Budget Cuts: Byron Cruz and Sanctuary Health

budget cuts: Legal aid has already faced budget cuts over the past 15 years that have hampered many British Columbian immigrants' ability to properly access a lawyer in times of need, said one migrant advocate, according to Metro News. Cutting the services even more will cut to the bone and potentially put lives at risk, said Byron Cruz, an organizer with Sanctuary Health. Now, just one week after World Refugee Day, the non-profit society administering B.C.'s free legal aid for low-income people to access justice said in a statement that due to a lack of funding from the federal Liberals, the agency will no longer accept applications for immigration and refugee cases starting in August. Already many families and individuals were rejected from legal aid, he told Metro in an email. According to the Legal Services Society LSS the problem is that its budget on the immigration file is separate from other low-income assistance it provides, and simply hasn't kept pace with the global refugee crisis that is the worst it's been since World War II. The global refugee crisis has resulted in a 145 percent increase in refugee cases over the past three years, the LSS stated. This lack of representation really puts people's lives at risk It is a real crisis. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.