Janet Hinshaw-Thomas, a U.S. refugee worker was arrested at the border crossing of Lacolle, Que. last week, as she tried to enter Canada from New York state with 12 illegal aliens from Haiti, including seven children and five adults.
She has been charged under Canada's Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, but has since been released on $5000 bail.
As usual, the left-wingers, including Maxine Jennings of the Liberal Party and Olivia Chow of the NDP, are already attacking the use of Section 117 of the Immigration Act to charge her.
"Instead of arresting Good Samaritans and harassing faith-based humanitarian non-profit organizations, the Harper government should focus its attention on many known illegal immigration consultants who prey on the most vulnerable refugees, who coach them to lie and strip them of huge sums of money," Chow said in an e-mail.
"This section of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act was designed to catch human traffickers, so why is the Harper government exploiting it to go after a well-intentioned refugee advocate?" Jennings said in a statement.
"That means that Rob Nicholson, the Attorney General of Canada, authorized it, and that's a clear misuse and misinterpretation of the law," she said.
"He has explanations to give."
But excuse me, how is this a misinterpretation of the law? The law clearly says the following
"Organizing and aiding entry into Canada is an offence under Section 117 of the (act)."
The Liberal Party, with the support of the NDP, Bloc and defunct Alliance Party made this amendment to the Immigration Act in 2002. If the Liberal Party had meant for this law only to be used in specific cases, shouldn’t they have structured it that way?
As usual, there are those who want these illegal aliens to come unimpeded into our country. They do not care about the additional burden in terms of financial, social and health care cost that our cities and urban centres have to absorb, even though many of them are operating under inadequate funding.
For them, Canada is a rich country and we can afford to absorb all of these illegal aliens that arrive here without a problem. It's easy for them to say this, because they are not the ones footing the bill.
Janet Hinshaw-Thomas is not just simply a refugee advocate, as some would like you to believe. She is actively involved in transporting illegal immigrants to the Canadian border for the purposes of obtaining asylum.
She frequently drives asylum seekers to border crossings, according to her lawyer, but alerts officials ahead of time.
Ms Hinshaw-Thomas only has herself to blame for the predicament that she finds herself in. Canada should never be allowed to become a dumping ground for illegal aliens, who are nothing but economic refuges trying in enter our country by claiming asylum. So anytime a refugee advocate or anyone else breaks our immigration law, they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
2 comments:
I agree that we if we pick and choose which laws we follow, that there will be problems.
In this instance, Canada is in conflict with international law. It is also in conflict with the spirit of the existing aiding and abetting law based on transcripts of the parliamentary debate that specifically brought up this situation (charging a humanitarian worker) as an unintended consequence of the law. While the government stated that such an application would never occur, they also added the proviso that any attempt to apply the law in this manner would need the explicit permission of the Attorney General.
From the Amnesty International Canada press release:
"Amnesty International is concerned that in this case it appears that Hinshaw-Thomas faces punishment solely for providing humanitarian aid to individuals who were seeking asylum in Canada. The right to seek asylum is enshrined in international law.
"There does not appear to be any allegation that Janet Hinshaw-Thomas helped this group of Haitian asylum seekers to circumvent immigration controls. Her activities appear to have been confined to assisting asylum seekers exercise their right to seek asylum. Amnesty International further notes that she and many other groups and individuals have provided such assistance in similar circumstances openly for several years, in cooperation with CBSA without being penalized.
It may be helpful to note that in the past many such refugees were simply dropped off within walking distance of the border. Unfortunately, the US border patrol often interdicts people when leaving the US.
Ironically, as well as guarding the US from people trying to enter illegally, they also work to keep people in the US who they explicitly claim not to want there in the first place.
Also ironically, googling for Janet Hinshaw-Thomas has a top hit on humantrafficking.org, a web resource for combating human trafficking.
The war on terror really is becoming the war on good samaritans or the war on dissent, and that is double plus ungood.
some people think that everyone that is seeking asylum cxan only be a burden on their host country which is not true.......
some of these people are well educated people ready to contribute in a positive manner to their new country.... should i mention that einstein was a refugee
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