Media Releases

Canada Should Implement Alternatives to Immigration Detention of Children, Family Separation

September 22, 2016

Toron­to, ON – Cana­da should urgent­ly imple­ment alter­na­tives to detain­ing chil­dren rather than hous­ing them in immi­gra­tion deten­tion facil­i­ties or sep­a­rat­ing them from their detained par­ents, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto’s Inter­na­tion­al Human Rights Pro­gram (IHRP) said in a report released today. In fail­ing to do so, Cana­da is vio­lat­ing its inter­na­tion­al legal oblig­a­tions.

Over the past sev­er­al years, Cana­da has held hun­dreds of chil­dren in immi­gra­tion deten­tion, includ­ing chil­dren from Syr­ia and oth­er war-torn regions. Accord­ing to fig­ures obtained by the IHRP through access to infor­ma­tion requests, an aver­age of 242 chil­dren were detained each year between 2010 and 2014. These fig­ures are an under­es­ti­mate because they do not account for all chil­dren liv­ing with their par­ents in deten­tion as ‘guests’, who were not sub­ject to for­mal deten­tion orders. Some of these include chil­dren with Cana­di­an cit­i­zen­ship.

“The immi­gra­tion deten­tion of chil­dren does noth­ing to increase pub­lic safe­ty, but has an immense­ly detri­men­tal and last­ing impact on an already vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tion,” said Samer Mus­cati, IHRP direc­tor. “Instead of lock­ing chil­dren up or sep­a­rat­ing them from their detained par­ents, these chil­dren need mean­ing­ful pro­tec­tion  in com­mu­ni­ty-based alter­na­tives to deten­tion.”

The 70-page report,  “‘No Life for a Child’: A Roadmap to End Immi­gra­tion Deten­tion of Chil­dren and Fam­i­ly Sep­a­ra­tion,” uncov­ers the defi­cient legal under­pin­nings and detri­men­tal prac­ti­cal impli­ca­tions of Cana­di­an immi­gra­tion deten­tion for chil­dren. The report makes 11 rec­om­men­da­tions  to ensure that Cana­da com­plies with its inter­na­tion­al human rights oblig­a­tions, and ana­lyzes var­i­ous inter­na­tion­al mod­els of alter­na­tives to deten­tion and fam­i­ly sep­a­ra­tion. The report con­cludes that chil­dren and fam­i­lies with chil­dren should be released from deten­tion out­right or giv­en access to com­mu­ni­ty-based alter­na­tives to deten­tion, such as report­ing oblig­a­tions, finan­cial deposits, guar­an­tors, and elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing.

“‘No Life for a Child’” is based on IHRP inter­views with detained moth­ers and chil­dren, as well as men­tal health experts, social work­ers, child rights activists, and legal pro­fes­sion­als. The report pro­files chil­dren, includ­ing infants, who lived in deten­tion or were sep­a­rat­ed from their fam­i­lies. The report

finds that con­di­tions of deten­tion are woe­ful­ly unsuit­ed for chil­dren. Immi­gra­tion Hold­ing Cen­tres resem­ble medi­um-secu­ri­ty pris­ons, with sig­nif­i­cant restric­tions on pri­va­cy and lib­er­ty, inad­e­quate access to edu­ca­tion, insuf­fi­cient recre­ation­al oppor­tu­ni­ties  and poor nutri­tion.

One of the chil­dren pro­filed in the report, Michel (not his real name), spent the first 28 months of his life liv­ing under these con­di­tions  in a Toron­to deten­tion facil­i­ty. Michel’s moth­er was detained when she was two-months preg­nant, because Cana­da Bor­der Ser­vices Agency (CBSA) sus­pect­ed that she was

a flight risk. After giv­ing birth to Michel, the two con­tin­ued to be detained for near­ly three years before

they were deport­ed in late 2015. Accord­ing to Michel’s moth­er, although Michel was a Cana­di­an cit­i­zen, “he lives the same life as a detained child.”

