Lawyer encouraged after deportation hearing
POSTMEDIA NEWS
While a St. Catharines family facing deportation has yet to learn their fate, the immigration lawyer representing them is hoping “for good news” that they may yet be permitted to remain within the safety of Canada.
“I’m very hopeful,” said Torontobased immigration lawyer Dena Smith, representing Natasha Gordon-Jones and her three children, Michael, Jason-Lee and Sasha.
“A lot of times it comes down to which Canada Border Service Agency officer you draw, because they have a whole lot of discretion to exercise. The hope would be they get someone that’s reasonable.”
The family has lived in St. Catharines for the past five years, fleeing Jamaica after GordonJones husband Everton was murdered six years ago in Spanish Town for refusing to pay extortion money to a gang.
Gordon-Jones says she and her children started getting death threats following Everton’s murder, and flew to Canada to visit family in Mississauga. They never returned to Jamaica, instead applying for refugee status in the hope of remaining here.
Although their application for refugee status was denied, the family has since applied to remain in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
Gordon-Jones and her family have been concerned for the past few weeks, fearing they were facing a hearing Tuesday that could end in their ordered removal from Canada.
“We don’t know what’s happening,” Smith said. “They didn’t get a notice to appear and we thought there was some sort of mistake, so we went prepared.”
But rather than deal with all four family members, Smith said the CBSA hearing was instead held only to discuss the oldest daughter Sasha Tykoliz, who has been married to a Canadian – Adam Tykoliz – for two years.
“We had them doublecheck the system and they said there’s nothing here, so we’re just going to hope that’s good news and wait and see,” Smith said.
Although Sasha did receive a “report for removal” notice from CBSA, Smith said its unlikely that the spouse of a Canadian with no criminal record would be deported.
Nevertheless, she said Sasha could be sent back to Jamaica to await a ruling on her husband’s spousal sponsorship application. But that didn’t happen either. “Things are going well with the sponsorship application, and it looks like (Sasha) is getting close to if not at approval in principle,” Smith said, adding the CBSA representative asked for an update in two weeks and offered to defer it to a later date if needed.
Asked for information on the case, the CBSA replied saying: “privacy precludes us from speaking to the specifics of any one case or file.”
Meanwhile, the number of people who have added their names to a petition has increased substantially this week, to 1,055 signatures – up from 643 two days earlier.
The petition, which calls on the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship to repeal the decision to deport Natasha, Jason-Lee, and Michael Jones to Jamaica and to grant them landed immigrant status in Canada, was initiated by Jason-Lee’s teacher Corey Quinn, and sponsored by St. Catharines MP Chris Bittle. It closed to additional signatures at 2:28 p.m., on Wednesday.
Smith said the public interest in the family’s struggle to remain in Canada has helped.
“I’ve reached out to the minister’s office and said, ‘This family has the support of their entire community and beyond,’” she said. “I would hope that they would consider that, and it does factor in.” ABenner@postmedia.com