She fled Jamaica for Hamilton because she believed her ex would kill her
It has been more than four years since she last saw her three oldest children and she's not sure how much more she can take.
Everything is falling apart, I'm really, really worried," says the mother, whom The Spectator has agreed not to name because she fears for her children's safety.
When she left them behind in Jamaica she didn't know how long they would be apart. She fled because she believed her former husband would kill her if he found out she was pregnant. Now she worries about her older children's safety as she tries to bring them to Canada.
She lives in Hamilton and is trying to work and care for her three-year-old daughter, who has never met her older sisters and brother. Sometimes she wonders if she should just give up, go back and risk her life just to see her children again, she says.
Part of her fight has been against routine bureaucracy: forms and deadlines and the long wait for family reunification. But it's more complicated than just waiting for the Government of Canada to grant her and her children permanent residency.
The woman and her immigration consultant, John Edwards, have twice applied for visitor's visas for the children - now 11, 17 and 22. If approved these would allow the children to visit their mom temporarily while they wait for permanent residency applications to be processed. Twice they have been rejected.
Canada a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child," Edwards said. There are children separated from their mother, who had a successful refugee claim."
A dual intent" visa is a process where someone who is or may be applying for residency can also come to Canada temporarily. According to the letters shared with The Spectator, her children's applications were rejected because the Government of Canada does not believe they will leave when the visas end.
The woman and Edwards say that's unfair to assume they won't follow the rules, but moreover the rejections leave her children in a potentially unsafe place and prolong the separation between the children and their mother.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) spokesperson Julie Lafortune said the children are eligible to apply for temporary visas. Dual-intent applications are fairly and individually assessed, just like all applications. She said applicants must meet all legislated requirements, specifically the requirement to leave Canada at the end of the period authorized for their stay."
The government has offered no explanation why they believe the family won't follow the rules.
Before she came to Canada, the woman says she had an abusive relationship with the father of her first three children. They weren't together, but she says he still expected her and the children to live in his family's compound. He would come and go, often travelling to another country for months at a time, but would expect her to be there when he returned, the woman says.
During one of his absences, she became pregnant with another man's child. Based on his past violent and threatening behaviours, she believed he would kill her if he found out, so she left the country using a visitor's visa that she had from an earlier, unrelated trip. She wasn't sure what she was going to do. But while she was in Canada she heard that her ex found out about the baby and she knew she couldn't go back; she applied for refugee status on the basis that she feared for her life.
At first, her sister was staying with her children at the family compound in Jamaica, but she was forced to leave and now the mother says her children are often left alone and she fears for their safety. She does speak with them on the phone, but sometimes it's difficult to get through. Her children have told her they are scared and have run away to avoid their dad when he comes home.
The words he uses ... really affects them mentally," she says. Especially the girls, they're afraid."
The mom was granted refugee status based on her fears he would kill her, but the refugee application did not extend to her children. She applied for permanent residency and for her children to join her.
Edwards says the entire package containing all applications was sent by express post to IRCC's case processing centre in Mississauga. The Spectator has viewed the 118 pages of various forms that comprise the applications. In a letter dated Oct. 19, 2021, IRCC confirmed it received the woman's application. Since then the only correspondence that she and Edwards say they have received about the permanent residency application was a letter on May 19, 2022, asking for a form, which they say was promptly completed.
IRCC spokesperson Lafortune said the mother's application is in progress and still within the published processing times of 21 months. The applications for her children cannot be finalized until the mother is confirmed as a permanent resident.
However, Lafortune also said that a request for more documents for the children's applications was emailed this past July 11, and has not been answered. The outstanding information includes application forms, copies of passports, birth certificates, other forms and payment of fees.
The only problem is Edwards says he never received such an email. He also says all the completed applications were sent together on the same day - all 118 pages - so he doesn't understand how some of the documents are there and others not. Was some of the application lost? How could some of the forms be there and others not?
IRCC did not offer further explanation but said it would re-send the requests for more information.
It took so much for me to leave my children," the mother says. Now she is torn apart" not knowing if and when she will ever see them again.
Nicole O'Reilly is a crime and justice reporter at The Spectator. noreilly@thespec.com