CANADA’S ‘DREAMERS’
Thousands of undocumented youth brought to this country as minors are living in limbo, their education and career hopes on hold
Thousands of undocumented Torontonians who were brought to this country as minors and flourished in our public schools are being shut out of university and college by restrictive tuition and student loan policies.
They are Canada’s “dreamers.” They have arguably even less support than their American counterparts, who have been under legal assault by the Trump administration.
A Star investigation has found two barriers are thwarting the futures of these aspiring post-secondary students:
Universities and colleges charge foreign student tuition to those without citizenship, permanent residency or refugee status. The amount is typically four to five times domestic tuition. At the University of Toronto, it is up to nine times the domestic rate.
The undocumented are denied access to student loans through the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP).
As a result, undocumented high school graduates who cannot afford the foreign tuition rate are effectively shut out of higher learning in Ontario.
“A waste of human capital,” is what Ryerson University professor Harald Bauder calls it.
“(These) youth who go through our primary and secondary education system and graduate from high school are members of our local and provincial communities,” said Bauder, who is also the director of the university’s graduate program in immigration and settlement studies. “Why should they not have the same opportunities (as) their peers simply because they have a different national status — which neither they nor their peers have had any control over?”
One of them is Janie Peters.
On the assembly line in smock and hairnet, Peters pinches the ends of one croissant after another, watching her once-bright future in Canada fade with each shift in the industrial bakery.
Brought here from St. Vincent and the Grenadines17 years ago when she was six, she was told by relatives that she would be living with an aunt and staying to studiously, but quietly, better her prospects. Though she was undocumented, the Toronto public school system didn’t ask to see any papers. Everyone was welcome — citizen or not. It’s a long-standing policy.
So her relatives in Toronto didn’t tell. And she thrived.
To her classmates and teachers, she was just one of the kids.
“They didn’t know,” said Peters, now 23. “They thought of me as one of them. A regular student.”
Peters, which is not her real name, had no papers, no OHIP card. Throughout high school in Toronto, she kept her status a secret out of fear of deportation. She rarely went out at night, got in a friend’s car or put herself in any situation that might bring her within reach of any official asking to see identification.
Her evasions worked. Teachers instead noticed her curious mind, her desire to work until a problem was solved. She scored As and Bs. Teachers and mentors saw her potential — university, maybe law school.
“Her lack of status was never apparent. She was always entirely grounded and connected here. Which makes sense as this is the only home she has known,” said Sarah Pole, who ran the LAWS program, through which Peters job-shadowed judges, got advice from Bay Street lawyers and participated in mock trials.
“Academically strong, her potential seemed limitless,” Pole said.
That future has been put on hold because it is too expensive.
Shut out of higher learning, the frustrated young adults in this story are left with only one possible option, but it’s costly, carries considerable risk of deportation and requires the help of lawyers and other advocates: They can apply for permanent residency on what the federal government calls “humanitarian and compassionate grounds.” A successful “H&C” applicant can access OSAP student loans and domestic tuition.
But applying puts these young people on the radar of immigration officials and into an application process that has a nearly 40 per cent chance of failure. And failure could lead to the forcible removal from the country that is more their home than any other place.
“My life was already really unstable. I was aware that if I did this there was a chance it would topple over and I would have to go back home,” said Shawna Bailey, another native of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, who came to Canada as a child and graduated from a Toronto high school. She applied for H&C last year and awaits a response.
Filing an H&C residency application requires nearly $600 in fees, and asks the applicant to disclose the addresses and names of parents or other relatives, who may also be undocumented. That’s why Bailey’s mother, who is also without status, did not want her to fill out the application.
“You’re taking somebody else’s life in your hands. Disclosing my address means I’m giving them my mom’s address ... They could just go and take her,” said Bailey, now 22. “But I knew I had to do it. If I did not, I would be stuck in this (limbo) forever.”
