Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Essay about asylum seekers in canada
Essay about asylum seekers in canada
Essay about asylum seekers in canada
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Essay about asylum seekers in canada
Historically, Canada has held a world renowned reputation as nation with a magnanimous ideological approach to providing asylum to those individuals subjected to marginalization and persecution in their homeland – regardless of their nation of origin (Ismaili, 2011, p.89 & 92). Indeed, providing sanctuary to refugees who would otherwise experience significant hardships ranging from blatant discrimination and racism to torture and genocide, has very much become an institutionalized aspect of Canadian society. However, recent changes to Canada’s immigration policy delineated in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and Bill C-31 may have perhaps put this ideology in peril (Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, 2001).
One of the more disconcerting aspects of Bill C-31 is the newly adopted Designated Country of Origin (DCO) legislation which has permanently labeled particular nations as “safe”. Consequently, individuals claiming refugee status who originate from these countries no longer have the same rights and privileges afforded to their refugee counterparts from other nations (“Overview of C-31,” 2013). In turn, this has led to a dichotomy between those who view this change as necessary in order to diminish the influx of embellished and falsified refugee claims and those who view this policy as discriminatory and prejudiced towards people originating from certain nations.
The Case for DCO Legislation
The primary purpose of the DCO legislation introduced in Bill C-31 is deterrence; by combating the influx of refugees who are abusing the immigration system by residing in Canada when they are in no immediate danger in their native homeland, it is hoped that the number of false refugee claims will be drastically red...
... middle of paper ...
...oogeyman.html
Jiwani, Y. (2011). Mediations of race and crime: Racializing crime, criminalizing race. In Perry,
B. (ed.). Diversity, Crime and Justice in Canada. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University
Press.
Levine-Rasky, C., Beaudoin, J., & St. Clair, P. (2014). The exclusion of Roma claimants in Canadian
refugee policy. Patterns of Prejudice, 48(1), 67-93.
Making Canada’s asylum system faster and fairer. (2012). Retrieved from
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/releases/2012/2012-12-14.asp
Overview of C-31 refugee determination process. (2013). Retrieved from
https://ccrweb.ca/en/refugee-reform
Zong L. & Perry, B. (2011). Chinese immigrants in Canada and social injustice: From overt to
covert racial discrimination. In Perry, B. (ed.). Diversity Crime and Justice in Canada.
Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press.
The Canadian Pacific Railway was the first transcontinental railway built to connect Canada from coast to coast. (Canadian Pacific Para. 9) The construction almost delayed completely because of John A. MacDonald losing power, but it was finally continued with the help of a syndicate. (Canadian Pacific Para. 4) Due to the insufficient amount of adequate workers in British Columbia, Chinese contract workers were imported to help construct the track with minimal pay and harsh conditions. (Canada Para. 1) Chinese-Canadians were discriminated by being given the most dangerous job, no food or shelter provided, and the least pay. Unfortunately, when the track was completed, the Exclusion Act for Chinese immigrants was established to stop immigration from China, (Calgary Chinese Cultural Centre Para. 5) while also making it impossible for family members from China to immigrate. (Calgary Chinese Cultural Centre Para. 11)
Labour leaders in Canada in the late 1800s and early 1900s were strongly opposed to the idea of Asians immigrating to Canada. In “Constructing the Great Menace” by David Goutor, it outlines the oppression of Asians by labour leaders which does not conclude that labour leaders hated all immigration and had a prejudice against all racialized groups. The unionists’ main argument for this opposition is based on the stereotype that Asians were claimed to have “accepted low wages and degraded working conditions” thus proving that they will diminish the standard of living for Canadian workers. These Labour Leaders were prejudice to Asians in an effort to supposedly protect Canadian workers and their jobs. However, it is not fair to say that labour
Systemic discrimination has been a part of Canada’s past. Women, racial and ethnic minorities as well as First Nations people have all faced discrimination in Canada. Policies such as, Charter of Rights and Freedoms, provincial and federal Human Rights Codes, as well has various employment equity programs have been placed in Canada’s constitution to fight and address discrimination issues. Despite these key documents placed for universal rights and freedoms Aboriginal and other minority populations in Canada continue to be discriminated against. Many believe there is no discrimination in Canada, and suggest any lack of success of these groups is a result of personal decisions and not systemic discrimination. While others feel that the legislation and equality policies have yet resulted in an equal society for all minorities. Racism is immersed in Canadian society; this is clearly shown by stories of racial profiling in law enforcement.
