Detained migrants suffer cruel and inhumane treatment: report

TORONTO — Canada’s rising detention of non-criminal foreigners in maximum-security prisons amounts to arbitrary, cruel and inhumane treatment that violates international obligations, a new report concludes.

The report by the University of Toronto’s International Human Rights Program finds the Canada Border Services Agency has become more heavy handed in dealing with migrants, with little or no accountability.

Renu Mandhane, a criminal lawyer and the program’s executive director, said the report reveals “shocking gaps” in the rule of law.

“A CBSA officer essentially has the discretion to determine that somebody should be held in maximum-security jail conditions,” Mandhane said Wednesday in an interview.

“It was really surprising to me ... that decision was totally discretionary and also not subject to any rules.”

The report, called We Have No Rights, concludes incarceration can have a catastrophic impact on migrants’ mental health. It contains profiles of detainees imprisoned for as long as eight years who talk of a lack of access to support services and confinement in cold, windowless cells.

“They treat us like garbage,” one inmate told researchers.

Figures show Canada detained more than 7,300 migrants at a cost of more than $50 million in 2013. About one third were incarcerated in jails, even though few might be considered criminals.

An agency spokesman said “it is not the practice of the CBSA to comment on third-party documents.”

The International Human Rights Program plans to present its report to the UN Human Rights Committee next month.