Canada should immediately release a man who has been imprisoned for eight years over immigration violations, says a United Nations human rights monitoring body.

“The inability of a state party to carry out the expulsion of an individual does not justify detention beyond the shortest period of time or where there are alternatives to detention, and under no circumstances indefinite detention,” said the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions.

The opinion, released this week, is in response to a complaint by advocates on behalf of the immigration detainee, Michael Mvogo, who has been held since his arrest in 2006 at a Toronto homeless shelter. It is the first such opinion issued in a case involving Canada since 1994, when records started.

Although the Canadian government is not bound by the UN opinion to release Mvogo, the End Immigration Detention Network hopes it can pressure Ottawa to change its current immigration detention policy and align with other countries by limiting the detention to 90 days.

“Immigrants are regularly held in prison pending deportation while authorities attempt to verify their identity or gather travel documents from countries of origin,” said Macdonald Scott, Mvogo’s legal counsel, who plans to release the UN opinion at a Toronto news conference Thursday.

“This UN ruling adds to a growing chorus of voices that insists that those are not sufficient grounds for detentions. They should simply not take place.”

Arriving Canada in 2005 on a fraudulent American passport under the name of Andrea Jerome Walker, Mvogo’s story represents the dilemma faced by both border officials and many immigration detainees who do not see their release coming any time soon.

Canadian officials have made numerous attempts to deport him to the United States, Haiti and Guinea, where he was allegedly linked. His fingerprints were later matched with individuals with records in Haiti and Spain.

In January 2011, the 46-year-old revealed his “true identity” to immigration officials as Michael Mvogo from the Republic of Cameroon, which has refused to issue him a travel document to return there.

While advocates have criticized Mvogo’s indefinite detention as arbitrary and unjustified, Canadian authorities said due process is followed under the immigration legislation to review an individual’s detention every 30 days. Decisions of the reviews are also subject to federal court scrutiny.

“The UN is basically saying that the detention review and judicial review processes that Canada uses to justify all immigration detention do not pass muster,” said Syed Hussan of the End Immigration Detention Network.

“This UN opinion is another nail in the coffin on any claim to integrity in the immigration detention system. Immigration detention is unjust jail without trial or charge. It must end.”

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According to immigration enforcement officials, there are about 600 individuals in immigration detention on any given day; about one-tenth of them have been held for more than a year awaiting deportation. In 2012, a total of 9,571 people were held for breaking the immigration laws.

Mvogo is one of the two men held the longest; Victor Vinnetou has been held for 10 years because officials are still unsure of his identity.

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