African Canadians in Manitoba are facing red tape and long delays as they try to sponsor their loved ones to come to Canada as refugees, a lobby group said at a press conference in Winnipeg on Saturday.
"Today, we are speaking about our immediate families. We are not asking Canada to solve the refugee problems of Africa," says Ghirmay Yeibio, a spokesperson for the group.
The African Canadian Constituents lobby group is speaking out about the reduction in number of privately sponsored refugee applications that the government is accepting in Winnipeg for the Canadian visa office in Nairobi.
What that means, is the family members of New Canadians who have immigrated from Africa are left there, waiting for years to have their applications to come to Canada to be processed, Yeibio says. The people on the wait list are sponsored by Canadians, who would take full responsibility for them if they are allowed to come to Canada. "They are in no way a burden to the Canadian society or government," he says. "We are not asking for charity."
Yeibio added that Canada has an excellent track record on immigration. However, he said that the current delays in processing privately sponsored refugee applications for relatives of African Canadians leaves the loved ones of these new Canadians "suffer[ing] for up to four years in squalid refugee camps."
Specifically, the group objects to a decision by Citizenship and Immigration Canada to reduce the number of Nairobi-bound private sponsorship applications submitted in Winnipeg.
They say that the government is reducing the number of applications accepted in order to reduce a backlog in the Nairobi office. However, the lobby group would prefer the government ease the burden on the Nairobi office by increasing the number of visa posts and staff in Africa, instead of limiting the number of applications accepted.
Furthermore, the group claims that the distribution of visa offices and resources is biased against Africa, with wait times in the continent being longer than anywhere else in the world.
One solution would be to add more visa offices in Africa, the group says. The Nairobi officer serves not only Kenya, but accepts immigration applications from Burundi, Comoros, Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, French Southern Territories, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mayotte, Reunion, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda as well.
CTV's requests to Citizenship and Immigration Canada for comment were not returned immediately on Saturday.
However, in response to queries from The Canadian Press, the office of Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said that submissions of new applications to Nairobi are being reduced. Three agencies, including the Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council, are being asked to reduce their submissions by 85 per cent.
Kenney's office says there is a huge backlog caused by the need to carefully investigate applications to weed out fraud and false claims. The overflow can only be tackled if fewer new applications are received.
"There is a high incidence of fraud and a lack of reliable documentation to establish identity or support the claims presented," Kenney's office said in an email to The Canadian Press. "As a result, an interview is required in nearly all cases. Interviews are highly resource- intensive, given the lack of documentation and the fact that applicants reside in nearly 20 remote locations which often require visa officers to travel two or more days just to reach the camps/towns."
-with files from The Canadian Press
