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   Vol.64/No.24            June 19, 2000 
 
 
Immigrants from China deported as Ottawa debates greater powers of arrest
 
BY ANNETTE KOURI  
VANCOUVER, British Columbia--Canada's restrictive immigration policies have come into sharp focus in recent weeks.

More than 1,000 Fijian-Canadians demonstrated here May 29 demanding that the government admit Fijians as refugees. Umendra Singh explained to the press that the recent coup in Fiji has resulted in several attacks on Fijians of Indian descent.

In a related development, immigration authorities forced 90 Chinese immigrants to board an airplane destined for China May 10, the largest mass deportation in this country.

Immigration officials tried to keep the operation under wraps, but reporters noticed the heavy police presence when they arrived at the Abbotsford airport near Vancouver to cover another totally unrelated story. More than a dozen members of the Abbotsford Police Force, plus dogs, were at the airport, including its black-garbed emergency response team.

At 1:00 a.m. without warning, 9 of the migrants had been rousted from their beds at the jail in Prince George and forced on buses for the 100-mile ride to the Abbotsford airport. They had been imprisoned since arriving in Canada last summer after a long journey from China in old, rusty, crowded boats.

"These people have been incarcerated all this time and now they are forcibly repatriated without the dignity of advance notice," protested Victor Wong of the Vancouver Association of Chinese Canadians. "These people are not dangerous. They are not criminals. And yet there were dozens of armed guards used in this exercise. We are shocked at the strong-arm tactics of the Canadian government."

Ever since several hundred Chinese immigrants landed on the British Columbia coast last summer asking for refugee status, they have been the object of a racist campaign. In an April 26 speech he delivered in Abbotsford as a candidate for the Canadian Conservative Alliance Party, Stockwell Day called for "asserting sovereignty and control over our national borders."  
 
Bill would increase officials' powers
On April 6, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Elinor Caplan introduced new legislation into the House of Commons, Bill C-31. The Canadian Council for Refugees says the bill would give immigration officials new grounds for imprisoning people "based on convenience and suspicion"--for example, on the pretext of completing an examination. It would expand provisions for detention without a warrant. Anyone without identification recognized by the immigration officer can be jailed immediately. And authorities could keep them locked up for months.  
 
 
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