L. Miggiani, of the Canada Border Services Agency, said in documents that Searles is being removed from Canada because her sponsor died.

"You have not shown that you met this requirement because your sponsor is deceased," Miggiani said. "You will be contacted in the near future to make removal arrangements."

Meanwhile, the accused, Jermaine Gager, 18, and Corey Smelie, 20, both of Toronto, appeared at a Finch Ave. W. court yesterday. A September date for a pre-trial hearing was set.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

News Toronto & GTA

Widow fights to stay

Family outraged at deportation order

By TOM GODFREY, SUN MEDIA

Last Updated: 11th February 2009, 4:53am

The widow of a North York man who was murdered five months ago is fighting a deportation order, saying she wants time to grieve and to attend the trial of two men accused of killing her husband.

Nadine Lidona Searles, 31, has been ordered to report for removal to Grenada on Feb. 23. She got married in 2006 to Darnell Grant, who was killed by gunmen last September on Driftwood Crt. Two men appeared in court yesterday charged with second-degree murder in his death.

"I am still saddened and devastated," Searles said yesterday. "I want to stay here and grieve with my family. I want to see justice served for those who shot and killed my husband."

Searles entered Canada as a visitor in 2001 and sought visa extensions. Grant, 31, a father of five and the city's 52nd murder victim in 2008, had sponsored Searles to stay in Canada after their marriage and she was approved in principle, her lawyer said.

Searles said she's been busy helping to raise the children Grant left behind.

Her lawyer, Courtney Betty, said a motion will be filed before the Federal Court of Canada to stop the deportation. He said Searles has family support in Toronto.

"This is a totally unbelievable situation," Betty said. "This case has to be looked at on a humanitarian and compassionate basis."

Grant's sister, Dianne, said Searles should have an opportunity to obtain grief counselling before she goes anywhere. "My sister-in-law is stressed out and has been crying all day," Dianne said. "The family is outraged because immigration are in such a hurry to get rid of her."

Dianne suspects the removal was moved to the front-burner because Grant was killed on Driftwood Crt., in the Jane-Finch area, which has a history of shootings and gang activity.

Officer L. Miggiani, of the Canada Border Services Agency, said in documents that Searles is being removed from Canada because her sponsor died.

"You have not shown that you met this requirement because your sponsor is deceased," Miggiani said. "You will be contacted in the near future to make removal arrangements."

Meanwhile, the accused, Jermaine Gager, 18, and Corey Smelie, 20, both of Toronto, appeared at a Finch Ave. W. court yesterday. A September date for a pre-trial hearing was set.

Dozens dupe Indian airline, enter Canada

IMMIGRATION FRAUD

Canada threatens ban as travellers with fake ID seek refugee status

Feb 03, 2009 04:30 AM

SOUTH ASIA BUREAU

NEW DELHI – Transport Canada officials recently warned India's largest privately owned commercial airline it would be barred from operating flights to Canada if its reservation agents didn't do a better job detecting passengers travelling on bogus passports.

BRENT FOSTER FOR THE TORONTO STAR

Agents offer visa assistance in a market in Chandigarh, Punjab. India's Jet Airways failed to detect doctored passports on dozens of Toronto-bound travellers who are now claiming refugee status here, officials say.

Agents for Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the Canada Border Service Agency have discovered dozens of Jet Airways passengers arriving at Toronto's Pearson International Airport with fake travel documents in recent months, five sources familiar with the matter told the Star.

After pressure from Canadian officials, Jet has reassigned responsibility for passenger security checks to its security division from its customer service department.

"We want to root out this menace as much as anyone," said Ragini Chopra, a Jet spokesperson.

In most cases, a person with an extensive international travel history applied for and received a legitimate Canadian visa.

The photo page of their Indian passport was then replaced with a doctored one and used by a different person.

It's unclear how many people were involved in the scam, but Canadian immigration officials believe several dozen have slipped into the country with the fake Indian passports in the past year.

"In some cases, the forgeries were extremely professional," said Raja Segran, Jet's vice-president for European operations.

"In one case we weren't sure about one passport and asked a professional to look at it in Brussels. He said it looked genuine and the passenger carried on to Toronto, where it turned out that the passport was a forgery."

Starting this week, Jet's employees in Brussels will receive training to ferret out fake documents, Segran said. Jet flights to Canada lay over in Belgium, with daily departures to Toronto.

Passengers involved in the scam have applied for refugee status after their arrival in Toronto, and remain in Canada.

Under Canadian immigration law, most people who arrive at a port of entry are entitled to make a claim for refugee status.

