RED TAPE SPLITS FAMILY
Calgary family separated while they try to work through Canada’s immigration system
Meg Dyck and four-year-old Donnie, who was adopted on Sept. 9, 2016, are stuck in India, waiting months for a visitor’s visa to return to Canada. As asylum seekers flood across the border into Canada, writes Licia Corbella, the Dycks are frustrated beyond words that mother and adopted son can’t reunite with the rest of their family.
While thousands of illegal immigrants pour across Canada’s border with the United States, a four-year-old boy adopted in India into a Calgary family has been stuck in Canadian immigration limbo, keeping him and his mother separated from his brothers and father for more than two months.
Donnie Dyck was legally adopted by Jeremy and Meg Dyck — who also have two other sons, Zeke, 10, and Zavier, 8 — one year ago today, on Sept. 9, 2016. The family was living in India at the time, working as humanitarian aid workers.
Jeremy Dyck, 35, says the entire family has “shed tears of frustration and heartache,” as the issuance of a simple visitor’s visa for little Donnie has exceeded the anticipated two-week period and spread to months.
“We are playing by the rules, filling out all the paperwork, following the law and we have lost an entire summer together as a family,” says Jeremy, who was born and raised in Calgary. “(Meanwhile) on TV, I watch thousands of people jumping the queue by just walking across the border and getting processed immediately.
“Donnie is a four-year-old little boy. His Canadian citizenship papers are in the works. How can the Canadian government be so callous and incompetent for this to happen?” asks Jeremy, whose family lived and worked in Calcutta, India, for three-and-ahalf years. They first worked with the Indian NGO Vision Rescue, which takes a mobile school into the slums to feed and educate 200 impoverished children every day.
When Jeremy reached out to the Herald, he said he knows that compared to people stuck in multi-year waits for immigration claims to be processed, his family’s case seems minor. But, he adds, he wants Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to know his offthe-cuff tweets hurt real people.
In January, Trudeau sent out the following tweet: “To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength. #WelcometoCanada.”
That Twitter missive went viral and Canada’s immigration system has been left reeling. Since July, the Canadian government says more than 7,000 have simply walked across the U.S.-Canada border into Quebec to claim refugee status, when Canada’s own “safe third country rules” say a person cannot be a refugee if they cross from the U.S.
Jeremy, Zeke and Zavier left India July 4, expecting Meg and new addition Donnie would be about two weeks behind.
“I have not had any emails or calls to explain anything by anybody,” Jeremy says. “Why is this three- or four-times longer than the regular processing time?”
The Dycks filed an application for Donnie’s visitor visa to Canada on June 11. Since then, despite numerous calls, emails and letters, there has been silence from the Canadian High Commission in India and immigration officials in Canada.
“Our legitimate questions and concerns have fallen into a black hole,” Jeremy says.
Zeke, who is jubilant about starting Grade 6 at a southwest Calgary school, says he misses his mom and little brother a lot.
“Everything we do has a bit of a sad hole in it,” Zeke says.
“We arrived just as the Calgary Stampede started and we had fun, but we missed my mom and Donnie. We’ve missed my mom’s (34th) birthday; my mom missed our first day of school after three years of being home-schooled (in India); and now we’re missing our Gotcha Day (the day Donnie officially became a part of the family.)”
Donnie — whom the Dycks met at an orphanage — was excited at the prospect of starting preschool in his new home.
While family members have been separated for two months, they have been fighting for a visa for Donnie for three months.
“It has been an incredible battle since June 11 to get a simple visa for a four-year-old child of Canadian parents. It boggles my mind why that should be an issue,” Jeremy says. “There aren’t enough words in all the thousands of languages and dialects to fully express the reprehensible nature of the treatment we’ve received.”
Ironically, while waiting in India, Meg applied to Australia for a visitor’s visa for Donnie to visit her parents and received one within two weeks.
“It was easy,” Jeremy says. “It was all done online. No papers needed. No stamp in this passport.”
Zavier — who describes his first week of Grade 3 as “awesome” — says Donnie cries and says he misses his dad and “his brudders.” Meanwhile, Zavier says, “We miss him and my mom.”
While the family “had a lot of adventures in India,” which included “riding on elephants, getting chased by stray dogs and seeing lots of snakes,” everyone is looking forward to starting fresh in Calgary, Zavier says. The city experienced a hotter than usual summer, but “it’s a lot cooler here” than in India, he notes.
Federal Conservative immigration critic and Calgary Nose Hill MP Michelle Rempel says Canada’s immigration system is anything but cool and every MP from every party and corner of the country has heart-wrenching stories from constituents who have loved ones stuck in a kind of immigration and refugee system purgatory.
“(Trudeau) likes to pose with refugees and look so compassionate, but it is not compassionate to give people false hope in coming to this country and then failing people who are playing by the rules. That is not compassionate,” Rempel says. “Irresponsible is not a hard enough word; it’s disgusting because there’s an element of political gain in playing with people’s lives.”
Rempel says government papers show there is an 11-year backlog of 45,000 to 60,000 people in the refugee program, which means the queue-jumpers at the border can draw on social assistance and medicare for as long as 11 years before their claims are more than likely to be rejected. That’s something expected to happen to about two-thirds of the mostly Haitian border crossers. Simultaneously, immigrants playing by the rules are waiting years for their paperwork to be processed.
The Immigration and Refugee Board says it has redeployed resources to deal with the Quebec arrivals.
“The IRB had to make adjustments to be in a position to respond to the current situation that is clearly unsustainable,” spokeswoman Anna Pape told Reuters.
Trudeau recently said in a news conference there is no benefit for people to cross into Canada “irregularly.” That’s clearly untrue.
Rempel adds, “This has never been a question about ‘if’ for immigration in Canada ... This is a question about ‘ how’ and there’s no denying that the ‘ how’ is broken, which is tragic for so many people.”
That includes a four-year-old boy half a world away, who cries for his daddy and his brudders.
To see the related video, go to calgaryherald.com.
There aren’t enough words in all the thousands of languages and dialects to fully express the reprehensible nature of the treatment we’ve received