They don’t really have any status, but they are not undocumented. On the one hand, Canada refused their request for asylum. On the other hand, he considers Haiti too dangerous to expel these people there. This contradiction places up to 4,000 Haitians on probation here in the country, most of them in Montreal, in a suspense that is hard to bear.
While the UN reminded all states this week of the duty to protect Haitian asylum seekers, Canada no longer has any special programs to support this community.
Here, Haiti remains the second most frequent country of origin, after Mexico, of asylum seekers arriving between 2017 and 2023. More than 15,000 Haitian nationals are currently awaiting a decision from the Immigration Commission and refugee status (CISR).
Concretely, a rejected asylum seeker but coming from a country which falls under “administrative suspension of returns” can remain in the territory and have their work permit renewed.
But it becomes a “ persona non grata» which we are “only tolerating while waiting to be able to deport her”, in the eyes of Frantz André, coordinator of the Action Committee for People Without Status.
Renewing a work permit year after year is an expensive process, which should not suffer from any delay and which can quickly get bogged down in bureaucracy, also notes lawyer Stéphanie Valois.
“It’s really a contradiction and it puts people in very complicated situations,” adds the woman who is also co-president of the Quebec Association of Immigration Lawyers (AQAADI).
This type of reprieve should only be “temporary”, in “cases of humanitarian crisis” and not adopted to “address persistent and systematic problems linked to human rights”, indicates the Border Services Agency of Canada (CBSA) Duty.
However, the measure has been in force for more than five years for Haiti, reflecting a situation which “is only worsening” there, according to Mr. André. The other places on the same list speak for themselves: Gaza, Ukraine, Yemen, Syria, South Sudan and other countries where violence reaches very high intensity.
Nowhere welcome
More than 7,700 asylum applications from Haitian nationals were rejected at the IRB between 2017 and 2023, according to calculations by the Duty. Some of them may have applied to other permanent immigration programs. For example, that for those called “guardian angels” who worked in health at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Others may have left the territory of their own accord, but Me Valois reports that Haitians often have few options: “They don’t know where to go. »
On the other hand, the CBSA reports that 3,985 Haitian citizens are subject to a stay of removal. Removal orders — and by extension, suspensions of removals — primarily concern asylum seekers, confirms the immigration lawyer.
A person who committed a crime could still be fired, so these are not people with criminal records.
The situation of these thousands of Haitians neither accepted nor returned is symptomatic of the rejection of Haitians from several countries in the Americas where they have tried to rebuild their lives in recent years, according to Frantz André.
“They are not welcome anywhere, they have become the wandering Jews of the South,” he illustrates, referring to this mythical character, condemned to be a traveler always on the way.
“I think in the common mind; a refugee is someone who fears precisely what is happening in Haiti,” notes M.e Valois.
“Someone could say: ‘My neighborhood is invaded by gangs,’ which really seems like a valid reason, but that’s not the criterion,” she illustrates. The reason for seeking protection from Canada must be individual: “What makesYou, are you persecuted? And is this reason linked to the Convention [de Genève de 1951] ? »
Deport elsewhere
For some like Claude, this in-between turns out to be even more perilous. He asked to remain anonymous for fear of harming his immigration efforts.
Claude arrived via Roxham Road in December 2018, and his asylum application was refused in 2021. His other immigration efforts were unsuccessful. In the meantime, his wife and two children joined him from Chile, where he lived long enough to have papers.
The CBSA cannot deport him to Haiti because of the stay in effect, but instead attempted to send him back to Chile. However, he is the sole provider for a family which now includes three children, including a 3-month-old newborn.
“Our life is here, now,” also says this man who has lived in Montreal for more than five years. Chile has been the scene of racist incidents targeting Haitians, and the minimum wage of around $675 is hardly enough to live there.
A day laborer in a factory in the greater metropolitan area, he proudly said that over the years he had become responsible for training: “That was before they tried to deport me. » Since the Agency’s summons, he says he has been experiencing “great distress”. He also sees his little boy very affected by this stress: “Since the deportation affair, my little boy runs to see what is in the envelope every time we receive a letter. »
His initial file was allegedly “botched” by a “bad immigration consultant”, he claims. He now has a six-month temporary permit, but does not know if he will be able to get regularized.
Already “protected”?
More often, Haitians’ requests for asylum are refused because they are considered to already have similar protection in another country through which they have passed, which many dispute.
This is also what happened to Valery Clernite, who told her story in these pages at the start of the media attention on Roxham Road, in August 2017. After 110 days of crossing, 11 countries and only one hope in mind, she had arrived from Brazil to Quebec with her little daughter, less than two years old.
She had worked long enough in Brazil to be considered eligible for permanent residency, she said, leading to her asylum application being denied by the IRB.
Haitian nationals in suspense are also not entitled to family reunification, adds M.me Valois. If they end up obtaining permanent residence through the rare route of a request for humanitarian consideration, the delays are such that their children are often over the 22-year-old mark. “They can no longer sponsor them and it is very difficult for them,” she reports.
“With the attitude of the powers in place in Quebec, we have created a socio-political climate in which people feel rejected,” finally notes Frantz André.