Opinion: Canada\u0027s immigration system is so chaotic that even heavyweight law firms haven\u0027t been able to help get former Afghan employees to safety.
The Taliban has labelled them all as spies. And in a failed state where 60 per cent are suffering from acute hunger, there is no guarantee that friends or neighbours won’t act as informants in exchange for food or favours.
Last July, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to offer refuge to 18,000 Afghans who had a “significant and/or enduring relationship with the government of Canada.” So far, only 6,230 have arrived, and only 10,315 applications have been approved.Article content “To this day, the Taliban have been very much going after the security forces of the former government fear of some sort of resistance coming from those people,” Shajjan said in a telephone interview from Toronto.
But Shajjan expects once the Taliban are confident that house-to-house searches have ferreted out the resisters, they will begin “cracking down on journalists, lawyers and people that they think are ‘thought leaders’ who can cause some sort of problems for them.”Article content Soon after Shajjan arrived last October, he was interviewed by CBC. Serendipitously, Kristin Taylor was listening. She is the managing partner at Cassels Brock and Blackwell. She contacted Shajjan that day to offer help.
Cassels has also enlisted other big and small law firms across the country as well as the bar associations in its advocacy. Shajjan, who has always been an integral part of the effort, was hired by Cassels in April. The firm is now helping him navigate a whole other set of hurdles — getting qualified to practise law in Canada.Article content
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