Deportation of one undocumented woman: bodies are a challenge to the City of Montreal

Zechariah Goudreault

Sunday, 25 march, 2018 18:15

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Sunday, 25 march, 2018 18:15

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Agencies montreal are urging the municipal government to make the metropolis a safe place for people without legal status while in the deportation of a guatemalan women, Lucy Francineth Granados, is planned for Tuesday.

“The City must ensure that people are protected and can do their approaches [immigration] without fear of deportation”, was raised Sunday, Richard Goldman, lawyer and spokesperson of the round Table of organizations serving refugees and immigrants.

Last year, the previous municipal administration had adopted a declaration aiming to make Montreal a “city sanctuary”, where people without legal status could live and benefit of municipal services without fear of being expelled from the country.

The mayor of Montreal, Valerie Plant, however, has recognized Sunday during a press briefing that this status currently has no legal value. “Montreal is not a city of sanctuary, like certain american cities. The canadian legal framework is very different and does not give me as mayor of Montreal the ability to protect someone from deportation,” she stressed.

Ms. Plant says, however, that the City of Montreal is currently studying measures it could take to “protect the people [non-status] of the denunciation”.

According to Me Goldman, the City of Montreal should ask his police force not to report to the border services people without status adopted in the framework of their functions in order to avoid the expulsion thereof.

Deportation

Several organizations have joined their voices Sunday in a press conference calling for the suspension of the deportation of Lucy Francineth Granados, scheduled for Tuesday.

On march 20, employees of the Agency of Canada border services arrested Ms. Granados at his home, in the neighborhood of Villeray. The latter, a native of Guatemala, has been detained in the detention centre in Laval.

“We can not tolerate such abuses against the rights of the person. They are arresting people who do not have papers, but they are not criminals. This is unacceptable,” said Viviana Medina, a community organizer at the Centre for immigrant workers, an organization where dr. Granados is a lot involved in the last few years.

Ms. Granados, who is a mother of three children who remained in Guatemala, remains in Montreal for the past nine years. Five years after seeing his asylum request be rejected in 2012, she made an application for permanent residence on humanitarian and compassionate grounds last year, which is in the course of treatment.

“She has done nothing wrong to anyone. All she wants is the good of his children […] She deserves to get the permanent residence”, said with tears in her eyes, Yessenia Granados, the aunt of Lucy Francineth Granados.

– With the collaboration of Sarah Daoust-Braun