Robert Faulkner
STAFF REPORTER
A British woman's detention after an immigration officer allegedly said she didn't look or sound British enough reveals the pressure on Canada to combat illegal immigrants and the need to improve cultural sensitivity at our borders, a Toronto immigration lawyer says.
``I wouldn't say they are isolated incidents because I routinely hear stories about immigration officers who do things I would call unacceptable,'' said Lorne Waldman, who has practised immigration law for 25 years. ``I wouldn't say it's endemic, but I think there is enough of a problem that immigration officials should do more sensitivity training.''
The case of British-born Tinuola Modupe Adewola Akintade, 33 - who was raised is Nigeria and alleges she was questioned and handcuffed at Pearson International Airport overnight last Wednesday - has forced Canadian immigration officials to face tough questions about discrimination and racial profiling.
``The Immigration Act is administered in a non-discriminatory manner,'' Citizenship and Immigration Canada spokesperson Giovanna Gatti said. ``The department collects information on illegal migration trends, and certainly we share that with our officers. We do not target specific types of people.''
But another case of alleged race-based mistreatment of a Briton of Nigerian ancestry came Tuesday, a day after the British High Commission sought assurances that the ``misjudgment'' of the officer at Pearson airport who dealt with Akintade won't reoccur.
``This is nothing new. There are always going to be incidences of immigration officers targeting people because of the way they look or talk,'' Waldman said.
Examining immigration officers take five days of basic training, three weeks of examining officer training and eight days of advanced officer training after a year on the job. This covers immigration law, report writing, computer training and interview techniques.
Gatti said immigration department staff have been required to take cultural sensitivity training in the past and will attend new diversity workshops this fall. Officers aren't trained to detect a person's origins based on their accent or appearance, she added.
Still, the approximately 100 immigration officers at Pearson often use intuition to detect unlawful entry attempts, notes Alan Lennon, a senior representative with the immigration officers' union.
``There's an enormous flow of people internationally - legitimate ones and people who will tag on to that flow and use it - so their job is to be gatekeepers,'' said Lennon, of the Canadian Employment and Immigration Union.
``When I worked for the department, we were told to look for Japanese terrorists. We asked what a Japanese terrorist looked like and were told, `Well, they look like Japanese businessmen,' which is really helpful until you detain the head of Sony,'' said Lennon, whose union has 17,000 members.
Calling Akintade's detention a rare case, Toronto immigration lawyer Mendel Green said it doesn't prove that today's immigration officers are culturally insensitive.
``It was obnoxious. But I've been practising in this field for 40 years and it's an extremely rare occurrence,'' said Green, who teaches immigration law at the University of Western and Osgoode Law School.
But Isak Gruska, an immigration lawyer who often hears complaints about officers from refugee claimants, said allowing officers to use their own judgment has its limits.
``I think it's universal to the immigration system that you have people putting preconceived notions on people coming in: a Canadian is not Sudanese-looking, someone from the U.K. doesn't have a Nigerian accent,'' Gruska said. ``But they ought to allow someone to call their high commission or their embassy; the refusal to do that takes prejudgment one step beyond.''
June 7, 2001