Pressure mounts for ‘Status for All!’

Pressure mounts for ‘Status for All!’

Separated Families on Canada’s Family Day

This morning (February 21, 2022), migrants visited Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland’s office in Toronto.

They brought with them photos of nearly 200 migrant families who are separated from their loved ones as many provinces mark Family Day.

While people across the country are spending time today with those closest to them, millions of migrants are kept apart. We live here, and we take care of communities but we are missing birthdays, funerals and anniversaries because we are denied immediate permanent resident status.

Share our photos on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram right now with Prime Minister Trudeau and urge him to ensure full and permanent immigration status for all.

If you aren’t on social media, please forward this email to your friends.

Family photos were also mailed today by Migrant Workers Alliance for Change in a personalized postcard to every Member of Parliament in Canada with the message: “You love your family, so do we. Families belong together. Speak up for full and permanent immigration status for all. Let us love our loved ones.”

Most of the 1.6 million migrant workers, students, refugees, families and undocumented people in Canada cannot apply for permanent residency and therefore family reunification visas, or even visitor permits for family members. We are separated from our families for decades.

This includes migrant farmworkers like Celia, who has been coming to Canada for 23 years. She says, “As a migrant mother, it is agonizing to be so far away, without being able to touch them, without being able to hug them, without hearing their voices looking for mom looking for a hug. I had a very sick girl, and sometimes I wanted to fly to see her. It broke my heart not being able to do it.”

Queen, a non-status Caribbean long-term care worker, has been in Canada for over ten years. During this time, she has lost her husband, great aunt, brother and father. She said, “I will never hold them again, share their laughter over a meal or talk about future plans. My last conversation with my dad was via video. I couldn’t hug him, comfort him in any way as he departed this earth. How is this fair? Permanent resident status for all 1.6 million migrants presently in Canada without documentation or caught in backlogs is mandatory.”

Tens of thousands of migrants are also a processing backlog. While the federal government has made many announcements recently, over 16,000 migrant care workers who have been separated from their families for years, well before COVID-19 disrupted processing, have not been provided status.

Tina Weeska, a migrant care worker who has been waiting for permanent residency since August 2018,says, “I miss my family so much! It is my dream to bring them here to Canada as soon as possible so we can work, study, live together and be settled. But I cannot sponsor my son because he is considered too old. This is the saddest thing for me. This long separation is ridiculous, why does it take so long to process a PR application?”

Help make sure this message is heard. Share now on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and forward this email to friends asking them to sign on at www.StatusforAll.ca

Together, we will win!

Migrant Rights Network

(PRESS RELEASE)