Immigration Detention Centre: Chandru

Mandatory Detention Dept: BANGKOK - Chandru is in limbo. The 25-year-old Sri Lankan refugee has been waiting in Thailand for five years to be resettled in a safe country. He spent four years of that time locked in an overcrowded, windowless cell in the immigration detention centre in Bangkok, according to Vancouver Sun. His sisters and mother have resettled in the United States, but Chandru is still waiting for a country to accept him. Although he's out on bail and checks in with immigration officials every two weeks, he constantly fears being arrested and thrown in the centre again and when two migrant ships carrying 568 Tamils arrived off Victoria's shores, the federal government cracked down, bringing in a tough refugee law that will throw boat people into mandatory detention in provincial jails. The plan is modelled on the one used by Australia - a system that studies say has cost huge amounts of money and has failed. Times Colonist reporter Katie DeRosa, funded by the inaugural R. James Travers Foreign Corresponding fellowship, travelled to Australia and Southeast Asia to examine the system and what it could mean for Canada and Canadian taxpayers. His three sisters and mother spent two years in detention before they were released on bail last fall. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.