photo by freda guttman
Family of four cruelly deported
Immigration Canada rushed to expel family before agreement with US expired
Link To photos from Rally on October 29th to stop the deportation of
the Des Roy Family => //picasaweb.google.com/fgNewmail/NewAlbum301009241PM?feat=email#
Montreal, 29 October 2009 — A family of four was deported this morning
after a very painful parting from friends, community members and supporters.
Early this morning, over 150 people gathered in support of Ranjit Dey Roy,
Ratna Rani Dey Roy and their two sons, Swaikot et Swakshar, outside the
Immigration Canada building on St-Antoine street. Tears flowed as community members and supporters took their leave from the distraught family. Shortly
after 8am, the family was taken into custody by Immigration agents. They
were deported to the United States, where they face undergoing new
immigration proceedings and probable deportation to Bangladesh. The family
is currently in New York.
An agreement between Canada and the United States which had allowed Canada
to deport immigrants to the United States if they had entered Canada from
the US expires tonight at midnight. Immigration officials were apparently
aware of this fact when they rushed to push the family out of the country in
an unusually short time frame. Yesterday, members of Parliament met with
Federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney in Ottawa to request an emergency
stay of deportation for the family, but Kenney refused to show any mercy.
Arriving in Canada as refugee claimants in June 2004, after fleeing
persecution as a religious minority in Bangladesh, the Dey Roy family saw their refugee application refused in spring 2005. They tried by every means
possible to remain in the country, knowing that deportation would cause them
hardship and suffering. They were finally ordered to report for deportation
after their application for permanent residence on humanitarian and
compassionate grounds was refused on 30 September 2009. The unjust, callous, and cruel decision to deport the family has destroyed the lives that they worked so hard to establish in Montreal and forced them into renewed
instability and anxiety.
Nine year old Swakshar was in 3rd grade. The boy entered Quebec at the age
of 4 and has pursued all his schooling in French; he does not write Bengali
nor speak it proficiently. Canada has legal obligations to ensure that the
best interests of a child are duly considered in immigration decisions and
it is clearly not in the best interests of Swakshar to be uprooted for the second time in his short life and forced into a situation of instability and stress.
His older brother Swaikot, who arrived in Canada when he was 14, has sincepursued his studies in French. His studies abruptly ended, before he wasable to obtain his high school certificate, when the family’s immigration
application was refused. He has been working two jobs to help support the
family. Both boys enjoy strong support from their schools, and a petition
was circulated in support of Swaikot at his high school.
Despite the barriers they faced in coming to a new society, and the anxiety
and instability they experienced because of immigration proceedings, both
parents managed to find steady work and to put down roots in Montreal.
Community groups and migrant justice organizations will work to bring the
family back to Canada, but the process is far from certain and takes many
years.
Stop the Deportations! No One Is Illegal
For more information and to support the Des Roy family
Hindu Assocation of Montreal
dharapu@hotmail.com
Immigrant Workers Center
iwc_cti@yahoo.com
iwc-cti.ca
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