Federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced Monday that Canada will allow more people stuck in the Gaza Strip and who have extended family members in Canada to apply for temporary asylum. A “small consolation”, he admits.
The government created a family reunification program in January that provides temporary asylum to parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters and grandchildren of Canadian citizens and permanent residents in Canada.
The Immigration Department initially clarified that it would only examine a thousand applications for this exceptional and temporary program.
Minister Miller announced on Monday that the government is now increasing this number.
On the other hand, none of the people whose names appeared on the lists provided to the authorities by Ottawa have so far been able to cross the tightly controlled border at Rafah. As of March 4, 986 applications had been accepted by the Canadian government.
Minister Miller said Canada is pleading with Egypt and Israel to let these people out so they can go through their security check in Egypt and get their Canadian visa.
“We are effectively increasing the number of people who will be eligible to leave Gaza,” he said. There are a number of issues that are beyond our control, including the ability to get people out to Rafah.”
“We will tirelessly advocate for people to be able to reunite with their family members in Canada, even if only on a temporary basis,” added the minister.
Immigration lawyers and family members say dozens of other people were left in limbo — and unsure whether they were still eligible for the program — after successfully making their way to Egypt by their own means, notably by paying private companies to negotiate their exit with Israeli and Egyptian officials.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said in a statement earlier this month that only 12 of those people had left Gaza, completed security screening and been allowed to come to Canada.