Statelessness isn’t a new problem
An Ottawa Citizen editorial:
Immigration Minister Jason Kenney expressed shock recently at the fact that Raed Jaser, one of the accused in the rail bombing plot, managed to remain in Canada despite his criminal convictions. But Jaser’s case is not that unusual. Canada, like other countries, has long had difficulty deporting stateless people.
The problem isn’t kicking out people deemed inadmissible for whatever reason. The problem is that some other country has to admit them. Many of the world’s stateless people are, like Jaser, of Palestinian origin (although he was born in the United Arab Emirates).
If someone ends up in Canada without any legitimate travel documents — or even proof of identity in many cases — that makes it unlikely some other country will jump at the chance to admit that person once he or she is deported.
Statelessness is a human-rights problem; the right to acquire a nationality and engage as a citizen is fundamental. It is also a security problem. In some cases, it means Canada is stuck with people who might be criminals, while the paperwork grinds on for years.
Canada does deport some stateless people. According to a UN High Commissioner for Refugees report, it deported 352 between 2003 and 2010. But that same report notes that the practical problems associated with statelessness cause delays in many deportation cases, sometimes indefinitely.
It also notes that Canada, like most countries, doesn’t collect and publish much information about how big its stateless population is, and what the implications are. In the 2006 census, 1,455 people living in Canada reported their citizenship as “stateless.” As with any self-reported information, the true number might be higher or lower.
If Kenney is serious about getting to the bottom of why Raed Jaser was allowed to stay in Canada, that will require a transparent examination of how Canada deals with stateless people. It isn’t easy to figure out how to find permanent homes for people living in limbo, but compassion and, in many cases, the security interest of the public demands that we try.
Canada must be able to deport people who are not eligible to be here. But it must also be aware that deportation often only shifts the problem elsewhere: a security threat to one country is a security threat to all countries.