by ERIN HUDSON
The Canadian immigration detention system has come under scrutiny in recent months. Last fall, hundreds of migrant detainees in Ontario launched a 65-day hunger strike calling for an overhaul of the system. Demands for investigation grew when a woman detained in a Vancouver center committed suicide. And this Spring more than 100 detainees launched a boycott, refusing to attend case reviews, saying Canada’s immigration system is rigged. Now the United Nations has weighed in.
Michael Mgovo remains jailed in a Canadian immigration detention center. He’s been there for nearly eight years. Mgovo was picked up in 2006 by the Canadian Border Services Agency, but they couldn’t verify his identity, which is required for deportation under Canadian immigration rules.
But according to a recent United Nation’s opinion on the case, the fact that the agency can’t figure out exactly who Mvogo is, does not justify his ongoing detention.
The UN says that immigration detention must be the last resort, it should be for the shortest amount of time possible, there should be adequate judicial review and immigrants must not be blamed for their own detention,” immigration activist and researcher Syed Hussan explains. “And on all four of these counts, canada is a rogue state and it’s breaking international law.”
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