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Immigration
Home > Immigration
Home > Immigration
| Second Class Citizens? Helping Canadians Abandoned Overseas |
| by Jean Lash, Staff Lawyer, South Ottawa Community Legal Services |
Imagine losing your passport when you were abroad and realizing no one believed you were
who you said you were. Imagine this happening in a country where you are not safe,
especially now that you don’t have a passport. Imagine the Canadian government accusing you
of being an impostor and threatening legal action against you. Imagine not being able to come
home.
This is what happened to Abdihakim Mohamed, a client at South Ottawa Community Legal
Services. However, this case is even worse than the above scenario, because Abdihakim is
autistic and is dependent on his family. He has been stuck in Nairobi, Kenya for over three
years.
Abdihakim has been a Canadian citizen since he was 11 years old (having come to Canada as a
refugee from Somalia.) Now, 25 years old, he is stuck in Nairobi, Kenya and is in the same
boat as all the Somalis who are trying to escape the turbulence in their home country. Without
documents, he has been tormented by the local police looking for bribes and is at risk of being
deported to Somalia. It has been a nightmare for his mother. She is frantic because he cannot
manage day to day living without help, let alone how to manoeuvre in a strange country where
people don’t believe he is Canadian and who don’t welcome Somali refugees.
What happened?
It all started when a doctor treating Abdihakim recommended that his mother take him back to
his country of origin. Scientific research has shown that this helps autistic people. They
followed the advice and his mother took him to stay with his grandmother and aunt in
Bossasso, Somalia, situated in the relatively calm northern part of the country. Everything
was going well and Abdihakim was improving. His mother decided to leave him there and
returned to Canada to work.
She took Abdihakim’s Canadian passport so it wouldn’t get stolen. However, when she
entered Canada, it was confiscated. She was carrying a passport that didn’t belong to her.
Abdihakim’s mother thought she could sort this out because it was an innocent mistake. The
months dragged by, Abidhakim’s grandmother got sick and couldn’t look after him anymore
and the security situation in Bossaso began to deteriorate.
Abdihakim’s mother flew to Bossasso and managed to get her son to the nearest Canadian
embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, to apply for a passport. However, after months of unexplained
delays the passport was refused. After an interview, the visa officer said she didn’t think
Abdihakim looked like the photo on his citizenship card (taken 11 years ago) or the previous
passport photo. She also didn’t think he was autistic enough.
Abdihakim’s mother needed to get back to Canada to work. She couldn’t afford to live in
Nairobi any longer and hired people to look after her son. In April 2008, she applied for a
passport in Ottawa, but all she got was a letter informing her she was under investigation for
applying for a passport for an impostor!
At this point, Abdihakim’s mother came to South Ottawa Community Legal Services. We put
together a pile of affidavits from other Canadians who could identify Abdihakim in all the
photos and added this to the evidence she had already given, including a letter from his doctor
identifying him. One of these Canadians recognized the sweater he was wearing in the
citizenship photo. Another had bumped into him in Nairobi.
Passport Canada stonewalled. We kept being told that we had not established his identity. We
were not told why the evidence we had provided didn’t do the job.
Like in a growing number of other cases, it wasn’t until we went to the media that the
government responded. An interview on the National CBC program the Current apparently
convinced Passport Canada that this problem could be resolved. The Canadian embassy in
Nairobi is now ready to issue an emergency travel document and his mother is going to get
Abdihakim just as soon as she has raised the money.
The Canadian government knew it had no choice but to resolve this case because it didn’t want
to get burned as they knew they would lose if we took the case to Federal Court and decided
to impose their own process for getting Abdihakim back. Insisting that “discrepancies” still
exist, they will only issue a one way emergency travel document instead of a passport and will
not tell us if the investigation into his mother has been called off.
Abidhakim is just one of several Canadian who have recently become “stateless” because of
arbitrary decisions by Canadian government officials. Abdihakim’s case, like the others,
reflects this government’s position that it has no duty to protect its citizens abroad. It appears
to think it can pick and choose whom it helps and whom it abandons.
One MP is trying to change this. Paul Dewar, M.P. for Ottawa Centre, is petitioning the House
of Commons to enact legislation to ensure the Government of Canada recognizes its
constitutional duty to protect Canadian citizens abroad. Click on the links for more information
and to view the petition in support of this move.
who you said you were. Imagine this happening in a country where you are not safe,
especially now that you don’t have a passport. Imagine the Canadian government accusing you
of being an impostor and threatening legal action against you. Imagine not being able to come
home.
This is what happened to Abdihakim Mohamed, a client at South Ottawa Community Legal
Services. However, this case is even worse than the above scenario, because Abdihakim is
autistic and is dependent on his family. He has been stuck in Nairobi, Kenya for over three
years.
Abdihakim has been a Canadian citizen since he was 11 years old (having come to Canada as a
refugee from Somalia.) Now, 25 years old, he is stuck in Nairobi, Kenya and is in the same
boat as all the Somalis who are trying to escape the turbulence in their home country. Without
documents, he has been tormented by the local police looking for bribes and is at risk of being
deported to Somalia. It has been a nightmare for his mother. She is frantic because he cannot
manage day to day living without help, let alone how to manoeuvre in a strange country where
people don’t believe he is Canadian and who don’t welcome Somali refugees.
What happened?
It all started when a doctor treating Abdihakim recommended that his mother take him back to
his country of origin. Scientific research has shown that this helps autistic people. They
followed the advice and his mother took him to stay with his grandmother and aunt in
Bossasso, Somalia, situated in the relatively calm northern part of the country. Everything
was going well and Abdihakim was improving. His mother decided to leave him there and
returned to Canada to work.
She took Abdihakim’s Canadian passport so it wouldn’t get stolen. However, when she
entered Canada, it was confiscated. She was carrying a passport that didn’t belong to her.
Abdihakim’s mother thought she could sort this out because it was an innocent mistake. The
months dragged by, Abidhakim’s grandmother got sick and couldn’t look after him anymore
and the security situation in Bossaso began to deteriorate.
Abdihakim’s mother flew to Bossasso and managed to get her son to the nearest Canadian
embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, to apply for a passport. However, after months of unexplained
delays the passport was refused. After an interview, the visa officer said she didn’t think
Abdihakim looked like the photo on his citizenship card (taken 11 years ago) or the previous
passport photo. She also didn’t think he was autistic enough.
Abdihakim’s mother needed to get back to Canada to work. She couldn’t afford to live in
Nairobi any longer and hired people to look after her son. In April 2008, she applied for a
passport in Ottawa, but all she got was a letter informing her she was under investigation for
applying for a passport for an impostor!
At this point, Abdihakim’s mother came to South Ottawa Community Legal Services. We put
together a pile of affidavits from other Canadians who could identify Abdihakim in all the
photos and added this to the evidence she had already given, including a letter from his doctor
identifying him. One of these Canadians recognized the sweater he was wearing in the
citizenship photo. Another had bumped into him in Nairobi.
Passport Canada stonewalled. We kept being told that we had not established his identity. We
were not told why the evidence we had provided didn’t do the job.
Like in a growing number of other cases, it wasn’t until we went to the media that the
government responded. An interview on the National CBC program the Current apparently
convinced Passport Canada that this problem could be resolved. The Canadian embassy in
Nairobi is now ready to issue an emergency travel document and his mother is going to get
Abdihakim just as soon as she has raised the money.
The Canadian government knew it had no choice but to resolve this case because it didn’t want
to get burned as they knew they would lose if we took the case to Federal Court and decided
to impose their own process for getting Abdihakim back. Insisting that “discrepancies” still
exist, they will only issue a one way emergency travel document instead of a passport and will
not tell us if the investigation into his mother has been called off.
Abidhakim is just one of several Canadian who have recently become “stateless” because of
arbitrary decisions by Canadian government officials. Abdihakim’s case, like the others,
reflects this government’s position that it has no duty to protect its citizens abroad. It appears
to think it can pick and choose whom it helps and whom it abandons.
One MP is trying to change this. Paul Dewar, M.P. for Ottawa Centre, is petitioning the House
of Commons to enact legislation to ensure the Government of Canada recognizes its
constitutional duty to protect Canadian citizens abroad. Click on the links for more information
and to view the petition in support of this move.