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| Hana Marku |
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| Damey Lee |
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| Randall Cohn |
The announcement of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s (IRCC) special pathway for Gaza on Dec. 21, 2023, has been a lifeline for Palestinian-Canadian families with loved ones stuck in Gaza. Capped at 1,000 individuals, the pathway promises to reunite Canadians with their spouse, child, grandchild, parent, grandparent or sibling in Gaza. With approximately 45,000 Palestinian-Canadians in Canada, the 1,000-person cap represents just a fraction of the need in the community given the scale of the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Gaza. Groups such as the National Council of Canadian Muslims have called for lifting the cap to save more Gazan lives. The special pathway launched on Jan. 9, 2024, with countless families anxiously rushing to submit their applications as quickly as possible before the cap is met.
Lawyers in the community understand that the special pathway is about giving safe refuge to families who have lost everything: their homes, their livelihoods, and their loved ones.
Others, such as immigration lawyer Sergio R. Karas and the newly formed and anonymous group Lawyers for Secure Immigration, see the special pathway as a backdoor for “terrorists” to enter Canada. The arguments are as follows: 1) Gazans present a risk of terrorist activity, such that they would endanger the safety of Canadians and strain Canada’s national security resources; 2) rigorous security checks are “absent” in the special pathway for Gaza; and 3) the very presence of Gazans in Canada would likely spur anti-Semitic crime and violence. These arguments are based on racist assumptions and prejudice with no factual basis to their claims.
Profiling of Gazans as “terrorists” and “anti-Semites”
Simply stating that Gazans present a terrorist threat does not make it so. Painting any group as being inherently more likely to commit acts of terrorism is the hallmark of racial profiling. It stokes the flames of the post-9/11 panic that perpetuated Islamophobia, hatred and dehumanization in the name of national security. The knee-jerk assumption that Muslims are terrorists has led to some of the most shameful episodes in recent Canadian history, such as the extrajudicial detention and torture of Maher Arar and Abdullah Almalki, the secretive and draconian security certificate regime which was found to be unconstitutional in 2007, and the mass surveillance and aggressive targeting of Muslim Canadians by CSIS. None of these episodes have made Canada safer, but they have ruined countless innocent lives and traumatized entire communities.
Mr. Karas provides no definition of what he believes terrorism to be, or what acts he believes Gazans writ large will commit in Canada. Engaging in acts of terrorism and engaging in acts of violence which pose a danger to national security have been grounds for inadmissibility to Canada for decades and these provisions are applied on a forward-looking basis, barring anyone whom officials have reasonable grounds to believe may commit such acts, or who were ever members of terrorist or otherwise subversive groups.
Mr. Karas is also flatly wrong in his interpretation of Mason v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 SCC 21. Canada’s powers to prevent the entry of anyone believed to be a security threat remain robust. The Supreme Court’s ruling in Mason simply confirms the interpretation that a finding of inadmissibility under ss. 34(1)(e) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (“engaging in acts of violence that would or might endanger the lives or the safety of persons in Canada”) requires a nexus to national security or the security of Canada. This finding was necessary to correct Canada’s longstanding practice of conflating individual criminality with threats to the security of Canada, even in the absence of a conviction.
Mr. Karas’ suggestion that post-Mason, Canada must “heighten entry requirements for potential terrorists and their supports from entering the country” is contradicted by the actual content and import of the Supreme Court’s decision. In the absence of any legal basis, it is entirely unclear how the presence of 1,000 Gazans in Canada, who will have all undergone biometrics and admissibility screenings, will “strain” our ability to prosecute and remove dangerous individuals from Canada.
Mr. Karas similarly provides no rationale for his personal belief that Gazans fleeing war and death will enter Canada with the intention of committing anti-Semitic acts against Canadian Jews. This too, is an assertion based on little more than ethnic and religious stereotyping.
Stringent security checks for Gaza pathway
Contrary to Mr. Karas’ personal beliefs and the concerns of Lawyers for Secure Immigration, IRCC has imposed stringent security checks on applicants to the special pathway for Gaza, above and beyond what was imposed for the 200,000 Ukrainians and 45,000 Afghans who were recently given safe refuge by Canada.
When applying, applicants must establish their connection to their Canadian relative and disclose all previous and current passport information, all past telephone numbers, all past email addresses, all social media accounts, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, WhatsApp and all messaging applications (with usernames and account links), a full and detailed employment history starting from the age of 16 (including exact dates, job descriptions, names of supervisors, reasons for leaving, and any disciplinary issues), a description of any scars or injuries on their body and how they were sustained, and a chronological account of all countries they have traveled to, visited, or resided in over the past 10 years. This information must be provided by all applicants between the ages of 14 to 79. This information must be provided while the applicants are physically in Gaza.
All applicants must consent to share their personal information with the governments of Egypt and Israel. Applications will not be processed without this consent. Without permission from the governments of Egypt and Israel, applicants will not be placed on evacuation lists to exit Gaza through the Rafah Crossing, which is managed and controlled by Israel and Egypt and is the only functional border crossing. The security regimes of all three governments, as well as information collected from Canada’s Five-Eyes partners (the Five Eyes is an intelligence alliance made up of Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand) will be brought to bear in screening these applicants.
If applicants are permitted by Canada to continue their visa processing in Egypt and they are allowed to go through the Rafah Crossing, they must provide biometrics to the Canadian authorities in Cairo before being allowed to enter Canada. Just as it does in all other contexts, the Canadian government has the opportunity to conduct its full inadmissibility assessment at this point.
These are not lax measures by any stretch of the imagination. These are security measures rarely imposed on foreign nationals, even those fleeing countries run by entities deemed to be terrorist groups, such as Afghans, who were required to provide biometrics but not consent for Canada to provide their information to foreign governments or social media handles and phone number histories.
Gaza on the brink
Lawyers working with clients in Gaza are intimately familiar with the requirements of the special pathway for Gaza and the reality on the ground for our clients. Our clients are families. Families who cannot easily respond to the allegation that they are terrorists with an unearned “free pass” to Canada, because their telecommunications are regularly cut and they are fleeing daily bombings.
We hope this clarifies Mr. Karas’ concerns.
Hana Marku is a principal lawyer at Marku & Lee Immigration and Refugee Lawyers, an immigration and refugee law practice in Toronto. Damey Lee is a principal lawyer at Marku & Lee Immigration and Refugee Lawyers, an immigration and refugee law practice in Toronto. Randall Cohn practises immigration and refugee law as an associate with Edelmann and Company in Vancouver. All three are members of the Gaza Family Reunification Project.
The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the author’s firm, its clients, LexisNexis Canada, Law360 Canada, or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.
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