Mamadou Konaté, an immigrant worker from Ivory Coast who has lived in Canada for six years, is at imminent risk of deportation, which has been scheduled for November 19, 2021. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he worked in facilities accompanying vulnerable seniors. He contracted COVID-19 in the workplace. In 2020, the federal and Quebec governments launched programs to give permanent residency to refugee claimants who worked in healthcare services during COVID-19. The programmes are discriminatory against certain healthcare worker roles such as janitorial positions, like Mamadou Konaté. Instead of deporting him, the government should ensure its programmes to regularize health workers during COVID-19 fulfil its obligations towards all immigrant essential workers without discrimination.
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CONTACT INFORMATION
The Honourable Sean Fraser
Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
Ottawa, Ontario,
Canada K1A 0A6
Telephone: 613-992-6022 | Fax: 613-992-2337
Email:
[email protected]Ambassador Kirsten Hillman
Embassy of Canada
501 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington DC 20001
Phone: 202 682 1740 I Fax: 202 682 7726
Email:
[email protected]
Twitter:
@CanEmbUsa @KristenHillmanA
Salutation: Dear Ambassador
SAMPLE LETTER
Dear Minister,
I am writing to bring to your attention the case of
Mamadou Konaté, an Ivorian immigrant worker who has been living in Canada for six years and is threatened with imminent deportation. Mr. Konaté worked performing janitorial tasks in residential and long-term care facilities accompanying vulnerable seniors through months of fear and distress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, barely a year and a half later, Mamadou Konaté’s fate is uncertain as the prospect of imminent deportation looms. The deportation date is scheduled for November 19, 2021.
While the Quebec and federal regularization of status programs for health care workers expired on August 31, 2021, and the federal program to facilitate the granting of permanent residence to essential temporary workers and foreign graduates ended on November 5, 2021, Canada must not only commit to extending the duration of these programs, but also to modifying their eligibility criteria. At the moment, the eligibility criteria are still too restrictive and discriminatory, and Amnesty International in Canada has campaigned for their expansion.
Canada must live up to its commitment to put in place a fair and efficient procedure that respects the integrity of the Canadian asylum process and the human rights and freedoms of all human beings, and ensure that regularization processes are non-discriminatory. We urge you to cancel Mamadou Konaté’s deportation and grant him residency as part of the temporary program to grant permanent residency to certain foreign nationals working in the health care sector during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sincerely,
[YOUR NAME]
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
