A spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said the issue of missing foreign criminals facing deportation was the direct responsibility of the border agency.EMILY ELCONIN/Reuters
Ministers are facing questions on the whereabouts of almost 500 foreign criminals facing deportation, including offenders convicted of multiple sexual offences.
Among them are around 30 offenders guilty of serious crimes including culpable homicide and other violent offences.
Canada Border Services Agency says that, as of December last year, the “whereabouts are unknown” of 29,719 people facing removal from Canada, including 469 facing deportation “for criminality or criminal convictions in Canada.”
Among them were foreign nationals convicted of multiple sexual offences. Some of them have been sought for so long their arrest warrants have expired.
Among the criminals the CBSA has lost track of is Abdirahman Moumin Okie from Ethiopia, a convicted sex offender, whose last known address was in Montreal.
Mr. Okie, who has a number of aliases, is subject to a Canada-wide arrest warrant and is on the Canada Border Services Agency’s “wanted” list.
The “Wanted by the CBSA” webpage, which includes his mugshot, says: “This individual is inadmissible to Canada for serious criminality for being convicted of forcible confinement, committing a sexual assault along with another person and conspiracy to commit sexual assault.”
The pandemic, which imposed global travel restrictions, put many planned deportations in 2020 on hold, including those of foreign criminals whom the courts ordered to be sent home after serving a prison sentence.
The border agency declined to say how many offenders facing deportation for criminal activity during the pandemic it has lost track of.
“The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) is strongly committed to ensuring the safety and security of Canadians. Removing individuals who are inadmissible for criminality is of paramount importance,” said Rebecca Purdy, a CBSA spokeswoman.
But Raquel Dancho, Conservative shadow minister for public safety, says the government must answer urgent questions about how many foreign criminals are still missing. She said “allowing violent criminals with a high chance of reoffending to walk our streets” is putting Canadians at risk.
“The Minister of Public Safety needs to explain to Canadians how and why they allowed multiple violent offenders who were serving sentences for murder and sexual offences to be knowingly released into our communities. It is just as concerning that there are almost 30,000 people eligible for deportation that the government has lost track of – and an astounding 500 of them are known or convicted criminals,” she said.
A 2020 auditor-general’s report on immigration removals raised serious concerns that the border agency had lost track of the whereabouts “of a large number of foreign nationals” facing deportation, sometimes for years.
“It issued immigration warrants for their arrest but seldom completed the annual investigations to locate those with criminality,” the report said.
It said case files were missing, and there were delays in processing data. Even high-priority cases were stalled or inactive. Missing travel documents, such as passports, meant people could not be deported, yet “little was done to obtain these documents.”
“Despite a recent increase in removals, about 50,000 enforceable cases had continued to accumulate in the agency’s inventory. In two-thirds of these cases, the agency did not know the whereabouts of the individuals. Most of the accumulated cases had been enforceable for several years,” the auditor-general’s report said.
Conservative Senator Don Plett, leader of the opposition in the Senate, has asked ministers to say how many foreign criminals set for deportation who went missing during the pandemic are still unaccounted for.
The border agency told Mr. Plett in a written reply to a question he asked that though it “halted most removals at the outset of the pandemic, removals of foreign nationals with serious inadmissibilities continued whenever possible.”
“As of December 1, 2021, there are 48,486 foreign nationals subject to enforceable removal orders. Of these 29,719 are individuals whose whereabouts are unknown,” the border agency said in its parliamentary reply, adding that 469 of them “had removal orders issued against them for criminality or criminal convictions in Canada.”
Mr. Plett told The Globe and Mail that “serious questions deserve serious answers” and the government “devotes insufficient policy attention to protecting Canadians.”
“Dangerous individuals who are here illegally, and no longer under sentence, should be removed from Canada. Period,” he said. “Trudeau ministers should stop hiding behind their talking points and instead take the time needed to ensure that dangerous individuals are swiftly removed from the country.”
Many foreign offenders due to be deported at the end of their prison sentence live in the community on parole, while others remain in custody. Some are put on “immigration bail” while waiting to be deported. Some appeal the decision to expel them in the courts, including through judicial review.
The level of supervision offenders face is partly based on their risk of disappearing before being expelled. Conditions of parole can include a curfew, living in a halfway house, or geographical restrictions, with some facing electronic surveillance such as monitoring tags.
Mr. Plett has also asked the Minister of Public Safety about the whereabouts of 58 foreign criminals granted parole before the last election who had not been successfully deported. According to Correctional Service Canada, some were serving a sentence for a culpable homicide, or another violent offence, with eight serving a sentence for at least one sexual offence.
In the written reply, signed by Pam Damoff, parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Public Safety, CSC said some of them had been living “in the community,” some were returned to custody, one died and three were deported. Others had a new trial ordered. Some are no longer under CSC’s jurisdiction as their warrant has reached its expiry date.
Canada-wide arrest warrants are issued for the most dangerous missing criminals, as well as other high-profile targets of the immigration authorities who have evaded arrest.
Mugshots placed on the CBSA’s “Wanted” website have led to 70 people sought by the immigration services being found and 65 of them being removed from Canada.
“By publicizing the identities of these individuals, the CBSA is enlisting the help of the public in locating these individuals,” the website says. “Do not attempt to contact, approach or apprehend these individuals yourself.”
A spokesman for Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said the issue of missing foreign criminals facing deportation was the direct responsibility of the border agency.
The border agency told the Commons committee on public accounts, for a February 2021 inquiry, that in November 2020 there were 52,000 enforceable removal orders, including 33,825 people in the “wanted” inventory “involving foreign nationals who could not be located.”
Ms. Purdy, the CBSA spokeswoman, said when a foreign national is convicted of a crime in Canada and ordered by the courts to be deported they must complete their sentence first. She said they are “monitored closely by the CBSA” to ensure that they are removed as soon as possible.