Accord­ing to med­ical experts, immi­gra­tion deten­tion caus­es seri­ous and last­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal  harm to chil­dren, includ­ing depres­sion, anx­i­ety, post-trau­mat­ic stress, and sui­ci­dal ideation. The report finds that it is the fact of deten­tion — not just the con­di­tions of deten­tion — that is fun­da­men­tal­ly harm­ful to children’s well-being. The report also finds that fam­i­ly sep­a­ra­tion is not an ade­quate alter­na­tive to

child deten­tion because it caus­es sig­nif­i­cant psy­cho­log­i­cal  dis­tress, and may expose chil­dren to the hard­ships of the child wel­fare sys­tem. Instead, the report rec­om­mends that fam­i­lies should be giv­en access to com­mu­ni­ty-based alter­na­tives to deten­tion.

The report builds upon years of advo­ca­cy by refugee and child rights groups in Cana­da that have called on the gov­ern­ment to ensure that children’s best inter­ests are a pri­ma­ry con­sid­er­a­tion in deci­sions affect­ing them, and ulti­mate­ly, to end child deten­tion and fam­i­ly sep­a­ra­tion. Inter­na­tion­al bod­ies have also repeat­ed­ly crit­i­cized Cana­da for its immi­gra­tion deten­tion prac­tices.

The report notes recent ini­tia­tives by Canada’s fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and CBSA indi­cat­ing a strong will­ing­ness to reform the immi­gra­tion deten­tion regime, with a par­tic­u­lar view to pro­tect­ing  chil­dren and address­ing men­tal health issues. The gov­ern­ment has also expressed an inten­tion to engage exten­sive­ly with non-gov­ern­men­tal  orga­ni­za­tions and oth­er civ­il soci­ety stake­hold­ers in the process of revis­ing rel­e­vant pol­i­cy and design­ing new pro­grams.

The report pro­vides rec­om­men­da­tions  on pol­i­cy and leg­isla­tive reforms, and builds upon the rec­om­men­da­tions  of the IHRP’s 2015 report,  “‘We Have No Rights’: Arbi­trary impris­on­ment and cru­el treatment of migrants with men­tal health issues in Cana­da.” Giv­en the exist­ing dis­cre­tion under the law, author­i­ties can imple­ment these rec­om­men­da­tions  in prac­tice even before legal changes are com­plet­ed.

“After years of silence and inac­tion, the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment and CBSA are tak­ing seri­ous steps that will hope­ful­ly bring us clos­er to end­ing child deten­tion and fam­i­ly sep­a­ra­tion,” said Han­na Gros, IHRP Senior Fel­low and co-author of the report. “But Ottawa needs to move quick­ly and delib­er­ate­ly to end the need­less suf­fer­ing of chil­dren and their par­ents.”

READ THE REPORT

“‘No Life for a Child’: A Roadmap to End Immi­gra­tion Deten­tion of Chil­dren and Fam­i­ly Sep­a­ra­tion,” is avail­able for down­load here: http://ihrp.law.utoronto.ca/utfl_file/count/PUBLICATIONS/Report-NoLifeForAChild.pdf

PROMOTE ON SOCIAL MEDIA: @IHRP_UofT; #End­Child­De­ten­tion

Sam­ple tweets to coin­cide with release on Sept 22:

New IHRP Report: @Can­Border should imple­ment alter­na­tives to child immi­gra­tion deten­tion & fam­i­ly sep­a­ra­tion http://uoft.me/16A

Hun­dreds of chil­dren held in Cana­di­an immi­gra­tion deten­tion since 2010, includ­ing Cana­di­ans

#End­ChildDetention http://uoft.me/16A

IHRP Report: Chil­dren need pro­tec­tion in com­mu­ni­ty-based alter­na­tives to immi­gra­tion deten­tion & fam­i­ly sep­a­ra­tion #End­ChildDetention

Immi­gra­tion deten­tion of chil­dren does not increase pub­lic safe­ty, but harms chil­dren & fam­i­lies

#End­ChildDetention http://uoft.me/16A

Oth­er rel­e­vant Twit­ter han­dles:
@CanBorder, @Safety_Canada, @CitImmCanada, @RalphGoodale, @HonJohnMcCallum, @UTLaw

For more infor­ma­tion and to arrange for inter­views, con­tact:

Kara Nor­ring­ton
Pro­gram Assis­tant
Inter­na­tion­al Human Rights Pro­gram Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, Fac­ul­ty of Law
(416) 946‑7831

Lucian­na Cic­co­ciop­po
Direc­tor, Exter­nal Rela­tions
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, Fac­ul­ty of Law
(416) 946‑0334
lucianna.ciccocioppo@utoronto.ca