Tag Archives: immigration

MP Andrew Cash urges Government to reverse deportation of Oscar Vigil

MP for Davenport Andrew Cash

MP for Davenport Andrew Cash

This Wednesday, NDP MP for Davenport Andrew Cash asked the Conservative government to overturn a removal order for Oscar Vigil.

Oscar Vigil is a journalist from El Salvador who fled death threats and sought refugee status in Canada in 2001. His wife and three children have since been accepted by Canada’s immigrations services and have become Canadian citizens, but Vigil has been denied.

“The role of the Minister for Immigration should be to protect families, not break them up,” Andrew Cash asked in the House of Commons, “The Minister has the authority to reverse this deportation and keep this family together, will he do so?”

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“Does Ottawa believe the Salvadoran government is terrorist?”

El Salvador - CanadaUnder that sharp headline, Matthew Behrens publishes today at rabble.ca a very interesting and well documented article about the situation of Oscar Vigil and the double standard that is some times present in Canada’s immigration system.

You can read the whole article here. These are some excerpts:

[…] Against this backdrop, two Salvadorans who refused to participate in the U.S.- and Canadian-backed terrorist regime that ruled the country during the 1980s — and who, like thousands of their fellow Salvadorans, became associated with the FMLN — are now facing a Kafkaesque immigration nightmare. At the same time as Canada recognizes the FMLN government in San Salvador, it is trying to deport long-time Canadian residents Oscar Vigil of Toronto and Jose Figueroa of Langley, B.C., because of their former membership in the FMLN, claiming it is an organization “that there are reasonable grounds to believe engages, has engaged or will engage in acts” that include “espionage,” “terrorism,” and “subversion by force of any government.” […]

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