Deepan Budlakoti was born in Ottawa in 1989. His parents came to Canada from India a few years before his birth. They were employed by the Indian embassy in the capital city as domestic workers. Deepan has lived in Canada all his life; it is the only place he calls home. Despite this, the Canadian government has stripped him of his citizenship and is actively seeking to deport him to India—a country where he knows no one, and where he has never been. India does not recognize him as their national, and has refused to issue him travel documents. By the actions of the Canadian government, Deepan has been rendered stateless.
On March 18, 2014 a packed room of law students, community members, and practitioners heard Deepan tell his story. Although his case is troubling in unique ways, it is indicative of larger trends in Canadian immigration and refugee law towards criminalization, increased detention of migrants, and citizenship stripping. To shed light on these trends, the Muslim Law Students Association partnered with the International Human Rights Program and the Asper Centre Refugee Law Working group to host a panel entitled “Crimmigration: Criminalization and Detention of Non-Citizens.”
In addition to Deepan, the panel featured U of T alum Barbara Jackman (a leading human rights and immigration lawyer), Stephanie Silverman (research associate at the Refugee Research Network), and Syed Hassan (a representative from No One is Illegal, a migrant justice group). Our own expert in the area, Professor Audrey Macklin, moderated.
“Crimmigration” is a term used in more recent scholarship to refer to the interconnectedness between immigration and criminal law, and more specifically, to the increasing use of criminal law-like sanctions and discourse to “regulate” non-citizens. Silverman noted that the rise in immigration detention is one manifestation of “crimmigration.” Since 2004, 85 000 individuals have been detained in Canada. Although courts have required that officials regularly review the detention orders, unlike in the US and UK, there is no cap on the length of detention in Canada. As of November 2013, 60 detainees have been held for over one year, awaiting deportation, including Michael Mvogo (detained for 7 years on immigration hold), and Victor Vinnetou (detained for 9 years).
Law enforcement officials can detain a noncitizen on a number of grounds, including if they believe that the individual is a threat to the public, is inadmissible to Canada, or is unlikely to appear for deportation. In addition, individuals can be detained if the government cannot confirm their identity. This is what has happened in Mvogo’s case: he arrived in Canada in 2005 on a fake US passport, and has been detained ever since because the government cannot confirm his real identity. Vinnetou also came using fake documentation in 1988. He has been held since 2004.
During the panel, Deepan talked about his own experience in immigration detention. Around the same time that the Canadian government informed him that his passport was issued “in error,” Deepan was convicted of a firearms offence. Based on his prior convictions, he was deemed inadmissible to Canada, and was issued a deportation order. After completing his criminal sentence, he was flipped onto immigration hold, and was sent to the Toronto West Detention Centre to await deportation to India. However, some months later, immigration officials concluded that he could be released (but on strict conditions) while he waits. Currently, he is fighting his deportation order in the Federal Court.
The re-detention and deportation of noncitizens convicted of criminal offences was described by the panel as a form of double-punishment. According to Barbara Jackman, “[i]f someone commits a criminal act or is engaged in criminal activity, Canada’s responsibility is to prosecute them, or if the offence occurred outside of Canada, to extradite the person to face prosecution somewhere else”. For non-citizens who are tried and convicted, Canada’s responsibility is not then to go on to deport them; the end of one form of detention (for criminality) should not simply mark the beginning of another (for immigration purposes).
Amongst other things, the panel showed how Deepan’s story captures the many ways in which Canada’s immigration and refugee law is regressing. As a stateless person, his case shows the increasing use of criminal sanctions in a non-criminal context; and as a person born and raised in Canada (with, at one point, a Canadian passport), his case shows the fragility and instability of citizenship itself.
The “Crimmigration” panel was organized by Sofia Ijaz (3L), Dharsha Jegatheeswaran (2L), Luke Mc Rae (2L), Nabila Qureshi (2L), and Lisa Wilder (3L).
For more information about Deepan’s story, please visit www.justicefordeepan.org.
