(Ottawa) The National Council of Canadian Muslims is calling on the federal government to lift a cap on the number of Palestinians who can seek refuge with extended family members in Canada to escape violence in the Gaza Strip.
Posted at 5:13 p.m
Laura Osman The Canadian Press
The temporary public policy for extended family members of Gazans is expected to come into effect next week, months after Canadians asked for government help to rescue their loved ones amid Israel's war and ongoing Hamas.
The program would grant up to 1,000 Palestinians visas that would allow them to seek refuge in Canada for three years, provided their families on Canadian soil are willing to support them financially during that time.
When Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced the plan last month, he said it was unclear how many people would benefit, but it would likely be “several hundred.”
A week later, the ministry released the program's written policy.
It indicates that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada will close the program to new applications after the first 1,000 applications are received and begin processing, or after one year.
The National Council of Canadian Muslims, an independent Muslim rights organization, says it has already been in contact with more than a thousand people who have asked their families to leave Gaza.
“There should be no cap,” said Uthman Quick, the organization’s communications director.
The cap “takes into account the volatility on the ground and the difficulty for Canada and like-minded countries in transferring people from Gaza to Egypt,” Department of Defense and Immigration spokesman Matthew Krupovich said in a statement Tuesday.
Minister Miller claimed last month that Ottawa has no control over who is allowed to pass through the tightly controlled Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt on any given day. Even the evacuation of Canadian citizens from the war zone has proven slow and difficult.
A “fight” over visas is in sight
Yameena Ansari, an immigration lawyer in Toronto, believes the cap is a significant underestimate of the number of people who need help.
Ms. Ansari advocated this policy as part of an ad hoc group of immigration lawyers called the Gaza Family Reunification Project.
“Among the lawyers in this group alone, we know more than 1,000 candidates,” said Ms. Ansari, who called the limit “abhorrent.”
Gaza has been under near-constant shelling since Hamas's attack in southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking 240 others hostage.
According to local authorities, Israel almost immediately launched a retaliatory attack on Hamas-controlled areas, killing more than 21,900 Palestinians.
According to Gaza's Ministry of Health, two-thirds of the Palestinian victims are women and children. Canadians with family in the area have reported fears for their loved ones who lack shelter.
Ms. Ansari expects the number of applications to rise quickly, creating what she calls a “battle royale” for a limited number of visas.
“The problem is this, and I want to be clear: Will your family survive or will they die? said Ms. Ansari.
She said she received calls over the holidays from desperate families wanting to prepare for the program's launch on Jan. 9 and hoping their families would live long enough to get visas.
Some of those conversations were difficult, Ms. Ansari said. She had to explain that not all family members could go. Families must decide whether they want to leave a loved one behind.
That is, if they even manage to cross the border.
“This piece of paper may not make sense. You may not be able to leave this conflict,” Ms. Ansari said.
That's why the National Council of Canadian Muslims called for a ceasefire to end the violence.
Most Gazans don't want to leave, Quick said, and they want to know that if they flee to Canada for refuge, they have the right to return home after the conflict ends.
With information from Associated Press