Toronto lawyer says Canada blocked visa applications without explanation for Gazans fleeing war

When in-migration attorney Hana Marku opened her email weeks agone to a photo of an emaciated infant in the Gaza dismantle, she said she mat helpless.

The child is among about 50 Palestinians the Toronto-based lawyer is representing. She said each one was blocked without explanation from submitting applications under the temporary visa program the Canadian government created to help them flee the Israel-Hamas war.

"She's a baby girl who was born last year, and she was born into this war," Marku said. "An infant whose bones I can count just by looking at a photo of her."

Marku said her clients in the Gaza Strip are facing death every day. One narrowly escaped being killed as he was bringing home flour after a bomb fell nearby, she said. Some have witnessed loved ones crushed by falling rubble.

The situation has prompted her to request a ruling from Federal Court declaring the Immigration Department has unreasonably delayed the processing of her clients' applications, and that it acted unfairly by failing to explain the reason for the delays. She also wants the Federal Court to order the Immigration Department to reopen and consider her clients' applications.

The Canadian government opened the temporary visa program in January of 2024. As part of the process, family members based in Canada were asked to submit documents then wait for a reference code that would allow them to finalize their applications.

Marku said that despite all her clients applying within a month of the program opening, none were given the chance to complete their applications, because their codes never arrived. The Immigration Department never communicated with her clients to say why they had not received codes or to explain the status of their applications either, she says.

Then this March, more than one year after the program opened, each of her clients received an email from the Canadian government stating that the program had reached its cap and had closed — and that none of them would be able to complete applications.

Marku says the government did not follow the procedures it set for the visa program.

"The instructions, which the applicants relied upon, said that as long as the web form submissions were complete they would either receive codes, or an explanation about why they are not eligible," she said.

The Canadian Press spoke with a family member of several of Marku's clients, and agreed not to name him because of his fears that revealing his identity would put his family at risk in the Gaza Strip.

He said he submitted applications for six family members on Jan. 9, 2024, but none got approved under the program.

"We followed the process," he said.

He said his sister and mother were later permitted to enter Canada through a separate visa program, and they have since applied for refugee status.

He said he had to take matters into his own hands to get them out of Gaza, since Canada couldn't evacuate them. In April 2024, he flew to Cairo, paying US$15,000 in cash to smugglers who managed to transport two sisters and his mother through the Rafah border into Egypt on April 28.

"They were lucky," he said.

One of his sisters remains in Cairo, he said, because she couldn't get approval to come to Canada.

Marku submitted a letter to the Federal Court this August requesting an emergency hearing to resolve the issue.

"Under the Federal Court rules, there is no mechanism to seek an expedited decision at this stage. It just doesn't exist," she said, saying her request for an emergency hearing wasn't meant to serve as a legal argument, but rather as a humanitarian plea.

The court has acknowledged Marku's request, but she said it didn't indicate how it plans to move forward.

The Canadian government publicly endorsed a UN-backed finding in August that famine is occurring in the Gaza Strip.

In a letter obtained by The Canadian Press, lawyers for the Immigration Department wrote that while they recognize the situation in Gaza is difficult, the case is ultimately "futile and moot."

"The policy cap has already been reached," they wrote to the Federal Court. "Receiving unique codes cannot assist them with their situations in Gaza."

In a statement, the Immigration Department told The Canadian Press its policy only required it to process applications submitted before it had reached its cap. The department declined to comment on the litigation.

As of July 29, a total of 880 Palestinians have arrived in Canada through the visa program, which had a cap of 5,000, according to Canada's Immigration Department. Over 1,775 have also left Gaza and have been approved under the program, but have yet to arrive in the country.

Another 400 came in through other immigration programs, it noted.

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