Archive for category: Private Sponsorship

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Success: Undeclared Child

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We love reuniting family members. We know the Canadian immigration system can be extremely complex. We can share a case that we have been working on for years. This is a family who came to Canada without a child. The child was forced to stay behind due to complex issues within the family. We had to deal with cultural and religious practices that causes extreme hardship for this family.

After many years, we were able to help this child come to Canada. Alastair actually met the child at Winnipeg’s Richardson Airport after his long flight.

We know we are in the business of saving lives. We know clients make mistakes. Our job is to help clients fix past mistakes, if that is possible, so they can achieve their immigration dreams.

Amir – welcome to Manitoba!

In this case, this family has strong support and it has been a pleasure working with them over many years. They know that if they have any additional immigration issues, the team at CIL is here to help.

Success: FC Judgment re Sponsorship

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We are thrilled to report that our ALJR to Federal Court was granted. This is a file that we have been working on for quite a long time. The Applicant is a citizen of Somalia who applied for Permanent Resident status through the Private Sponsorship of Refugees (PSR) program. The application was processed through the Canadian Visa Office (High Commission of Canada) in Nairobi, Kenya. The Visa Officer interviewed the applicant and refused the application based on a negative credibility determination.

Sponsor Refugees

Here is an excerpt from the decision:

[46] The Officer made four negative credibility findings against the Applicant. I have found three of those four to be unreasonable, as they are not supported by the underlying record. As a result, the Decision is flawed. The one negative credibility finding that is not clearly contradicted is not sufficient, on its own, to support the outcome.

[47] I find the Applicant has met his burden to show the Decision is unreasonable. The shortcomings in the Decision are more than merely superficial or peripheral to the merits of the decision. They are more than a minor misstep. They are the reasons provided by the Officer for denying the Applicant’s application based on his lack of credibility. By not considering the signed Schedule 2, the reasons for the Officer’s credibility findings are not justified, transparent or intelligible.

[48]  For the foregoing reasons, I find the Decision is unreasonable.

For a detailed background and facts, please refer to the decision (2022 FC 1560), which will be published on the Federal Court website. Justice Elliott has provided a lengthy 13 page decision that clearly outlines the issues with the Visa Officer’s decision and the errors made in Nairobi. Clearly, Justice Elliott carefully reviewed +400 pages of evidence and arguments in support of this ALJR.

We want to acknowledge the work done by Mr Odaro Omomuwa. He started this ALJR and he had been working with the applicant prior to CIL being retained. His work was done very well and we relied on his work to win this case. If he had not put in that underlying work to pave the way, we may not have been able to successfully make the arguments to the Court.

I have recently published my issues with the Federal Court process. That post has received significant attention from lawyers across Canada, and outside Canada. Many colleagues and friends have agreed with the points. Going to FC can be frustrating and extremely labour-intensive. Based on the amount of work involved in this type of case, lawyers often charge exorbitant fees for this service. We have tried to keep our fees manageable for clients, in particular when the Officer has clearly made an unreasonable decision or there is a clear violation of procedural fairness.

We do our best to support all applicants with their Canadian immigration applications, including refugees overseas who are going through the PSR process. We have worked with Professor Shauna Labman here in Winnipeg, an expert in this area with professional experience dealing face-to-face with refugees abroad. These files are particularly challenging, with long processing times. In addition, the Canadian Visa Office (High Commission of Canada) in Nairobi, Kenya is notoriously difficult to deal with.

Strangers in New Homelands Conference – 3 Nov 2017

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Please note that Alastair Clarke will be on a panel at the Strangers in New Homelands Conference at CanadInns Polo Park in Winnipeg. He will be discussing Immigration Policies, Practices, and Canada’s Refugee Determination Process with his panelists, the Western Region Assistant Deputy Chairperson of the RPD (Vancouver) Karin Michnick and Dr. Shauna Labman, Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Law and the University of Manitoba.

Some of the issues the panel will cover include:

  • current procedures of claiming refugee status in Canada
  • the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA)
  • issues at the tribunal (IRB-RPD)
  • rights of appeal after a negative decision by an RPD Member
  • Overseas Protection
  • Private Sponsorships and refugees
  • Government Assisted Refugees
  • Secondary migration of resettled refugees

Questions are welcome and encouraged.

The program for the conference is 62 pages and we have included an excerpt below with details of the panel on Friday, November 3rd. If you would like a program (11MB), please contact that office. 

Here is a description of the Strangers in New Homelandsconference by the Conference Chair, Dr. Michael Baffoe:

We are delighted to welcome you all to the special tenth anniversary edition, of our annual conference, Strangers in New Homelands: Deconstructing and Reconstructing of ‘Home’ Among Immigrants and Refugees in the Diaspora.

This annual gathering of researchers, academics, and practitioners in the migration field, an idea mooted by Conference Chair Michael Baffoe (University of Manitoba), Dr. Lewis Asimeng-Boahene (Penn State University-Harrisburg) and Dr. Buster Ogbuagu (University of St. Francis, Joliet, IL) began modestly in 2008. The dream of growing that initial idea into a larger annual event bringing together critical stakeholders in the field of migration has really borne fruits and brought us to where we are today…ten years later. We are proud and satisfied for mooting this idea and, with the help of many of the people gathered here, especially members of the Conference Committee, for making this event a success.

This year’s conference is being held at a very critical time in world migration history. World migration is now a reality. The world has been witnessing unprecedented displacement and movements of people from their homes into other countries, especially to Europe seeking safety as well as better life conditions. The images of these mass movements are sometimes nerve-wrecking and difficult to watch. This is a new form of diasporic movement in which desperate people are challenging the existing national borders of nation states.

These challenges have brought out the best and worse in some of the nation states: some have received and welcomed these desperate people with open arms while others have shut their borders with barbed wires leaving the desperate people to their fate. Erecting barbed wires and pushing desperate people into the cold will not stop people from moving to seek new homelands. Driven by push-pull factors, the concept of geography of opportunity has taught us that erecting barbed wires or “beautiful walls” made of concrete or steel, would not solve the problem. It is therefore pertinent to find innovative ways for meeting these new challenges. As Karen Armstrong succinctly puts it, “our differences define us, but our common humanity can redeem us”. The societies into which the migrants seek to settle, and the migrants need each other for their mutual benefits. The diversity that migrants bring should therefore be seen as assets, which can enrich the host societies as well.

The exchanges of ideas and discussions that will take place at this conference will be essential for those who design and implement immigration and refugee policies and settlement, as well as those who provide services to, and work with, immigrant and refugee groups. These exchanges are more crucial than ever and we should continue to engage in these discussions as well as engage policy makers and governments to embrace the reality of world migration and the challenges and opportunities that the phenomenon offers.

For those of you who were here in previous years, we welcome you back to this tenth anniversary edition of this annual gathering. For those of you participating for the first time, we welcome you to this conference, and to the Province of Manitoba. We hope to see you all again at subsequent conferences until we solve, or at least attenuate, the lingering issues and challenges that confront migrants around the world every day.

Strangers in New Homelands Program (excerpt):
Strangers in New Homelands

Syrian Refugees

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When the Refugee Sponsorship Support Program was launched on 28 Sept 2015, Clarke Law was one of the first law firms in Canada to join. The goal of the program was to help the government reach its target of bringing in 25,000 Syrian refugees as part of its campaign promise. Immigration and refugee lawyers across Canada have been working and volunteering their time to make sure the applications are processed quickly, without issues.

In Winnipeg, Alastair Clarke agreed to assist the South Osborne Syrian Refugee Initiative pro bono (this means that legal services are provided at no cost). We are assisting a group of families who are currently in Lebanon. The Syrian refugees have each faced extreme hardship while in their home country and they have managed to make their way to relative safety in Lebanon. Unfortunately, they are still not safe. We are working to bring them to Winnipeg where they will be far from the violence and out of reach from the Syrian operatives who are still threatening their safety.

Paula Leslie and other organizers have been working hard to raise the funds to make sure the Syrian families have support once they reach Canada. News agencies, including the CBC, have been reporting their efforts:

Matthew Lawrence

Event Organizer Matthew Lawrence

Close to 350 people packed the Park Theatre on Tuesday night for a sold-out fundraising concert to help bring Syrian refugee families to Winnipeg.

The South Osborne Syrian Refugee Initiative teamed up with Churchill Park United Church for the benefit concert, which featured performances by The Bonaduces, Sweet Alibi and DJ Co-Op.

Event co-organizer Matthew Lawrence said the goal is to raise a total of $90,000 “so that we can hopefully sponsor three families” who have relatives already living in the city.

“We just felt really compelled to take some action,” Lawrence said.

Benefit concert co-organizer Matthew Lawrence says the goal is to raise a total of $90,000 to help sponsor three Syrian refugee families with relatives already living in Winnipeg. (CBC)

“We started by thinking maybe we could just get involved in something else, but we kind of kept waiting and waiting and nothing was happening, so we decided, ‘Let’s just start something ourselves.'”

A GoFundMe campaign launched by the South Osborne Syrian Refugee Initiative has already raised more than $60,000. Lawrence said he hopes the concert will raise another $10,000.

To show their appreciation, the group recently posted a testimonial on their Facebook page:Syrian Refugees

Accolades to immigration lawyer Alastair Clarke for assisting us with our applications. Alastair generously provided his services pro bono through the Refugee Sponsorship Support Program. Given that SOSRI was completing the dozens of forms as representatives for the five principal applicants we had a number of questions on how to address certain issues that a sponsoring group ordinarily wouldn’t have (most sponsoring groups apply and have UNHCR families/individuals assigned to them with papers/documents/histories complete). The IRRC toll free question line has extremely long wait times! We were very fortunate to be able to simply email and/or call Alastair with any questions throughout the application process.

They also write:

Along with Alastair’s professional integrity and his breadth of knowledge it is clear that he cares deeply for the issues and people that he works with. If you need an immigration lawyer – look no further. Thank you Alastair – your time and efforts are appreciated.

This work is not done. We will continue to support this group, and other groups, to make sure their transition to Canada is without any issues.