Refugees in New Brunswick deserve better: advocates

On March 16, immigration lawyer Jael Duarte was meeting a client – one of the 187 refugees recently transferred to New Brunswick – when an employee from a government subcontractor stopped Duarte from proceeding.

“I was assisting a refugee with their claim in their hotel room in Moncton when an Xpera staff told me I was not allowed to do that there,” recounts Duarte. “This is a clear violation of the right to legal counsel.”

The Canadian government has contracted the services of Xpera to manage the logistics of the transfer of refugee claimants to Moncton and Fredericton from Quebec following that province’s claims that they lack resources. The refugee claimants entered Canada at the recently-closed Quebec and New York border crossing known as Roxham Road.

Xpera is a company that specializes in private security and in minimizing the “risk associated with a strike or labour dispute.”

The company was recently in the news when it was revealed Carleton University had hired Xpera to surveil the picket lines of the university’s striking contract instructors and teaching assistants.

“While no new federal money has yet to be provided for legal aid in New Brunswick, Xpera reportedly received $4.5 million from the feds for their work in Atlantic Canada in February. This is unacceptable,” said Aditya Rao with the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre.

After more than a month of waiting for the province and federal governments to make an announcement on legal aid support for the newly arrived refugees, on March 24, the Madhu Centre, Amnesty International and the Atlantic Human Rights Centre wrote to federal Immigration Minister Sean Fraser and New Brunswick’s Minister responsible for immigration Arlene Dunn.

Unlike refugees who are resettled into Canada after receiving refugee status from the United Nations or another body, refugee claimants must navigate a complex legal process and make their case before a member of the Immigration and Refugee Board in order to receive refugee protection.

“Without access to legal representation, refugee claimants are at risk of failing a claim and being deported, even if they are in need of refugee protection. Failing a refugee claim in part because of lack of legal representation can mean life or death,” said Julia Sande, human rights law and policy campaigner at Amnesty International Canada.

Only Dunn has responded to the letter so far. Dunn wrote: “I can confirm that discussions are scheduled with the Department of Justice Canada, and we anticipate that a solution could be forthcoming.”

Advocates are demanding the New Brunswick and Canadian governments do more to ensure the right to asylum of an estimated 187 refugees recently transferred to the province.

On April 12, the province confirmed with CBC it would be funding a one-year refugee lawyer position at the Moncton-based New Brunswick Refugee Clinic.

Rao says this is an important step forward by the province, but points out that the federal government knew that there was no support for refugee law when they began the transfers.

He and others were only informed of the possibility of the transfers by legal clinics in Ontario who were alarmed that more than 100 refugee claimants would be sent to a province with no legal aid.

The New Brunswick Refugee Clinic, Hola NB, the Multicultural Association of Fredericton and the Madhu Centre are among the organizations providing direct support to the refugees since their arrival in the province.

“The settlement agencies are doing everything they can, but they cannot provide legal assistance for refugee claims,” said Rao. “By relocating refugee claimants to a jurisdiction where they have no meaningful access to legal counsel, the federal government is knowingly putting lives at risk.”

Akram Ben Salah founded the New Brunswick Refugee Clinic in 2016 to support refugees with their claims. He told the NB Media Co-op in 2017 that, “Before the Clinic opened, there were no organizations in New Brunswick offering free legal assistance. Our clients cannot afford to hire a lawyer and because of that, without our services, they often had to go through the process without proper guidance or representation.”

Today, the New Brunswick Refugee Clinic is staffed solely by its Executive Director, Olivia Huynh. New Brunswick has very few trained refugee lawyers. They have been volunteering their services while also calling on the governments to adequately fund refugee legal aid.

Beyond legal aid funding, Huynh told the NB Media Co-op last November that refugees are facing many other challenges, such as the lack of affordable housing, language barriers, getting accessible services, and also knowing what their rights are and what different immigration pathways and different options are available to them.

Advocates are concerned that as deadlines loom, refugee claimants are filing their claims without legal assistance.

“There’s no time to lose,” Rao said. “When Ontario callously cut legal aid for refugees in 2019, the federal government stepped in. In New Brunswick, there’s no legal aid to begin with. What are they waiting for?”

Tracy Glynn is a founding board of director member of the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre.