It’s a decision driven by desperation, I can’t find any other reason,” says Peter Ivanyi. In 25 years, this lawyer in immigration and refugee law, has seen others. But he had never seen his clients die tragically. After having their application for asylum and other appeals refused, this Roma family from Romania died on the same day as their scheduled deportation date.
Florin Iordache, 28, his wife Cristina Monalisa Zenaida Iordache, and their very young children are among the eight bodies recovered last week from Akwesasne. Four other people perished in the same shipwreck, now identified as members of the Chaudhari family, originally from India. All were heading for the United States in a small boat which was also found on part of the Mohawk territory, in Quebec.
Me Ivanyi has known the couple since arriving in Canada in 2018. They were both 23 years old and applied for asylum when they arrived by plane.
Every decision he made was motivated by a desire not to return to Romania and see his children live the miserable life that he and other Roma are forced to endure. He was purely motivated by love for his children.
The two children, one almost three years old and the other a one-year-old baby, were both born in Canada and therefore held Canadian passports. On Florin Iordache’s Facebook page – established as authentic by the lawyer – we see the family celebrating birthdays or posing proudly in front of Niagara Falls, with the Canadian flag in the comments. The father of the family describes himself as a pianist, in love with music, his wife and his children, as well as a believer.
“They were ethnically Roma from Romania. It is a people who have been historically discriminated against and persecuted,” explains the man from a Toronto cabinet.
Belonging to a race or social group is one of the accepted reasons for becoming a refugee in Canada. However, this status is granted on the basis of individual persecution, he notes, and it is therefore in this sense that he had amassed all the necessary documentation. Mr. Ivanyi describes them as having always been the target of discrimination in Romania, particularly in employment. “Their children had no prospect of being able to study there,” he says.
It is not their credibility that the member responsible for assessing their application to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) questioned. “The decision was that it wasn’t bad enough. That they had never been denied access to housing or medical services. That they had managed to support themselves in the past, ”describes the lawyer, his voice wavering at times.
These are similar reasons that were mentioned in their Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (PRRA), a procedure of last resort to avoid deportation. At this stage, applicants must prove that they face threats to their life, torture or cruel and unusual treatment.
“It’s a superficial assessment not only of their case, but of the plight of the Roma,” said Mr. Ivanyi. The Iordache’s PRRA application was also denied, they learned on March 9. They then had 15 days to appeal this decision, which they did, but which did not prevent a deportation date from being set: on Wednesday, March 29, the authorities had planned to send them back to Romania .
Their appeal was still in process, specifies Mr.e Ivanyi, but they embarked on their mortal journey before knowing the outcome. “An appeal is always more difficult to win than at first instance. The more you are refused, the harder it is,” he observes.
Mr. Iordache has already been intercepted in the United States and sent back to Romania, according to information obtained by the Toronto Star and published on Tuesday evening. He would have returned with his wife to Canada in 2020 to reapply for asylum. It had not been possible for Le Devoir to obtain documents to validate this information at the time of writing these lines.
The fact remains that “in their minds, they had exhausted all their recourses,” said the lawyer. Mr. Iordache was obsessed with providing a better future for his children, he recalls. “Every decision he made was motivated by a desire not to return to Romania and see his children live the miserable life that he and other Roma are forced to endure. He was purely motivated by love for his children. »
A larger context
The rate of acceptance of asylum applications filed by people from Romania is higher than the average at the IRB, which does not prevent more than a quarter of applicants from having been rejected in recent years. Since 2017, Ottawa no longer requires visas for travelers from this country. The number of applicants has since climbed to more than 1,300 in 2018, then 538 in 2019, before falling again during the years of pandemic restrictions.
There have also been a significant number of “dropouts” since 2018, which occur when claimants decide to drop their case or voluntarily leave the country. Me Ivanyi believes that several Roma may have decided to join family or relatives in the United States. Before the Canadian visa exemption, many Romanians sought asylum in our neighbor to the south, via Mexico.
Since the start of 2023, US Border Patrol has apprehended 259 people of Romanian descent on the Canada-US border attempting to cross, including 21 children with their families and an unaccompanied minor. In comparison, 449 Romanian people were intercepted in 2022.
In Akwesasne, Casey Oakes, 30, is still missing. In a statement Tuesday, Akwesasne Mohawk Police said their investigators now believe he is connected to the deaths of the eight people.
Link to Roxham?
The lawyer for this deceased family refuses to establish a link with the amendments to the Agreement on safe third countries which came into force a week before the death of the Iordache family.
Since the ‘closure’ of Roxham, several migrant rights groups say they fear the inability to seek asylum at the border is pushing them to take more risks. Amnesty International has insisted in particular on the fact that these new restrictions will not put an end to irregular crossings. “On the contrary, it pushes migrants to attempt ever more dangerous crossings. The Akwesasne tragedy is the most recent example of this,” reiterated France-Isabelle Langlois, executive director of this organization for French-speaking Canada, on Tuesday.
“We are still absorbing this news,” said Peter Ivanyi. After first learning about it from an interpreter in the Toronto Roma community, he followed the developing news on the radio all weekend. He especially hopes that these tragic deaths can put a break to the ambient polarization around the refugees. “It is no longer a question of agreeing or disagreeing with immigration. From the moment we put a face to this tragedy, no one can remain indifferent. It must be said: here are the faces of two dead Canadian children. »