Quote:
Originally Posted by 1overcosc
IMO, the federal government should streamline the system and expand processing capabilities with the goal of allowing every asylum seeker to get a definitive answer to their claim within 6 weeks of making it.
|
That timeline seems incredibly unrealistic. To illustrate why, here's a story based on the real experiences of several people I know:
John is approaching thirty years old. He's lived his entire life in the same neighbourhood in the same city. His country is poor, but his family is affluent enough that he got a good education and has decent enough financial resources. Now that he's been finished school for a few years, the fact that he hasn't married yet--hasn't even come close--is starting to raise a few eyebrows, but nothing serious. Not yet.
John is gay. He's as active in the local, exceedingly clandestine gay community as anyone, but it's not an easy life. His country is exceptionally homophobic. He goes to the parties and attends some of the meetings. He wishes something could be done about it. But the activists, the ones--his friends--who publicly come out to fight for change, wind up dead, jailed or de facto banished. And it seems to be getting worse.
But so far things have been all right. Until one day John gets a call from a worried friend. John's name has appeared along with three others in a local newsletter. He's been outed. And now he has to hurry: When your name gets thrown out like that, you don't have much time.
John packs a suitcase. He doesn't want to arouse any suspicions, so he packs light. On the pretext of visiting his cousin in Mississauga, he boards a flight to Pearson and claims asylum on landing. He doesn't know much about Canada. He doesn't know where he'll live or how he'll survive. There wasn't time for that.
John has a rough time with Canadian immigration officials. They're having a difficult enough time just accepting that he is who he says he is, and now they want him to prove that he's gay (after covering his tracks for
so long) and to prove that his life was in danger in his home country (all based on a list in a neighbourhood newsletter he has no access to). And find a place to live. And figure out how to earn a living. And absorb how quickly it all happened. And mourn the losses, big and small. And find a lawyer. And maybe find a friend. And, oh God, just something to make this pounding headache go away.
The point being, I guess, that it doesn't really matter how streamlined the system gets after a certain point: A fair hearing requires proper evidence--and that evidence just can't be gathered that quickly, especially with irregular arrivals. Gathering documentation in a developed country with a generally supportive government can be a challenge; collecting documentation from a poorer country with an ambivalent or even hostile government can prove impossible.