From the equality of rights springs identity of our highest interests; you cannot subvert your neighbor's rights without striking a dangerous blow at your own. Carl Schurz

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

The Harperites attempting to deport a Canadian citizen

I've never much favoured deporting people who came to this country as children,believing that they are our problem to deal with, after all they are products of our society. Add in the fact that doing so reeks of off loading our problems onto some one else and that dumping the deportee in a nation and culture where he has no ties seems to me to be cruel and inhumane.

Which brings me to Deepan Budlakoti who despite being born in Canada plus in possession of an Ontario birth certificate and a Canadian passport faces the possibility of being deported. The Harperites are pulling out all the stops in their zeal to deport Budlakoti,who has been convicted of breaking and entering and selling a handgun to an undercover police officer, by hauling out every technicality they can find. Luckily Budlakoti has evidence and someone willing to back up his claim but will it be enough to fend off the Harper attack dogs

. “It is frightening when you see situations where someone who is a Canadian citizen faces forced removal from Canada,” said Peter Stieda, the Ottawa lawyer handling the case. “We have to fight hard to make sure this doesn’t happen to a Canadian.”

Initially the feds claimed that Budlakoti isn't really a Canadian citizen because his parents worked as household servants for the Indian High Commissioner. which would indeed render him ineligible for automatic citizenship. This has however been disputed by Deepan and Ottawa physician and university professor Harsha Dehejia, who say Budlakoti's father was working for him at the time of Deepan's birth and not the High Commissioner as immigrations officials allege. With this avenue of approach closing on them the government is now saying that Budlakoti isn' t a Canadian citizen because his parents neglected to include him in their application for landed immigrant status that they successfully submitted several years later. Of course believing their son was already a Canadian citizen why would they.
 
“The government seems very keen to remove Deepan, and dump him in a place where he doesn’t speak the language and knows almost no one,” Mr. Stieda said. “He is obviously scared, very scared, spent all of two weeks in Indian when he was a child, he doesn’t speak the language, knows nothing about the country.”

Which brings me back to where I started even if the government's case was solid which it isn't , it would still be wrong to deport Deepan Budlakoti from Canada the land of his birth to a country he has never known,

8 comments:

  1. This is most disturbing. While we so easily deport CANADIAN CITIZENS (often based on ethnicity) we welcome world war criminals... there is something so very wrong with our government, it is about time people start exercising their critical thinking abilities!

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  2. Yes indeed Min as we've seen with Tepper, Arar ,Khadr etal citizenship means very little to this government. Who is truly safe from them?

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  3. Thanks for this, Kev. I would have missed it if not for you. Very disturbing.

    Every Canadian citizen should decry this, but those of us who were born outside of Canada should be especially outraged! I'll share this news everywhere.

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  4. Thanks Laura I would add though that foreign born Canadian citizens should be more than outraged they should also unfortunately be fearful as well

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  5. I see from Googling this first came to light in August. I totally missed it.

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  6. I just found this story today myself. There is so much wrong with society these days that it has become increasingly difficult to keep up on events

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  7. A sad commentary on the mindset of our current government, this case is reminiscent of the Dept. of Immigrations abuse of power & its attempt to deport Orton Wade in 1932. Arrested for speaking at a Communist sponsored May Day event in Winnipeg, the Bennett government then tried to deport him despite the fact he was a born in Canada & held Citizenship.

    See: Barbara Roberts, "Whence they came: deportation from Canada, 1900-1935" pp.140-142

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  8. This is why a knowledge of history is so vital, without it we cannot fully understand the present

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