Tamil boat migrants await ruling

Status not yet assessed for 414 claimants who arrived aboard rusting ship in 2010

VANCOUVER — More than two years after a boat carrying hundreds of asylum-seeking Sri Lankan Tamils arrived on the West Coast, the vast majority of the migrants remain in Canada waiting for decisions on their refugee claims.

Their arrival sparked a vow by the government to crack down on what it called immigration “queue jumpers.”

Just two of the asylumseekers have been removed from the country.

An update on the status of the migrants was tabled in the House this week by Public Safety Minister Vic Toews in response to a question put to him in June by NDP MP Rathika Sitsabaiesan.

On Aug. 13, 2010, 492 Tamil migrants arrived along the B.C. coast aboard the rusting cargo ship MV Sun Sea. All of them subsequently made refugee claims.

According to Toews’s update, 20 refugee claims have since been approved and 35 have been rejected.

A further 23 individuals were excluded from the refugee determination process because the Immigration and Refugee Board found them inadmissible for reasons of national security or because of their involvement in the smuggling operation.

So far, two of those individuals have been removed from Canada — one to Sri Lanka, the other to India.

The remaining 414 migrants continue to wait to learn their fates.

Meanwhile, six people have been charged with people smuggling following a criminal investigation. Their trials are pending.

This past June, Bill C-31, the Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act, was passed by Parliament. The law, in part, sets out mandatory minimum sentences for those involved in smuggling, and requires that refugee-seekers who come to Canada by using the services of a smuggler wait longer for permanent residency and family sponsorship.

Critics complained that the law would have the effect of punishing legitimate refugees.

Sitsabaiesan could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.