Roma on way to Canada allege racial profiling
Border officials won’t let passengers board flights from visa-exempt Hungary
A couple of months ago, Eva Kalla was invited to visit her friends in Toronto from Hungary where she was grieving her husband’s recent death.
At the airport in Vienna, the Roma Hungarian writer was referred by airline staff to a Canadian border official, who refused to let her board her flight even though citizens from the European Union state are exempted from the visa requirement.
“The woman asked me a series of questions: What the purpose of my trip was, how much money I had, who had paid for my airfare, and where I had gotten so much money. I explained I had no intention of immigrating to Canada. I had a job and my children in Hungary,” said Kalla, 60. “I was treated like a criminal . . . I am concerned that I was discriminated against based on my appearance, and that my intentions and the purpose of my travel were presumed based on such irrelevant factors.”
The Canadian Romani Alliance said complaints of racial profiling by community members against Canadian border officials started trickling in around 2011, when asylum claims from Hungarian Roma peaked at 4,400 after visa restrictions were removed by Canada for visitors from Hungary.
Claims from Hungary have since declined dramatically, after it was designated by Canada as one of the “safe countries” in late 2012 for expedited processing of claims. Last year, only 400 claims came from Hungary, according to the Immigration and Refugee Board. “Even though Roma do not need a visa to come to Canada, they are kept out of the country,” said Gina CsanyiRobah, the alliance’s co-founder and executive director.
Toronto immigration lawyer Peter Ivanyi said he has heard of Canadabound Roma being refused boarding in Warsaw and Budapest as well: “We really don’t know the extent of the problem . . . But if someone gets pulled off a flight because he or she appears to be Roma, it’s just blatantly racist.
“Anyone has a right to make a refugee claim as long as they are eligible. You can’t pre-empt that,” Ivanyi said.
Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, the party’s critic for rights and freedoms, agreed. So many of the refugee claims from Hungary and Slovakia turn out to be legitimate, there should be no additional barriers to those seeking asylum here, he said.
Canada Border Services Agency said airlines are prohibited from carrying to Canada a passenger lacking prescribed documents — or a passenger an officer indicates should not be carried. “CBSA liaison officers work with the airlines to protect the integrity of Canada’s immigration system and the security of the Canadian border,” said agency spokesperson Line Guibert-Wolff.
“While the CBSA provides guidance and support to commercial transportation companies . . . it is ultimately the decision of the transportation company to either allow the passenger to board or to deny them boarding based on the documentation provided.” Airlines found to have carried an improperly documented foreign national to Canada will be fined for up to $3,200 per passenger and liable for additional costs, Guibert-Wolff added.