INTRODUCTION TO THE FIGUEROA FAMILY ORDEAL

Hello!!

Welcome to the "Figueroa's Family Immigration Ordeal Blog".

This Blog has been created with the purpose of keeping members of the society informed with details of different procedures done by the Figueroa Family in order to fight the Deportation Order, issued by the Immigration Board of Canada against Jose Figueroa.

We are convinced that the only way to guarantee that Justice is served for the Figueroa Family would be if a public discussion is generated within member of society, if there is a clear understanding of the complex issues that are involved and there is an active participation of members of society who can raise their voice and express their concerns about the manifest injustice against the Figueroa Family.

You can help us rights up hold the rights of the Figueroa Family by contributing with your opinions on how to get this blog better.

We welcome your thoughts and opinions which help us keep this blog within the parameters of objectivity and impartiality necessary to create the conditions for a public discussion.

On this blog you will find links not only to documents that were presented as evidence by both sides but also to sites of interest containing aspects of the Canadian and International Laws that would give some light on the case allowing you to arrive to a well informed opinion.

In order to keep ourselves within parameters of objectivity and impartiality rather than presenting you with an excerpt from any documents we link you to as much possible to complete documents so that you would be able to see the whole picture on the facts presented. For instance rather than showing you with the section of the Criminal Code of Canada that contains the concept of TERRORISM [Part 2 ; Article 83.01 on] used by the Tribunal during the proceedings, we link you to the whole document.

This blog would be updated with any information that you could provide in order to make the "Public Discussion" about the many issues that the case implies, very productive.

We appreciate your input into this effort to make Justice prevail over injustice.

INFORMATION ABOUT THE CASE..

One of the memory that is collectively shared by thousands of Salvadorans that had a great impact on our lives certainly is that of the events that lead to the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero. I mention Archbishop Romero's life because understanding his life and and his sacrifice for the most needed of our people, constitutes the best way to understand Salvadoran reality, and the context surrounding the period of the Salvadoran civil war. I was still young and was not able to totally comprehend what was going on in El Salvador when Archbishop Romero was assassinated by the death squads in March 1980, I was a silent witness of the Salvadoran drama at the beginning of the decade of 1980. It was not till the end of 1985 when I started to assist to the University that I started to little by little put the many pieces of the puzzle to which I had been witness and decided to do something about it.

El Salvador has been a polarized society ever since I can recall. The political decisions had been characterized to lean towards the extremes, specially during the period of the 80's where the main actors where clearly separated, if you manifested your opinion and talk about popular education, or show some kind of criticism towards governmental decisions you were immediately pointed out as belonging to FMLN, on the other hand, your opinion could lean more towards a governmental position. On this circumstances, the options were limited....

At the end of April 1997, my wife and I arrived to the Border of US and Canada where we made an application for Refugee Status. Our application was heard by an immigration officer who sent us back to the US to wait for them to assess the claim and decide if we were eligible to have our refugee claim heard by the IRB.

On May 6th 1997, our claim was found eligible to be heard by the board and we were allowed into Canada for further interviews. We settled in Langley, our son was born on August 1997.

In 1999 our refugee claim was heard by the IRB. We were given a response to that claim in May 2000. The Refugee claim was on the negative, and we initiated a process of appeals of the decision.

In 2002 our son was diagnosed with Autism, meanwhile along with part of the process of appeal we had presented along with a PRRA (Pre-Removal Risk Assessment), an application based on Humanitarian Ground.

In 2004, we were given the response to the PRRA and the H&C application. The PRRA was in the negative; but the H&C was approved in principle. Now, the H&C application when it was approved in principle it became an application for permanent residence in Canada. At this point, it was just a matter of fulfilling some requirements such as : medical exams, passport, CRIMINAL Record Check for us to be granted permanent resident status. This process got stall for a reason we didn't know until December 2009 when we received the notice to appear for an inadmissibility Hearing.

This proceedings started on January this year with a Pre-hearing, then dates for the hearing were set and on May 5th , the IRB adjudicator gave a deportation order...