Investigators involved in rooting out the scam said reservations for Canadian hotels were made over the Internet and a printout was produced to show border agents in Toronto.

"The hotels were a good tipoff," one immigration investigator told the Star. "The reservations were all at hotels on the airport strip in Mississauga.

"If you're spending all that money to travel around the world and come to Canada in November, why would you book a reservation for two weeks on the airport strip?"

Border agents detected the first fake Indian passport they believe was connected to the scheme in February 2008.

After a lull of activity, more fake passports began to show up in September and continued through December.

Canadian officials say the fraud was crude enough that Jet reservation agents should have detected it.

Legitimate Indian passports feature a line in microprinting that reads "Indian Passport Control" across the photo page.

On some of the doctored passports, the line was little more than a smudge.

Privacy laws have also made it hard to track scam organizers through credit cards.

The only credit card information investigators have for those who booked the sham hotel rooms in Canada is the last four digits of a credit-card number. Hotel chains turned down a government request for help, citing privacy legislation, an investigator said.

A Best Western spokesperson said a hotel in Mississauga "co-operated fully and promptly" with the Canada Border Services Agency's investigation.

Investigators' attempts to contact original passport holders to whom the visas were granted have failed.

"None of the contact numbers have worked," said one source.

Even as authorities seem to have solved the problem with Jet, fraudsters are trying new tactics. Two weeks ago, a passenger with a fake Indian passport was stopped during a layover on a Toronto-bound Kuwait Airlines flight from Hyderabad, India, a source told the Star.

Recently, police in the town of Moga, Punjab, arrested two brothers who ran a travel agency for allegedly making a pair of passports with different names for a woman who sought to travel to Canada, the Hindustan Times reported.

It said Hakam Singh and Harmeet Singh are charged with cheating and forgery and are accused of preparing the passports for Kulwinder Kaur, a resident of a nearby village.

Kaur paid a broker 10,000 rupees ($255) for the passports, the newspaper reported.

Canadian authorities are considering adding biometric information to visas in an effort to head off attempts by fraudsters.

Feds consider limiting immigration

hrreporter.com

2/11/2009

High unemployment could affect targets

Rising unemployment and the worsening economy could force the federal government to reconsider its immigration targets.

Ottawa plans to stick to its pledge to accept 240,000 to 265,000 new permanent residents this year, but the worsening recession could lead the government to rethink those numbers in the coming months, said Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.

Canada's immigration system needs to be sensitive to the changing labour market and avoid welcoming thousands of immigrants who would then face unemployment, he said.

Canada lost 129,000 jobs in January, the largest monthly loss on record, and the unemployment rate increased to 7.2 per cent.

Canada, which welcomed 247,000 permanent residents last year, is the only country that is planning to accept roughly the same number of immigrants in 2009 as in 2008, Kenney told the House of Commons immigration committee.

Federal and provincial immigration officials will meet in March to decide whether the target needs to be adjusted. But Kenney said his preference is to stick with the target because new immigrants will help drive the economy once Canada comes out of this recession.

Decision on Tran draws near

Wed, February 11, 2009

Immigration and Refugee Board officials to announce suspected gangster's fate in Canada

By NADIA MOHARIB, SUN MEDIA

The alleged gang member awaiting a decision on his appeal of a deportation order is set to face another hearing again aimed at removing him from the country based on his ties to organized crime.

Nghia Trong Nguyen-Tran, aka Jackie Tran, should be receiving a decision from Immigration and Refugee Board officials in the near future to see if he wins his appeal to an earlier deportation order.

He is set to go before officials again at a hearing next month, where Canada Border Services Agency officials hope to see him ordered deported to Vietnam on the grounds of "organized criminality," officials confirmed yesterday.

The man, whom police allege to be a gang member, came to Canada in 1993 and was ordered deported in 2004.

He was granted an appeal hearing last December after missing the initial deportation hearing, which he said he was unaware was being held in a bid to see him removed on the grounds of serious criminality.

While Tran has a criminal record for drug trafficking, police told the hearing he is a veteran gang member involved in an ongoing dispute which has claimed the lives of nearly two-dozen men in recent years.

He was arrested on an immigration warrant last January on his way to a viewing of slain gangster Mark Kim. Tran's girlfriend and mother told the hearing he is a hard-working man who no longer has any ties to crime.

Immigration judge Renee Miller is expected to give Tran her decision on that hearing within weeks. She can rule that Tran's appeal be dismissed, be allowed or it can be stayed with terms and conditions imposed for Tran to remain in Canada.