Beginning in 2018, the Star followed Peters, Bailey and four other undocumented Torontonians aged 17 to 27. They were brought here from the Caribbean and South America. They were hiding in plain sight, finishing high school or toiling in menial jobs, their dreams deferred.
All but one requested anonymity for fear of being deported, and their names have been changed to protect their identity. Peters and Bailey are among those whose names have been changed for this article. Four have applied for residency on humanitarian and compassionate grounds and anxiously await a decision. Peters, like Bailey, is one of those applicants.
Bay Street law firm Blake, Cassels and Graydon is assisting with the H&C applications for Peters and Bailey pro bono. “We advocate for these applicants to allow them to have the option of going to university and achieving their full potential. If they remain trapped on the outside, they are often forced to abandon their ambitions and are relegated to precarious jobs,” said commercial litigator Michael Barrack, who along with other Blakes lawyers helped prepare and submit the H&C applications after learning about the two cases from Sarah Pole. “We also support systemic change which would allow others who are in a similar position to achieve economic dignity.”
In the United States, “Dreamers” — undocumented people who have lived in the U.S. since arriving as minors — have qualified under a federal policy called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) for temporary, conditional residency. No new applications are being taken. President Donald
Trump has signalled his opposition to the program, and a proposed DREAM Act that would provide a path to citizenship has failed to pass Congress. There is no such conditional residency program in Canada.
The Star first met Peters on a sunny late afternoon in a library on the University of Toronto campus. She looked out the window at students with backpacks walking the paths, and she cried.
“I’m so much further away from my dreams. Every September that comes around, when everybody is going off to school … I feel like everybody’s moving forward in their life except for me,” she said. “I was always told that I can do such great things in life if I keep working hard. I’m going nowhere.”
It is tough to pin down how many people are in this position. An internal federal memo, sent around 2017 to an assistant deputy minster at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, estimated that half of Canada’s undocumented residents live in the GTA, with possibly 250,000 of all ages living here.
That means there are likely thousands of undocumented young people who were brought here as children or teens, currently attend Ontario junior and high schools and are fast approaching these roadblocks to opportunity.
“This isn’t a matter of welcoming people; Canada is already their home,” said Pole. “They had no agency in the long-ago decision to come here — they were kids. But they grew up here, going to school, worrying about grades, playing on sports teams, joining school clubs, forming friendships, along with all the other kids.
“The things that matter to them are the things that matter to every other young person in Canada — living happy, secure lives, building futures they choose, being afforded dignity and respect, and not looking over their shoulders constantly.”
As high school graduation approached, teachers and the guidance counsellor asked Peters where she would apply for university. She deflected, saying she was going to take a year off to earn money. “I knew I wasn’t going to be able to go to university. I was already thinking that I was going to go work at a factory.”
Pole, who met Peters when she was in Grade 9 and new to the LAWS (Law in Action Within Schools) program, watched her deteriorate.
Sitting beside Peters at the meeting with a reporter, Pole recalled Peters’s senior year of high school two years earlier: “You changed, you flaked out,” she said. “You weren’t doing well in school, and I couldn’t figure out what the hell was happening.”
At the time, Peters had not yet confided in Pole that she was undocumented. Very few people knew. She grew increasingly isolated.
Post-secondary schools acknowledge that would-be applicants who are undocumented may not feel it’s safe to apply.
“It is unlikely that an undocumented person would choose to apply to college,” said Rob Savage of Colleges Ontario, the association representing the province’s 24 public colleges. “An applicant who is not a citizen of Canada is asked to identify her/his status … For the most part, it is unlikely that an adult who is in Canada with no documentation would want to draw attention to that fact.”
Ontario’s universities require successful applicants who are undocumented to pay higher tuition. “When a student registers, if they can’t prove Canadian status they are classified as international students,” according to a U of T spokesperson.
The difference in cost is significant. At U of T, tuition for a first-year arts student is $6,100; for an international student, the cost soars to $57,000, though a university financial aid policy says, in general, that no student should be unable to go to school due to lack of money.
