News Information

• NEWS_POSTED_BY: Haiti Place
• NEWS_POSTED_ON: Jun 02, 2015
• Views : 707
• Category : Diaspora News
• Description : VERITY STEVENSON
  MONTREAL — The Globe and Mail
  Published Monday, Jun. 01 2015, 3:51 PM EDT
  Last updated Tuesday, Jun. 02 2015, 11:28 AM EDT
  
  Photo: Ulrick Lafleur, one of 3200 Haitians and 300 Zimbabweans without status, marches in a protest against deportations in Montreal, May 31, 2015.
  (Christinne Muschi For The Globe and Mail)
• Location : Montreal, QC, Canada
• Website : http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/hundreds-make-final-bids-to-stay-in-canada-after-deportation-hold-lifted/article24

Overview

• Ulrick Lafleur reaches into a brown envelope and gently pulls out a large folded piece of paper from the top of a pile of immigration forms. On official Haitian state letterhead with muted lettering, as if the printer needed ink, it informs Mr. Lafleur that his 49-year-old son, Nazaire, was shot to death and that his body was found on the street on May 12. It contains technicalities – his feet were pointing south, and his head north – but no condolences.
  
  Beneath that letter is Mr. Lafleur’s application for permanent residency in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. It is dated exactly a week later, May 19, around the same time he received the letter from Haiti.
  
  Mr. Lafleur is one of 3,500 people in Canada – 3,200 Haitians and 300 Zimbabweans – who were affected when the federal government lifted a hold on deportations to their home countries in December, deeming the situation in Haiti and Zimbabwe to be stable. Those without status were given six months to apply for residency on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
  
  Hundreds raced to submit the applications by the June 1 deadline. Some will be granted permanent residency and some will be eventually removed from Canada.
  
  For others who have been in the country for years, it’s their second or third application to stay in Canada. Prior rejections and the thought of it happening again have discouraged many from filing the application and they have gone underground.
  
  Read more here >>