We have omitted some specific details from this general information about the case since this specific details will be included along with the evidence and the information presented in this blog. The one key element that we need to stress now is that in 1997 when we first came into Canada, we were up-front with the Canadian Immigration officials concerning with my political support to the FMLN and my link with them. The most logical question that we need to ask is:

Given that the struggle in El Salvador was well known : Why didn't this issue of inadmissibility come to light in 1997 when we first applied for Refugee Protection at the Border US/Canada? or why this inadmissibility issue did not come to light during the Refugee Proceedings in 1999? Why didn't this inadmissibility issue come to light when they approved in principle the H&C application? In 2009, Eugenio Chicas, a well know FMLN member was invited to assist to an event in Toronto and was detained by CBSA officers on the same allegations they had presented on the admissibility hearing. (the Government of Canada express their apology to the Salvadoran Government). The answer to these and many logical questions still remains within CBSA.

THE UN COMMISSION TRUTH REPORT.

The UN Commission on Truth Report , of which we include link on this blog, gives more details of the Salvadoran Society during the Civil War that lasted 12 years. This Report was a key piece of evidence presented by both the Minister Representative ans by us during the admissibility hearing. Both of us looked at this with two different view points.

The minister representative presented an excerpt of the report as evidence will we presented the entire document. In order to understand the context of the Salvadoran Reality during the conflict this report had to be analyzed in its entire content; this would maintain your opinions within the parameters of objectivity that a court process requires. We to limit the information to facts as they transpired during the Admissibility proceedings. We would recommend to read the entire UN Commission Truth Report so that you have an idea of the context of the Salvadoran Reality.(a link to that report is presented here).

THE CHURCH VS. THE TERROR BY THE STATE

Many of you probably would have noticed, that I have posted on this blog a link to a website where you can find the Homilies from Archbishop Romero specifically the homilies of February 17th and 24th and the one from March 23rd; also there is a link to the book of Esther. You probably are wondering: What does this have to do with with the immigration case we are talking about? In order to give some light to that question, I would have to say that from our perspective the Homilies from Archbishop Romero constituted a key piece of evidence. As I recall the adjudicator who didn't know what a homily was had the very same question. When we told him that a homily was a mass... he commented that this was the very first time that he had heard that someone presents a sermon from a priest as evidence.

Before, I go on, I would like to tell you that these Homilies are in a web-site where you can easily get a translation into English. Which made it possible to transmit the main idea of what the Homilies were about.

Every Salvadoran who identifies with the struggle that we endure for over 12 years, still remembers Archbishop Romero as the voice of the voiceless, the Salvadoran people who were for years oppressed by the dictatorial Government of that period.

The Homilies of Archbishop Romero are to the period prior to the civil war what the UN Truth Commission Report is for the decade of the 80's. Archbishop Romero, used his talent to preach the word of God at the same time as he spoke for the one's that were being oppressed.

We picked the Homilies from Feb. 17th 1980, Feb. 24 1980, and Mar. 23rd 1980 (the day before he was murdered) because they reflect clearly the social, political reality before FMLN came to light, they also reflect the clamor of our nation so that other countries stop siding with oppression and injustice.

The Homily of Feb. 17th 1980, contains a letter that Archbishop Romero sent to the President of USA asking him to stop the military aid to El Salvador, because it was being used to repress the people. The Homily of Feb. 24th 1980, shows how the regime tried to silence the even the church for, Archbishop Romero knew where those threats were coming from and he denounced it. Finally, in the homily of Mar. 23rd, the day before he was murdered by the dead squads, Archbishop Romero made the most significative call to the concience of the men in the army, to stop repressing the salvadoran people.

I would suggest you read his homilies, specially the ones that we presented as evidence... For years FMLN had been wrongfully conceptualized by the regime as a Terrorist Group when in reality FMLN represented, I think this to be the best simile, FMLN represented that of the older brother who protected the little boy against the bully. (the Salvadoran regime during the conflict).

The other link which you may be wondering about is that to the book of Esther in the bible, this was not presented as evidence, yet it has been a powerful source of analysis of the current immigration issue... as a matter of fact our family link with the Walnut Grove Lutheran Church, has been a blessing since with the help of Pastor Karl and the many members of the church we have been able to piece together the inconsistencies, and the injustice that our family (unknowingly) has been force to face during all these 13 years we have been in Canada. The injustice our family has been facing is also reflected in the injustice towards the Salvadoran Community and the peace process that started with the end of the civil war and the signing of Peace Agreement of Chapultepec Mexico.

In the book of Esther, the fate of a community is being threat by a law that originated on the ill intentions that could be equally compared to the lack of knowledge of the reality of that community, fortunately even though the law could not be repealed by King Xerxes, he gave Esther's community the means to defend themselves.