At Ryerson University, domestic students in the first year of an arts degree pay between
“This isn’t a matter of welcoming people; Canada is already their home. They had no agency in the long-ago decision to come here — they were kids.”
SARAH POLE ADVOCATE
$7,044 and $7,112; international students pay between $28,635 and $29,021. At Mohawk College in Hamilton, domestic tuition is $2,708 and the international rate is $13,797.
Some colleges and universities may also require an undocumented applicant to obtain a study permit. This requirement would likely make an application a non-starter: Among other things, a permit applicant must assure the government they will leave Canada upon completion of the degree.
In 2017, York University administrators and professors opened a door for undocumented applicants. In most cases, they must take a bridging course to upgrade reading and writing skills that may have dulled while out of a classroom. The course also teaches how the university operates and supports students.
If the student scores a B or higher, the program will support their application to begin undergraduate degree studies at a domestic tuition rate.
Enrolment is increasing, with 25 students last fall compared to 20 students in prior years. There is also interest from undocumented people from other provinces, where no such programs exist.
The experiment shows that a university can find a way to remove one of the barriers facing undocumented applicants.
Ryerson University’s Bauder hopes his employer is next. One of his students wrote a master’s thesis in 2017 that called for Ryerson to make it easier for the undocumented to enrol. For now, York is the exception.
Glenn Craney, Ryerson’s deputy provost and vice-provost of university planning, told the Star: “As an institution dedicated to access to education, the university agrees that providing access for these potential students is important. At this time, Ryerson University is in the early stages of exploring the options available to be able to admit Precarious Legal Status students.”
Until the barriers are removed, advocates like Pole and Tanya Aberma n, who cofounded Sanctuary Students
Solidarity and Support Collective (S4) in the fall of 2018, are working to raise awareness. When Pole eventually learned from Peters and Bailey that they were undocumented and shut out of the Canadian dream, she started developing her own program.
Earlier this year, Pole’s program, Childhood Arrivals Support and Advocacy (CASA), was incorporated into Justice for Children and Youth Legal Clinic and funded by the Law Foundation of Ontario. CASA, which paired Peters and Bailey with Blakes law firm, aims to provide young people living undocumented in Ontario with free support, legal advice and legal services.
Meanwhile, the time in limbo takes a mounting toll.
Bailey said she felt like a fraud when she told people she was just making money for a year or two before attending university full time.
“In my family, I would be the first one to go to university,” said Bailey, who now works at a beauty supply manufacturer. “There were people around me who genuinely wanted to see me do good … I didn’t like lying.” When she applied and was accepted to U of T, Stephany Feijoo deferred. Without access to OSAP, she could not afford the high tuition. When the Star first met her, Feijoo, 27 and a native of Colombia, worked as a daycare assistant, wiping runny noses and handling dirty diapers. Before that, she cleaned offices for cash under the table. (Feijoo did not come to Canada as a child. When she arrived in Toronto at 19, after her parents tried and failed to settle in several countries, she still needed to complete grades 10 through 12. She enrolled at a public adult school and graduated.)
She and Bailey describe a pernicious feeling of uselessness that dulls hope and ambition.
“I never saw a light in the hole I was in. I had very low points,” said Feijoo, whose name has not been changed. “I live here. I work here. I know that if I was given the opportunity … to continue (in school) and graduate from here, I would for sure be living here and contribute to the community with what I had studied.
“That’s the way it should be. You’re giving back for what was given to you. It’s not like you’re just being selfish and you’re going to start something here and you just leave.”
Last year, the federal government approved her H&C application and in September, Feijoo finally emerged, after eight years of living in Toronto’s margins, as a general arts undergrad on the U of T campus.
