Recent Publications: Refugee Rights

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government should take note of the fundamental role that foreign workers, including refugees, play in our food and health care systems.

The future to which we return must look different from the past. Not just in defending against an infectious virus, but also in resisting a society marred with poverty and ecological devastation.

COVID-19 has almost completely choked off the flow of refugees to Canada, which has refugee sponsors worried about the backlog building up.

This year, on World Refugee Day, CPJ published Continuing Welcome, a progress report on the impact of refuge rights advocacy efforts since 2017. 

Sending irregular border-crossers back into the U.S. risks putting them into the custody of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and endangers their lives,” said Stephen Kaduuli, CPJ’s refugee rights policy analyst.

COVID-19 has put the whole world in extraordinary circumstances. CPJ believes that we should maintain our commitment to the common good of protecting the rights of refugees and other vulnerable people.

Stephen Kaduuli, a refugee rights analyst with CPJ, said that detainees “feel like sitting ducks.”

Despite our small population, Canada has had an outsized impact on the climate crisis. Now we have a moral imperative to welcome those displaced by climate change.

We should remain committed to our obligation to protect the rights of refugees and other vulnerable people. Turning asylum seekers away at borders is counter to those rights and our international obligations. 

The Canadian Government can improve the integration of refugees and address their barriers to language training.