Canada Border Services Agency: Detained Refugees

Asylum Seekers Dept: Detained refugees in the Vancouver area are more likely than their counterparts in Toronto or Montreal to be held in a provincial jail or pretrial facility rather than an immigration holding centre, according to Vancouver Sun. Canada Border Services Agency officers have the discretionary authority to detain refugee claimants when the officer has reasonable grounds to believe the person poses a danger to public safety, is a flight risk, or when the person's identity has not been adequately proven and asylum seekers are not criminals and B.C. is flouting inter-national law by treating them as such, according to a report pre-pared for the United Nations' refugee agency. This means asylum seekers are held alongside prisoners and are subject to all the same restrictions - even though they are not criminals - and have limited access to legal counsel, argued the report, entitled The Human and Financial Cost of Asylum Seekers in Canada and released last month. It was written by Delphine Nakache, a University of Ottawa international development professor. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.