The new hearing, which will be held March 4 and 5, was set prior to the Tran's appeal in December, said Paula Faber, an Immigration and Refugee Board spokeswoman.

"It's an admissibility hearing," Faber said.

"Basically, Canada Border Services are trying to find him inadmissible to Canada on the grounds of organized criminality." Nearly 70 violent criminals have been deported from Calgary in the last two years, including one recently deported to Jamaica after being deemed a gang member.

U of T students fight deportation order

Updated: Mon Feb. 09 2009 5:38:05 PM

ctvtoronto.ca

Two University of Toronto students are fighting to stay in Canada after they received deportation orders last month, ordering them back home to Guyana.

The students, Steve and Trisha Sherman, have been living in the Toronto area for the past seven years. Their application seeking refugee status and subsequent appeals have been working their way through the system since 2002.

The siblings applied for refugee status because of racial tensions in Guyana, Steve Sherman told ctvtoronto.ca.

"We've never experienced anything personally but there are influences in our neighbourhood and it makes you feel like you're at risk," he said in a telephone interview Monday.

On Jan. 21, the siblings received notice that Immigration Canada did not grant them asylum under the Immigration and Refugee Board Act.

They were told they have to leave the country by Feb. 11, 2009.

Trisha Sherman, 24, is just a few months away from graduating while her brother is in his third year at UofT. Both of them attend the school's Scarborough campus.

Steve Sherman said they are looking to migrate to other countries where they can continue their studies.

Sherman said when he and his sister first considered moving out of Guyana, they thought Canada would be the country most likely to accept them as residents. The students' grandparents live in the Toronto area and have been their legal guardians.

"We've always heard about the multicultural society here," he said. "We though Canada would probably open their doors to us."

He said it would take his sister an extra year to graduate, even though she's just two credits short of getting her Bachelor of Arts in political science. He will have to stay in school for an extra two or three years to graduate his environmental studies program, he estimates.

"Our family has never been able to educate themselves," he said. "We thought we'd be the foundation of our family."

The siblings received another blow this week when they received a letter rejecting a request to defer their deportation order until graduation.

Immigration Canada rejected their application on the basis that the siblings attended university illegally because they did not come to Canada on a student visa.

The Shermans attended high school in Canada and applied to the university at the same time as the rest of their graduating classmates.

"We had no idea that was the case," he said. "We applied through our high school and we were accepted."

Friends of the siblings started an online petition and Facebook group to try to pressure Canadian politicians to review the case.

The petition has collected more than 500 signatures and the Facebook group had more than 1,000 people sign up in support.

The Shermans are attending another appeal hearing on Tuesday afternoon in one final effort to have their deportation order deferred.

However, hope is fading fast.

"I'm packing. I've pretty much given up," Sherman said. "We tried very hard and did everything we could do.

"Our parents are also ready to accept the worst-case scenario and have told us it's not the end of our lives," he continued. "I've just built my life here. I love it. We planned on getting our Masters degree and contributing to this society."

'Last straw' for American war deserter

Hinzman case in Federal Court

By BRETT CLARKSON, SUN MEDIA

Last Updated: 11th February 2009, 4:53am

Former U.S. Army paratrooper Jeremy Hinzman was in Federal Court yesterday to argue against the refusal of his bid as the first Iraq war deserter to stay in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

"This is about our last straw so I guess we'll probably have to go back to the U.S. if it doesn't go our way," said Hinzman, who fled to Canada in January 2004 and became the first publicly known war deserter to flee up north.

"We're somewhat hopeful that it will go our way, but if it doesn't, we'll just deal with it when it comes."

Accompanied by his wife Nga Nguyen, 36, and their 7-month-old baby Meghan, Hinzman was met outside the court by about 30 supporters who held a vigil for Hinzman and the more than 50 war resisters who have sought refuge in Canada since the Iraq war began in March 2003.

"I'm thankful," the South Dakotan said of the support. "I'm always amazed and fully gratified when people support this."

Defence lawyer Alyssa Manning said the immigration official who ruled against Hinzman's application for permanent residency on compassionate grounds didn't consider the hardship that deportation would impose on Hinzman and his family, which also includes six-year-old son Liam. Like the hardship of being split up in the likelihood that Hinzman is jailed in the U.S.

Manning argued before Judge James Russell that the immigration official applied the refugee claim standard -- which takes into account the risk of persecution the applicant would face in their home country -- instead of the test reserved for a compassionate grounds application. The test is they'll be subjected to "unusual, undeserved, or disproportionate hardship."