To Francisco RicoMartinez, who counselled Feijoo in her quest and co-directs the FCJ Refugee Centre on Toronto’s west side, the wait for people like her is a needless punishment. “By not allowing them to study in postsecondary institutions, we are effectively punishing them for being here,” he said. “To allow young people to go to elementary and secondary school and then close the door … is not only unfair; it is cruel.” This “divider in society” works in silence, Rico-Martinez says, and so he makes himself available to talk to the isolated and anxious young people he calls “the excluded ones.”
Rico-Martinez and his staff also refer some to the York bridging course — which he says “was born out of the youth network here” — and help H&C status seekers put together applications.
On a late afternoon in September, a group of undocumented teens and 20-somethings gathered in a meeting room in the FCJ centre, a sprawling house on Oakwood Avenue. Denic e Shirlto n, which is not her real name, said she has numerous part-time jobs, though none for money. In the summer of 2018, she worked as a counsellor for a privately run day camp in Toronto. She hopes these volunteer jobs will burnish her resumé and recently submitted an H&C application.
Although they contribute to our economy, the undocumented are often unaware of or hesitant to assert their employment rights, and are not eligible for employment insurance or Ontario health insurance.
“Undocumented individuals may be vulnerable to abuse in the informal labour market and lack access to many educational, health and social services,” said the internal federal memo, obtained through access to information legislation.
On the September afternoon, Darryl Wyche, who also asked for anonymity, joined Shirlton and the others gathering at FCJ. With Grade 12 underway, the undocumented 17 year-old native of Bahamas said he wants a career in computer programming.
He said he’d won a “student of the week” award at his high school near Jane Street and Finch Avenue West, and he’s in an “interdisciplinary” course that upon completion would give him a high school and university credit. He wants to go to York or U of T for computer science. “I would like to pursue the best,” he said, though he did not know how he would do that.
Any day now, Peters and Bailey may get H&C decision letters.
In 2019, after completing the bridging course and gaining admission to York, they both started taking a couple of undergraduate classes. They pay part-time tuition at the domestic rate.
“It felt great,” Bailey said, sitting in a York campus food court a few days after her first undergrad class. “It felt like life was being brought back into me. It felt good to breathe.”
Aberman, who co-ordinates the York program, said, “The level of excitement and motivation that students describe when they find out that they can start university at York, despite their precarious immigration status, has been incredibly inspiring.”
Peters and Bailey cannot afford anything close to a fullcourse load. They cannot access
OSAP. They must work their precarious jobs for cash to pay for the course loads they can afford. Bailey works long shifts, and Peters now works in a warehouse entering data and lifting boxes.
A student must be a citizen, permanent resident or a protected person to apply for OSAP, said a spokesperson for the Ministry of Colleges and Universities.
Peters’s new employer sometimes does not provide her shift schedule until the night before. On days when there is a conflict, she must ask her supervisor permission to attend class.
If the federal government accepts Bailey’s H&C application, she wants to pursue a career in immigration law. If it doesn’t, she is not sure what she will do.
Living in Toronto, she said, “it’s all I know.”
Every weeknight, Peters went to the Jane-Finch mall with her school-issued chocolate bars. She paced the concourse, charming shoppers out of their money. She led her Grade 8 room in sales and helped fund the class trip to Detroit to learn about the Underground Railroad.
“I was super enthusiastic about this trip,” she recalled. “My teacher was so proud of me.”
She told her mom the good news and about how hard she had worked. Her mother, always up at 5 a.m. to work in bakeries and abattoirs and furniture factories, her hands curled from the efforts, surprised Peters with her response.
“‘You can’t go,’ ” Peters recalled her saying. “‘You don’t have the documentation to be able to go across the border.’ ”
“I felt confused and I was hurt because I had worked so hard.”
It hit her then. She was different, she was limited and she would need to start lying and evading to keep her shadowy place in this city.
She hopes that soon she can stop hiding.
“I grew up here, I went to school here. I am part of Canadian society.”
“It felt great. It felt like life was being brought back into me. It felt good to breathe.”
SHAWNA BAILEY ON TAKING HER FIRST UNDERGRAD CLASS AT YORK