Students of University of Toronto fighting deportation
By Misbah Karim | Wed, 02/11/2009 - 22:15
Two students from the University of Toronto are fighting to remain in Canada after they were handed out deportation orders last month, which ordered them to go back to Guyana.
The two students, Steve and Trisha Sherman, have been residing in Toronto since seven years and their applications for acquiring refugee status in Canada and successive appeals have been working their way through the Canadian immigration system since the year 2002.
Steve Sherman told to a news reporter that the two applied for refugee status in Canada due to their fear of racial tensions in Guyana.
He said in a telephone interview on Monday that although they have never experienced anything personally, but the influences in their neighborhood makes them feel that they are at risk.
On the 21st of January, the siblings received a notice from Immigration Canada that stated that Immigration Canada did not grant refugee status to them under the Immigration and Refugee Board Act. The siblings are told to leave Canada by the 11th of February 2009.
24-year old Trisha Sherman is few months away from graduating and her brother is studying in third year at University of Toronto.
Steve Sherman said that now they are planning to migrate to some other country where they can successfully complete their studies.
The grandparents of the students live in Toronto and have been legal guardians of the two.
Sherman said that they always heard regarding the multiculturalism society of Canada and thought that Canada might open its doors for the two of them. He said that now her sister would require one more year to graduate, in spite of the fact that she is just two credits away of acquiring her Bachelor of Arts in political science. He also estimates that even he will need to spend an extra two to three years in school in order to graduate his environmental studies program.
He said that their family has never been educated and the two thought that they would be the foundation for their family.
The worst blow for the siblings came this week when they got a letter which stated that their request to postpone their deportation order until their graduation has been rejected.
Their application was rejected by Immigration Canada on the basis that the two attended the university illegally as they were not in Canada on a student visa.
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