By Anna Mehler Paperny

TORONTO, (Reuters) – Canada continues to lock up immigrants indefinitely after the deaths of the pandemic. This is according to government data obtained from Reuters.

While authorities cite an increase in foreign travel amid loosening restrictions, lawyers claim that their clients were detained years ago.

Canada held 206 people in immigration detention as of March 1, 2022 – a 28% increase compared with March 1 of the previous year. The data shows that 68% of the detained immigrants were held in Canada as they fear being “unlikely” to be present at an immigration hearing.

The rise puts Canada at odds with Amnesty International and other human rights groups that have urged Ottawa to end its use of indefinite immigration detention, noting CBSA has used factors such as a person’s mental illness as reason to detain them.

A spokesperson for CBSA told Reuters that detention will increase when there are more Canadians entering the country. CBSA previously stated that it only uses detention in cases of emergency.

A lawyer said to Reuters that her clients were in Canada for many years.

According to statistics, the United Kingdom also saw an increase in immigration detention after levels dropped earlier during the pandemic. The European Union has limits on immigration detention, and these limits are not higher than six months, unlike Canada and Australia.

Refugee lawyers warn that the rise of detentions could lead to COVID-19 infection in congregate environments.

Julia Sande (Human Rights Law and Policy Campaigner for Amnesty) called the rise in detentions “disappointing, but not surprising,” though she hesitated to draw any conclusions from very limited data.

Early in the pandemic, the number of immigrants detained in Canada fell from an average daily of 301 (January to March 2019-20) to 126 (April through June 2020-21).

FEW NO-SHOWS AS DETENTIONS DROPPED

According to data from Immigration and Refugee Board, detaining fewer persons did not lead to a substantial increase in the number of no-shows at hearings on immigration. This is the leading reason for detention.

In 2021, there was a 5.5% average percentage of non-shows, as opposed to 5.9% for 2019.

In October 2020, no-shows rose to 16%. However, a spokesperson from the Immigration and Refuge Board stated that this is due to the fact that people didn’t receive notifications after the pandemic pause.

Andrew Brouwer is a Refugee Lawyer. He said Canada did not have to keep as many citizens in captivity during the pandemic.

“We did not see many no-shows. We didn’t see the sky fall … It for sure shows that the system can operate without throwing people in jail,” Brouwer said.

He added that detainees face harsh pandemic conditions in provincial jails – including extended lockdowns, sometimes with three people in a cell for 23 hours a day.

Swathi Sekhar, a refugee lawyer, said that while the CBSA and Immigration and Refugee Board reviewed detentions they took COVID-19 risk into consideration when making decisions about whether someone should have been detained sooner in the pandemic. However, this is less true now.

She said, “Their position was that COVID should not be considered a factor in favor of release.”

We also find very strange findings. [decision-makers]stating outright that people will be more secure in prison.

Reuters requested comment from the Immigration and Refugee Board, but it did not immediately reply.