Canada Border Services Agency and Canadian Human Rights Commission

Marie-Claude Landry: The Canada Border Services Agency holds people who are considered a flight risk or a danger to the public and those whose identities cannot be confirmed, according to The Chronicle Herald. In 2013-14, it detained 10,088 immigrants — almost one-fifth of them refugee claimants — in a variety of facilities, including federal holding centres and provincial and municipal jails. Marie-Claude Landry, chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, says in a statement that asking for refugee status is not a crime. On March 7, the border services agency was notified by the Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services that an individual in immigration detention at the Toronto East Detention Centre had died. Landry says in-custody deaths shine a light on thousands of undocumented people arbitrarily detained by the border agency because they requested asylum. Six days later, the border agency was advised by the Ontario ministry that a person detained at the Maplehurst Correctional Complex had died. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.