Being threatened, beaten, jailed, tortured – these are just some of the refugee cases that asylum officers hear and face each day. Being able to watch the movie Well-founded Fear by Michael Camerini and Shari Robertson, which tackled the asylum process in the United States of America, was a great eye-opener for me. Before watching the film, I have no idea what an asylum means and that my perception of refugees were only those people who escape from their country to keep themselves safe during the time of war. But through this movie, I realized that it was much more than that. There were a lot of things that I learned and a lot of emotions that I felt. This docudrama also presented the struggles of both the refugees and the asylum officers.
Stoffman, Daniel. Who gets in: What's wrong with Canada's immigration program, and how to fix it. Toronto: Macfarlane Walter & Ross, 2002.
Vancouver currently maintains an image as a sort of maternal ethnic melting pot, a region rich in cultural diversity and with a municipality that is both tolerant and welcoming of various displays and traditions. However, upon closer examination of recent history, it becomes clear that the concept of the city embracing minorities with a warm liberal hug is both incorrect and a form of manipulation in itself. The articles Erasing Indigenous Indigeneity in Vancouver and The Idea of Chinatown unravel the cultural sanitization that occurred in Vancouver at the turn of the nineteenth century as a means of state domination. Through careful synthesis of primary documents, the articles piece together the systematic oppression suffered by BC indigenous people and Chinese immigrants, reformulating our perception of the interests of the Canadian government.
While Australia’s response to accepting offshore refugees obeys with its responsibilities under the 1951 Refugee Convention, its treatment of onshore refugees has raised international criticism. Australia has been criticised for detaining asylum seekers unfairly and for unreasonably length periods, as shown in the case of A v Australia (UNHRC) (1997). A refugee was detained for four years while his status as a refugee was being determined. Despite the criticism, people are still held for long periods in immigration detention centres and mandatory detention
Refugees and Asylum seekers are similar but not the same; a Refugee is “someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their own country because of a well founded fear of being persecuted because of their race, religion, opinion or membership of a certain social group”. Asylum seekers are people who have just claimed that they are a refugee; they must have their claims processed by the government of the country they are applying for asylum in. This report will compare and contrast 6 key areas in the issue of refugees and the causes behind refugees, the experiences of refugees travelling to Australia, the immigration policies
Al-Waqfi & Jain (2008) examine racial discrimination trends in the employment circles in Canada using data that is sampled from randomly selected legal cases that are documented from the Canadian Human Rights’ groups. This article describes some of the major theoretical perspectives that describe racial discrimination. Of significant importance is the trend in such employment discrimination within the last two decades. Through the help of data from the documented legal cases, Al-Waqfi & Jain (2008) assert that racial diversity within Canada’s population as well as workforce has been on the rise. The two authors use reliable census data to demonstrate how the statistics of the victims of such discrimination have almost tripled in the last ...
Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and even until today, the United States has been a top destination for refugees. Despite our physical isolation from most of the rest of the world, we simply have the space and capabilities to deal with asylum seekers more so than most other nations worldwide. Our nation as we know it was essentially founded by these refugees, individuals coming from Europe to seek prosecution based on religious and ideological persecution. However, our national mindset as certainly changed since then. Now, refugee issues are far more contentious, especially recently. Due to the large volume of those trying to seek asylum within our boarders, we have several programs in place to ensure that we are only admitting those who need to be admitted and that once they arrive, they won’t end up trapped in dangerous and under regulated campsites. These programs include everything from unaccompanied children, to health promotion, and microenterprise development among other things. One of the largest, oldest, and most influential programs is
Canada is one of the only countries that accept refugee claims on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. However, queer asylum seekers in Canada are commonly probed deeply about their gender presentation and sexual practices in rulings over their refugee entitlements (Kouri-Towe,2015). Finances allocated to this group of refugees are also decreasing. Moreover, many people in need of protection don’t have the resources to flee their persecutors, let alone bring themselves to Canada and navigate Canada’s all-too-complex refugee system. One way to continue providing support for LGBT refugees is through private sponsorship. An organization that is dedicated to advocating and helping resettle LGBTQI refugees is The Rainbow Refugee Association of Nova
Resettling refugees is a small way in which Canada show solidarity for the most vulnerable around the world. Canada is giving these families and people the chance to build new lives for themselves such as getting a good education, starting their own businesses, they’re able to be free to do what they want and know they are safe and have a stable home. Many refugees go on to make an important cultural and economic contributions. Canada’s modern-day refugee policy took shape following the end of the second world war when the country took on a greater role in global affairs. Between 1947 and 1952 Canada admitted hundred and 186,000 European refugees. In 1956 Canada resettled 37,000 Hungarian refugees and then also settled an additional 11,000 Czechoslovakian refugees in 1968. In 1978 when the immigration act first came into force in Canada and introduced ‘refugees’ of the distinct class of immigrants they stated that one of the objectives of Canada’s immigration policy was to ‘fulfil Canada’s international legal obligations with respect to refugees and to uphold its humanitarian tradition with respect to the displaced and the persecuted’. Canada then went to great lengths to uphold humanitarian values and resettle refugees in need from across the
On October 17, 2009, seventy-six Tamil refugees arrived off the cost of Victoria, British Columbia in a rusty boat followed by another four hundred ninety two exhausted Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seekers in August 2010 (CBC News, 2010). Their migration stemmed from the civil war that had been ongoing in their homeland for over two decades. Human rights agencies and media around the world raised concerns over human rights violations, and death of tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Sri Lanka. Canadians, those of Tamil ethnicity and otherwise, were concerned, many of whom took to the streets of Toronto in protest between January and May in 2009. However, despite the street protest throughout the summer of 2009 and Canada’s reputation as one of the most generous nation in the world toward refugees, the Tamil boat migrants received a cold welcome as they arrived in Victoria (Bauder & Bradimore, 2011). The Canadian media was particularly critical, expressing concerns over the migrants’ identity and the validity of their refugee claims (Bauder & Bradimore, 2011). Based on Cynthia Bogard’s (2011) writing, this paper will describe the framework for understanding the social construction based on claimsmaking activities and the context to explain how and why the Tamil refugees were typified in an overall negative representation in Canadian society.
...ity from unlawful coercion, usually enacted by government agents (Brysk, 2002), there is a need to make refugee movement a priority on the agenda.
International conflicts are not the doings of innocent men, women and children. The strongest argument within the refugee debate is that human life is far more valuable than any negatives of assisting refugees. As a country that is able to provide for these people, whose alternative is most likely death, it is a priority to preserve their life and do anything we can to help them survive. I, therefore conclude that displaying compassion, humanity and empathy to fellow humans is far more important than seeking my personal gain. Other positions may believe that we should not accept asylum seekers because they are 'illegals' or 'queue jumpers.’ This argument is unsound because, under international law, anybody is allowed to seek asylum. In circumstances where a person fears for their safety due to beliefs or race, and a safe country has the ability to assist them, they should do so, whether the person is an asylum seeker or not. In wake of the recent terrorist attacks and mass shootings, many believe that the greater refugees accepted into Australia, the more we are opening our borders to an Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) attack. This idea that shutting the border to refugees will increase safety is foolish. Although the majority of refugees worldwide are Muslim, less than 0.0002% of Americans killed since 9/11 were killed by Muslims (Omar Alnatour,