Kurdish refugee and MA student on Alan Kurdi and the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration

The famous phrase says a picture is worth a thousand words, but the distressing and tragic picture of three-year-old Alan Kurdi lying face down and lifeless on the shore with his red shirt, blue pants, and his little sneakers still on, not only painted a thousand words, but also broke the hearts of millions of people and brought tears to the eyes of millions more.
The heartbreaking death of Alan, alongside his five-year-old brother, Gulip, three other children, and seven adults not only shook the world, but also symbolized the sad reality of the current global refugee crisis, and demonstrated the international community’s defective response to it.
In the recent month alone, over 2,000 refugees, many of them children, have lost their lives in the hope of finding a safer place to live. BBC Middle Eastern Correspondent Quentin Sommerville, reported that he noticed three dead bodies when he walked for only 50 yards along the shore of Zuwara, Libya. Yet, Alan’s story is not just a symbol of a global refugee crisis, but also a Canadian crisis.
While Germany has taken the lead in providing some solution to the global refugee crisis with the promise of granting over 800,000 migrants this year, millions of Canadians woke up today feeling shocked, heartbroken, and profoundly disappointed with the revelation that their country is not doing enough to ease the tragic plight of refugees. More shockingly to some, it was revealed that the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration had done nothing to help the two Kurdi families find refuge in Canada.
Reportedly, the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration had rejected a G5 sponsorship file for Mohammad, Alan’s uncle. Although an official application was not filed for Alan, Alan’s father Abdullah, and the rest of the family, a pleading letter was sent by Alan’s aunt, Tima Kurdi. The letter was ignored, and thereby left Alan and his parents with no choice but to put their lives at the hands of smugglers. The smugglers took them, along with eight others, in a shaky small boat through a very dangerous route to the Greek island of Kos, where they ultimately faced death.
In the letter obtained by the Toronto Star, Tima explained in detail the desperate circumstances of her brothers, Abdullah and Mohammad. Tima noted the dire situation her two brothers lived in, and the danger they both faced in escaping the war-torn country of Syria. Due to legal restrictions, she planned to first sponsor Mohammad and his family, and once approved, she would sponsor the other Kurdi family. Fin Donnelly, NDP MP, delivered the letter to immigration minister Chris Alexander on March 17, and later followed up with the minister, “seeking any opportunity” to bring the brothers and their families to Canada. All of the above attempts failed in persuading the ministry to save the lives of the Kurdis.
Tima’s effort in bringing her family to Canada was rejected because of a bureaucratic technicality. Tima was told that in order for her application to be considered, her brothers needed to provide complete and appropriate documents, such as valid Syrian passports, which they had to go back to Syria to obtain before legally re-entering Turkey. Tima noted the impossibility of this task in her letter. On the one hand, returning to war-torn Syria is unimaginable. After a four-year civil war, which forced more than four million Syrians to flee the country, going back into ISIS-held territory is life threatening and precisely the reason the Kurdi families left in the first place. On the other hand, anyone familiar with the history and politics of the region can testify to the horrific ethnic cleansing of Kurds in Syria and the neighbouring governments. For example, until very recently, the Kurds in Syria were not even given legal recognition as an ethnic minority and were not given identification documents. Put simply, it was impossible to overcome this bureaucratic hurdle to obtain entry to Canada.
Nonetheless, the Kurdi family’s case does not just reveal the cruelty of red tape and the bureaucratic trap of Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration, but also points to the fundamental flaws in the transformative changes to Canada’s refugee and immigration laws. For those following Canada’s immigration and refugee policy, Alan’s picture, however tragic and heartbreaking, was not an isolated incident. Under the guise of bringing “integrity” and “efficiency” to the immigration system, the Conservative government has made it more and more difficult for refugees to apply and be accepted into Canada.
Ironically, before Alan’s picture went viral on social media, Chris Alexander sought any platform he was given to promote himself and the fact that he has cut refugee claims substantially. Yet, when Alan’s picture and the Kurdi’s case surfaced online and sparked outrage among Canadians, Prime Minister Stephen Harper responded by falsely claiming, “Our country has the most generous immigration and refugee system in the world. We admit per capita more than any other [country].” Harper’s statement was thoroughly fact-checked by CBC’s Adrienne Arsenault, who indicated that Canada only accepts about 10 per cent of refugees and has dropped to 15on the ranking of top receipting of asylum seekers, as opposed to the fifth place ranking before the Conservative government took power. Despite the false claims, Canada is not the country that accepts more refugees per capita or resettles the most refugees once they are granted status. Sweden and the United States rank first in these categories respectively.
The situation is not any better for refugees arriving in Canada. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees had criticized Canada for its treatment of refugees, particularly for the detention and deportation of refugees. In fact, in the past few years alone the Conservative government has detained tens of thousands of refugees, among whom are hundreds of children with their families. These refugees are detained in Canada Border Services Agency detention centres as well as provincial jails or maximum-security prisons, alongside criminals, waiting to be deported.  One of the conditions under which refugees could be detained and deported is lack of proper identifying documentation. So after all, if Alan’s family sought asylum in Canada, perhaps they would have faced the same fate as the thousands before them, for their inability to carry the proper documents with them.
The point of this article is not to use Alan’s and the Kurdi family’s tragic deaths for political blame-game. The point is to draw attention to a global refugee crisis, and indeed to a Canadian moral and legal immigration and refugee crisis. Almost a decade ago, my family and I took a rather similar route to that of Alan and the Kurdi family. We were granted refugee mandate status after many years in Turkey and were allowed entry to Canada. Back then, despite all of the problems, Canada had a more open, welcoming, and generous refugee system. Things have changed for the worse ever since, but it is time we changed things for the better. Prime Minister Harper says the answer is more military action to defeat ISIS, but has failed to help the Kurdi family who were from Kobani, the city that resisted ISIS for months. The people of Kobani championed not only the defeat of ISIS, but also the creation of a newer, better, more democratic, and secular society.
In 1939, Canada refused to accept Jewish refugees boarding the St. Louis voyage, resulting in the return and death of hundreds in Nazi concentration camps. “None is too many,” the immigration officials said. After several decades, Canada refused the refugee claim and sponsorship of this Kurdish family from Kobani to Canada.
Alan could have and should have been here. But as we mourn Alan’s tragic death, and his inability to voice his painful hopelessness, let us not be complicit with our silence towards this injustice, and demand a solution to the tragic plight of refugees everywhere.

Bahzad Mohammadi, Contributor 
Featured image courtesy of Facebook