Child, dad, get chance to stay in Canada

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This article was published 12/12/2019 (1595 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Federal Court judge has decided that nine-year-old Kashaf Zahra should get another chance to stay in Canada.

In September, human rights lawyer David Matas went to court with the child from Pakistan and her father, Zahid Abbas, to ask Justice Shirzad Ahmed to assign a new Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada member to adjudicate a refugee protection hearing.

Kashaf was born with Poland syndrome, which is characterized by an underdeveloped chest muscle and short webbed fingers on one side of the body. As a girl with disabilities, and her parents’ “mixed” Sunni-Shia marriage, she — and her mom who has been assaulted because of it — was a target for discrimination and persecution, according to the refugee claim she and her dad filed when they entered Canada in 2017.

They’d been in United States after the Shriners Hospital for Children in Tampa, Fla., transported Kashaf there so surgery could be performed on the webbed fingers of her right hand. Her family of four was allowed only two U.S. visitor visas. Her mother and little sister went to Islamabad for their safety, while Kashaf and her father travelled to Tampa. A Florida immigration lawyer told Abbas that making an asylum claim in the U.S. is a costly and hopeless proposition for people from Pakistan. Abbas decided they’d seek asylum in Canada. They flew to Minnesota and crossed the border at Emerson, Man. on foot.

Their refugee claim was rejected because the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada member said they could’ve found somewhere safe to stay in Pakistan.

In his Dec. 10 decision, Justice Shirzad Ahmad wrote that that decision was unreasonable. After hearing the arguments in the case, he wrote that Kashaf’s family did not have a viable “internal flight alternative.” In other words, there’s no place in Pakistan where those persecuting them wouldn’t find them.

A new hearing will be conducted by the refugee appeal division, and that could take a year, Matas said Friday.

“It’s wonderful,” said Kashaf’s dad, Abbas, who’s been working at a Tim Hortons while raising his daughter and trying to stay positive. For months, he checked the Federal Court website every day to see if a decision had been posted. He hopes to bring his wife and youngest daughter here.

“Our total assets are our two daughters. We’re trying to provide them a safe and secure chance at life.” When he found the decision online this week, he had to take some deep breaths before he read it. At the bottom, he found the judge’s decision.

“I told my daughter and she started crying,” he said. “She made a phone call to her mom right away, even though it was 11 o’clock at night in Pakistan. She’s very happy.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca