Children ‘invisible’ in the system
Study highlights young citizens detained with non-status parents
Canada has placed more than 200 Canadian children in immigration detention with their non-status parents since 2011, alongside hundreds of formally detained non-Canadian children, a University of Toronto study says.
Based on data obtained from the Canada Border Services Agency, the U of T International Human Rights Program found at least 241 Canadian-born children — an average of 48 a year — were held in the immigration holding centre in Toronto between 2011 and 2015.
The data do not cover detention facilities in other parts of Canada.
On average, they spent 36 days at the detention centre with their incarcerated parents, with one boy spending 803 days — over two years — in the deten- tion facility.
Two-thirds of the detained children were housed there for longer than a week, and about 31per cent were held for longer than a month.
Eighty-five per cent of the children were under age 6.
“Children who experience even brief periods of detention have extremely negative psychological reactions that often persist long after they are released,” warned the 63-page study, Invisible Citizens: Canadian Children in Immigration Detention, released Thursday.
“Children who are spared detention but are separated from their detained parents experience similarly grave consequences for their mental health.”
Interviews by researchers with nine detained and formerly detained mothers of Canadian children from the Middle East, West Africa, Central America and the Caribbean found the children had difficulty sleeping, lost their appetite, lost their interest in play and developed symptoms of depression and separation anxiety, as well as a variety of physical symptoms.
According to the border services policy, Canadian children should only accompany their detained parents if there are no family members or friends to care for them, if they are still being breastfed, are too young to be separated from parents or have health issues.
“Canadian children are invisible in Canada’s immigration detention system,” said Samer Muscati, the human rights program’s director. “While all detention of children is horrible, these children are particularly vulnerable because they lack important legal safeguards, including their own detention review hearings.”
Under immigration law, Canadian-born children are citizens and cannot be formally detained, hence they are unable to access legal proceedings that review their
“(The children) lack important legal safeguards, including their own detention review hearings.” SAMER MUSCATI INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS PROGRAM
continued “de facto” detention, Muscati said.
As such, these children do not have access to detention review hearings, and until recently, adjudicators explicitly declined to consider the best interests of Canadian children in the detention reviews of their parents, he explained.
Report author Hanna Gros described the situation of the mothers she interviewed for the study as “sheer helplessness.”
“It was heartbreaking to see how helpless they felt when it comes to protecting their children,” said Gros, a senior fellow of the U of T human rights program.
“Separating from your child is traumatic. It is not a real choice. Some of the women I met were still breastfeeding.”
Among the detainees and former detainees interviewed by researchers was Naimah, arrested in February 2015, and her 8-year-old daughter, Aaliya, who was picked up at school during recess. The two remained in detention for a year and three weeks.
Aaliya was “crying everyday, saying ‘Mommy, I want to go to school,’ ” her mother told researchers. “I did everything I could do for this child, a Canadian child, to go back to school.”
The girl would put on her school uniform in the detention cell and cry, said Naimah, who asked her full name not be published for fear of repercussions.
A psychological assessment later revealed that Aaliya had severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, causing her physical and mental problems including bedwetting, feelings of sadness and anxiety, thoughts of death, frequent nightmares and loss of appetite.
Border officials called the Children’s Aid Society to evaluate if Aaliya should be separated from her mother. The study cited the conclusion: “You are not abusing your child, so I cannot take your child away from you. If I take her away from you, it would be worse for her.”
At her detention review hearings, Naimah said adjudicators repeatedly refused to consider Aaliya’s best interests. “We begged them to put me under house arrest so that my child could go to school,” Naimah told researchers. “I will never understand what is the benefit of putting my child in detention for a year.”
According to the border services agency, the total number of children in detention across the country (Canadians and non-Canadians) has dropped. Between April and December 2016, only 12 Canadian children were housed in the Rexdale detention facility, for an average of 4.5 days.
While progress has been made, Gros said the best interests of the children should take priority and their detention should be avoided altogether.
Since the fall, Public Security Minister Ralph Goodale, under public pressure, has initiated a review of the immigration detention system and vowed to explore alternatives to detention.
Goodale said the border agency is working on new policies to avoid detaining children and preserve family unity wherever possible.