(Ottawa) The National Council of Canadian Muslims is calling on the federal government to remove the cap on the number of Palestinians who can seek refuge with extended family members in Canada to flee violence in the Gaza Strip.
The temporary public policy for extended family members for Gaza residents is expected to launch next week, months after Canadians asked for government help to save their loved ones amid Israel’s war and Hamas continues.
The program would offer visas to up to 1,000 Palestinians, allowing them to seek refuge in Canada for three years, if their families on Canadian soil are willing to support them financially during that period.
When Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced the plan last month, he said it was unclear how many people would benefit, but it would likely be “several hundred.”
A week later, the ministry released the program’s written policy.
It shows that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada will close the program to new applications after receiving and beginning to process the first 1,000 applications, or after one year.
The National Council of Canadian Muslims, an independent Muslim rights organization, says it has already been in contact with more than a thousand people who have asked their families to leave Gaza.
“There should be no cap,” said Uthman Quick, the organization’s communications director.
The cap “takes into account the volatility on the ground and the difficulty for Canada and like-minded countries to transfer people from Gaza to Egypt,” said Matthew Krupovich, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense. Immigration, in a statement Tuesday.
Minister Miller asserted last month that Ottawa has no control over who can cross the tightly controlled Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt on any given day. Even getting Canadian citizens out of the war zone has proven slow and difficult.
A “battle” to obtain visas in sight
Yameena Ansari, an immigration lawyer in Toronto, thinks the cap represents a huge underestimate of the number of people who need help.
Mme Ansari advocated for the policy as part of an ad hoc group of immigration lawyers called the Gaza Family Reunification Project.
“Just between the lawyers in this group, we know of more than 1,000 candidates,” explained M.me Ansari, who called this limit “abhorrent”.
Gaza has been under near-constant bombardment since Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people in Israel and taking 240 others hostage.
Israel almost immediately launched a retaliatory attack on territory controlled by Hamas, which killed more than 21,900 Palestinians, according to local authorities.
Two-thirds of the Palestinian victims are women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Canadians with family in the area have reported feeling terrified for their loved ones who lack places to shelter.
Mme Ansari expects the number of applications to fill up quickly, creating what she calls a “battle royale” for a limited number of visas.
“The issue is this, and I want to put it very bluntly: will your family live or will they die? “, said M.me Ansari.
She said she received calls throughout the holidays from desperate families wanting to prepare for the program’s Jan. 9 launch, and hoping their families would live long enough to get a visa.
Some of those conversations were difficult, Ms.me Ansari. She had to explain that not all family members will be able to leave. Families will have to decide whether they want to leave any of their loved ones behind.
That is, if they even manage to cross the border.
“This piece of paper might not make any sense. You may not be able to leave this conflict,” said M.me Ansari.
This is why the National Council of Canadian Muslims called for a ceasefire to end the violence.
Most Gazans don’t want to leave, Quick said, and they want to know that if they flee to Canada for refuge, they have the right to return home once the conflict is over.
With information from the Associated Press