Centre to help migrants in need of protection
Initiative launched in Peel Region to help children in immigration limbo or other troubling situations
A child travelling alone arrives at Pearson airport and asks for asylum. A young boy faces deportation after a run-in with the law and learns he is not a citizen here. A teenage girl brought to Canada by traffickers is referred by police for protection as a crown ward.
These are just some of the cases frontline child protection workers are seeing as they deal with a growing number of migrant children stuck in immigration limbo or caught up in other troubling situations.
The trend has recently prompted the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies to partner with the Peel CAS in launching a Child Welfare Immigration Centre of Excellence to help the sector serve migrant children in need of protection due to abuse, neglect and abandonment.
Arecent spike in asylum seekers crossing into Canada from the United States is also driving up the needs among this vulnerable population. The Peel CAS, for example, has already begun to see new cases involving migrant youth from Nigeria, a main source of the recent wave of entries from south of the border.
“Some of these children have no status or unresolved status. Their families move from country to country and they never have a sense of home,” said Mary Beth Moellenkamp, service director of the Peel Children’s Aid Society.
“They fear potential deportation. Their precarious status impacts their sense of security and sense of belonging,” she said.
“Managing the immigration system and child protection is challenging.” MARY BETH MOELLENKAMP SERVICE DIRECTOR
“Managing the immigration system and child protection is challenging,” she added.
“We have to make sure those in our care do not leave (us) without citizenship or pathways to citizenship.”
The Peel CAS has had an immigration team since 2000 to serve migrant children and families in the child welfare system because of the region’s high newcomer population — 51 per cent of region’s residents are immigrants — and its jurisdiction over new arrivals at Pearson airport.
Since its inception, the team’s caseload has grown from a dozen a year to 200 in 2017 and it is projected to rise to 280 this year.
Although province-wide statistics on CAS cases involving immigration issues are not available, Moellenkamp said the immigration needs of children in care are bound to go up with recent provincial and federal legislative changes that got rid of the requirement to be 18 years of age to apply for Canadian citizenship and extended the age of protection from 16 to 18.
“Unlike Peel, other agencies may get one or two cases a month but they are not wellequipped to deal with these cases because they have no specific knowledge and expertise on immigration,” said Mary Ballantyne, CEO of the provincial child welfare association.
“If these children leave the welfare system without citizenship, it’s going to affect their ability to continue their education and get jobs.
“It will put them in some very bad situations when they move into adulthood.”
The pending deportation of Abdoul Abdi, a former child refugee from Somalia that has recently garnered national attention, illustrates the complexity of the immigration and child protection systems.
Abdi lost his mother at a refugee camp and came to Canada at age 4 with relatives before he was taken into foster care in Nova Scotia.
He moved 31 times between foster homes and no one ever acquired citizenship for him.
His permanent residence was stripped after he served five years in jail for assault.
The new Child Welfare Immigration Centre of Excellence in Peel is staffed by 10 multilingual child protection workers and two team leaders.
It does not provide legal advice but offers referrals to legal support and helps other children’s aid societies with “short-term interventions” with immigration-related cases.
The team is also charged with developing partnerships and protocols with local, provincial and federal agencies to resolve immigration issues of children’s aid society clients and most importantly collecting data and facilitating research to better understand the scope of the problems in the child welfare sector.
Ballantyne said the provincial association has released a guide to raise awareness of immigration issues faced by young people because timely resolution and intervention is crucial since the process of obtaining permanent residency and Canadian citizenship can take years and involve strict timelines and documentation requirements.
“This centre of excellence is an example where CASs in Ontario are trying to look at the needs of a specific population that is not as well serviced as they should be, and find a way to give them the support they need,” Ballantyne said.