Emma Halpern: Fall and Refugee Law

emma halpern: Advocates fighting for three Nova Scotia-based women to remain in Canada say their cases are unusual, but not uncommon, according to The Waterloo Record. And they're hoping attention around their plight prompts governments to address what they say is a gap in youth protection policies for young people that become wards of the state, but whose residency status is not addressed by children aid workers, foster families or their biological parents. "There is this legal gap that no one is really looking at because it doesn't strictly fall under child protection, it doesn't strictly fall under criminal law, it doesn't strictly speaking fall under refugee law," says Emma Halpern, a lawyer with the Elizabeth Fry Society who is handling the women cases. "So it hard to figure out who is going to put all of the pieces of this puzzle together so that we don't end up with extremely vulnerable people in our society losing their ability to stay in a country they've lived for their whole lives." Halpern handles cases only involving women through the Elizabeth Fry Society, but the problem similarly affects men across the country. They have spent much of their lives in Canada, had children, voted and held down jobs, but now find themselves facing deportation because of immigration issues that were never resolved when they were brought to the country as children and ended up in the care of the state. In many cases, they only become aware of their lack of citizenship when they get in trouble with the law as adults and face the prospect of deportation. Cramman, whose four young daughters were born in Ontario, only became aware that she was not a Canadian citizen following a drug conviction and incarceration. The issue gained prominence recently when Fliss Cramman, a 33-year-old woman who grew up in Ontario, learned that she was to be deported back to England despite having left the country with her family when she was eight. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.