Rights Advocates: Immigration and Ebrahim Toure

rights advocates: Ebrahim Toure is Canada's longest-held immigration detainee Anne-Marie Jackson / Toronto Star Non-citizens have a right to liberty and to be protected from cruel and unusual treatment, but as this report shows, this right is routinely flouted under immigration legislation, said Janet Dench of the Canadian Council for Refugees, according to Toronto Star. Last year, 3,557 people were held in immigration detention in Canada. The damning findings, including decision-making based on inaccurate information, unchallenged faith in border enforcement officials and inadequate legal representation for detainees, have shocked even the most seasoned critics and rights advocates. Eighty-eight per cent of detainees were released within 90 days. Ebrahim Toure, 46, a failed refugee claimant who has been detained for five years pending deportation to Gambia, is currently the longest serving immigration detainee. But in 80 cases, people were held for more than a year behind bars.A Star investigation last year found an immigration detention system that indefinitely warehouses non-citizens, away from public scrutiny and in conditions intended for a criminal population, with hundreds of unwanted immigrants left to languish behind bars. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.