THE ADMISSIBILITY PROCEEDINGS AND THE EVIDENCE BEFORE THE TRIBUNAL.

As any legal proceeding the evidence that was presented before the tribunal is very important to be preserved the way it was presented. We are making all the effort to include this evidence as it was presented to the tribunal preceding the admissibility process.

Before we continue talking on this topic, it is necessary to point out that before we knew that CBSA had brought to light that they were of the opinion that there was a possible admissibility issue, we didn't know much about the law, of the immigration law or any other laws until we were sent a notice to appear on a pre-hearing on January 2010. We were completely convinced that the delay on the processing of our permanent residency was due to back log within the Immigration system.

At the beginning of July 2009, the CBSA officer who wrote the 44 report (please reffer to section 44.(1) if the IRPA) had call home seeking to talk with me and set a date for an interview. At that time, we were happy that finally after so many years some one from immigration was doing something to finalize the process of our application. I called the officer and set the interview for July 6th 2009.

On July 6th the day of the interview, and to my surprise, the officer from CBSA started the interview by warning me that the interview was being recorded and that the objective of the interview was to discuss some possible inadmissibilities. This got me by surprise since I didn't know what inadmissibilities were, yet I opted to answer the questions he asked to the best of my knowledge. The line of questioning the CBSA officer focused only on my relationship with FMLN. Now that I now more about the law realized that I should have stop that interview at that time and request the presence of a lawyer to continue with such interview. At the end of the interview I asked the officer what was the next step to continue procesing my application to this the officer replied that he had to review his notes and then make a decision. I also asked the offficer about specific aspects concerning my family needs, the fact that we hadn't received a work permit that we had asked for and also told the officer: "I hope that God illuminates your thoughts", to this the officer replied that is not a nice thing to say: he had thought that I had said: "I hope that God eliminates your thoughts". To bad this interchange was not recorded; but I do have those words very present since what the officer had mistaken my words for made me think of some kind of prejudice on his behalf.

At the middle of December 2009, the notice to appear to a prehearing and a package of 3 volumes of "evidence" collected by the Minister of Public Safety was disclosed. I didn't know about the arrival of the package of evidence until January, my wife had not told me about it since at that time my mother had gone into a Hospital in Oregon and she was in critical conditions and the chances for her to leave the hospital were not good. At the begining of January my wife let me know about the arrival of the documents: I tried to contact the minister's representative on this case to let her know about my mother's situation and that there was a possibility for me not to be in the mood to go ahead with the pre-hearing that was scheduled for January 25th, the minister representative was not available due to health reasons until later on January. On January 15th my mother's condition had worsen and I left a message to the minister representative to call me back, after returning from work my wife told me that an officer had called back from immigration. I learned that the officer who had called was the very same officer who had made the interview back on July 6th. I called the minister's representative again on Monday 18th still was not able to get a hold on her this time I left her a message to call me back since my mother was passing away. Again to my surprise who called back was the very same officer who had made the interview on July ( this situation made me feel harrassed by the officer, this just showed the lack of sensitivity from his behalf towards the case) my thought at that moment were "doesn't this CBSA officer realize that he would be the last person I would like to talk with after that interview on July? - even with that on my mind I proceeded to tell the officer the motive for my call to the minister representative. I wanted to ask the minister representative if there was a way for them to get a humanitarian visa to go to the States and be with my mother on her last moments, since it was this CBSA officer who answer my call I just limit my self to inform him about the situation of my mother and also about my new job name and address and also that Pastor Karl Keller was going to be my legal representation in the proceedings. My mother passed away that very same evening, and I only had left a letter from the Hospital in Oregon to be presented for a humanitarian Visa.

I have extended on details of this aspects that still hurts me to remember because I feel that you need to know, the reasons why I am pushing this issue the way I have been pushing it. I promised my mother who I only could accompany over the phone, that I would do anything that is in my power to demonstrate that the allegations made in this proceedings are not true, so God knows that the moral decision I made 25 years ago were based on my feeling towards the suffering people of El Salvador.

There are more specific details of this proceedings that need to be made public so that other families not only salvadoran but any other don't have to undergo what my family has undergone for the last 13 years.

Even though allowing access to my personal information constitute a huge breach to my family privacy, that is a risk that we are willing to take in order to up-hold the rights of my family, the rights of 3 canadian Children, the rights of many salvadorans who could face the same situation.