Canada Issues a Wake-Up Call

[Rasputin]

St. John the Evangelist, North Vancouver, gave Allan Monemi sanctuary for 18 months.

For the second time this year, lengthy efforts by parishes in the diocese of New Westminster have resulted in overcoming federal government orders to send refugees back to Iran.

In the latest case, a year and a half efforts by the parish of St. John the Evangelist, North Vancouver, has helped Allan (Ali) Monemi, 31, win the right to stay permanently with his family in Canada.

Last February, the efforts of St. Michael’s, Vancouver, resulted in the cancelling of a deportation order against Amir Kazemian.

Both men had been given sanctuary on the parish premises. While the concept of sanctuary has no formal legal sanction, police were reluctant to execute arrest warrants while the men were inside the churches – Monemi for 18 months, Kazemian for 32.

The Rev. Dan Meakes, rector of St. John’s, said the parish learned last week that an appeal to the Minister of Immigration was successful and Monemi, a convert to Christianity, can now apply to become a landed immigrant.

The Monemi family - Ali’s mother and father and younger brother - came to Canada in 1995. Ali had to remain in Iran for compulsory military service. While there, according to his story, he held hands in a public park with a woman whom he failed to realize was married. For this he was beaten, and ordered to report to a labour camp. Instead he left for Canada, arriving in 1999.

But his claim of refugee status was denied. In May of 2006 he was ordered deported. At that point he went into sanctuary at St. John’s and a warrant was issued for his arrest. He remained in sanctuary, either at St. John’s or briefly at two other parishes, which Meakes declined to name.

Meakes said that before going into sanctuary Monemi converted to Christianity and asked that people call him Allan. At his baptism, MP Don Bell became one of his godfathers. His conversion raised the stakes, since leaving Islam can be a capital offense in Iran.

The parish found lawyers willing to help Monemi plead his case while in sanctuary - Peter Larlee and Ryan Rosenburg, neither of them members of the parish.

The parish spearheaded a letter writing campaign to the Minister of Immigration and other members of parliament. Meakes went to Ottawa last April but was unable to meet with the Immigration Minister, Diane Findley, despite the efforts of MP Bell

He was supported during sanctuary in a small room at St. John’s by the parish and his own family, who and cooked meals and brought them to Monemi daily. Meakes said parish members and the Monemi family, who remain Muslim, often prayed together for Monemi’s release. Since February, another frequent visitor was Amir Kazemian.

Meakes said that the decision to allow Monemi came at a meeting Nov. 9 in the offices of the Canadian Border Services, which Monemi attended after being given assurances he would not be arrested. Meakes said he thought federal officials might be willing to send Monemi to a third country such as Italy, but didn’t expect the refugee to be allowed to stay in Canada.

Monemi, who worked in sales before he took sanctuary, has received three job offers and will probably work in construction, Meakes said. He is back living with his family.

Meakes especially praised the lawyers, who took on eight appearances for the refugee and did thousands of dollars worth of legal work, much of it without fee. “For them it’s been an act of love and a search for justice.”

[Rasputin]

poor iranian immig. .

[Rasputin]

Thanks to a new law, Canada will bestow citizenship Friday on what its government believes could be hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting foreigners, most of them Americans.

The April 17 amendment to Canada's Citizenship Act automatically restores Canadian nationality to many people forced to renounce it when they became citizens of another country. It also grants citizenship to their children.

The Canadian government doesn't know the precise number or location of individuals affected by the legislation. But it believes most are U.S. citizens, a spokeswoman for Canada's immigration office said. U.S. Department of Homeland Security records show 240,000 Canadians were naturalized in the U.S. from 1948 to 1977; the new law fixes problems that occurred during those years.

To reach that amorphous group of beneficiaries, the Canadian government has turned to YouTube. It's running an ad there titled "Waking up Canadian," in which a man awakens on April 17 to a room festooned with red-and-white Canadian flags. He's met by a welcoming committee consisting of two stuffed plush moose, a hockey player, and a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Eligible individuals automatically become Canadian citizens. But they don't get proof of that citizenship unless they apply for it, meaning other countries -- including those that allow people to be citizens of only one nation -- won't be alerted, according to the immigration office spokeswoman. Those people also may renounce their citizenship rights, she said.

The citizenship bonanza is the byproduct of a decadeslong struggle by a motley group of people who claim they were unfairly denied or lost their Canadian nationality. Canadian families who crossed the border in 1947 to 1977 to have their babies in a U.S. hospital found those children weren't recognized as Canadians unless the families registered them with the government. Some foreign brides of Canadian World War II servicemen lost their citizenship if they stayed out of the country for a decade or more.

Then there are the Canadian Mennonites who moved to Mexico in the 1920s to the 1960s. When their children and grandchildren returned to Canada, many found their nationality unclear.

Some such cases languished in litigation for years. Others surfaced in 2007, when new U.S. rules requiring passports for travel between Canada and the U.S. uncovered significant numbers of people who thought they were Canadian, but weren't. The old rules were "quite intricate," said Bill Janzen, an immigration lobbyist in Ottawa for the Mennonite Central Committee of Canada.

The new law offers citizenship to many individuals now in limbo. It also stops the previous practice of granting citizenship in perpetuity to children of Canadians born abroad, limiting eligibility to children of parents born in Canada.