The Canada Border Services Agency is once more under fire for the way it handles arrests, detentions and deportations of refugee claimants and migrants.

And critics of the agency are hoping a recent B.C. coroner’s inquest recommendations into the suicide of a Mexican migrant in Vancouver will finally bring results as they renew a call for some kind of independent civilian oversight of the actions of the CBSA and any complaints of wrongdoing.

In recent years the agency has been criticized for the uneven way it handles cases and arrests. With sweeping powers of investigation, few constraints and no oversight, the CBSA has been accused of dealing unfairly with migrants – legal or illegal. Refugee lawyers and critics have accused CBSA officers of doing everything from belittling and threatening clients to racial profiling in their roundups.

A recent report by the Canadian Red Cross also condemns the treatment of migrants by the CBSA, chastising the agency for inadequate facilities for minors; commingling of migrants with prisoners in provincial correctional centres, and the separation of families.

The death in December 2013 of Lucia Vega Jimenez, a 42-year-old Mexican migrant who was detained in a Vancouver airport holding cell, galvanized critics to renew their call for action. Jimenez, who was facing deportation, hanged herself in a shower stall rather than face going back to Mexico. It was revealed during the inquest that staffing at the detention centre, which was provided by a local security service, did not meet required standards. And no female guard was on duty to check on her after she didn’t return from the washroom.

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The jury recommendations from the coroner’s inquest – addressed to the CBSA, the federal and B.C. government and B.C. Corrections — were strong and swift. Though not binding, they called for the appointment of an independent ombudsman to mediate any concerns or complaints into the CBSA and to create a civilian organization to investigate critical incidents in CBSA custody.

In total there were 49 recommendations, including:

Bathrooms and sleeping rooms should be self-harm-proofed;

Holding areas should become staffed solely by CBSA;

Currently, while the Vancouver Holding Centre is staffed with sub-contractors, the CBSA should access the video monitoring system at random times to ensure staffing levels are adequate and contract commitments are kept;

Any violations of staffing levels should be dealt with according to the provisions of the contract.

“The verdict of the jury is a huge wake-up call for CBSA,” says Josh Paterson, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association. “The jury’s recommendations for change confirm the thick catalogue of problems in the CBSA’s detention system in general, and the way Ms (Lucia) Vega Jimenez was treated in particular. All together these problems appear to have set the stage for her tragic death.”

The CBSA was formed in 2003, combining some of the powers of the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Under the new legislation, the CBSA took over the duties of the customs program; the intelligence, enforcement and immigration program at all Canadian ports of entry and import inspection from the Canada Food Inspection Agency. The CBSA, which employs more than 13,000 workers, has a budget for 2014-2015 of about $1.7 billion.

A senior media spokesperson for the CBSA, Esme Bailey, said it took “immediate action after the incident at the British Columbia Holding Centre, including a review of training for the guards and standing orders for the holding centre, reviewing and monitoring of contract performance, and removal of ligature points.

“We will need time to carefully review the findings and the verdict,” Bailey said. “The CBSA is committed to ensuring an effective and well-run detention program.”

As to the allegations against the CBSA of abusing its sweeping powers and lack of constraint, Bailey said: “The CBSA will not comment on third-party allegations, however, we can provide the following information about our programs: The CBSA has national detention procedures in place that adhere to Canadian law. The CBSA takes its responsibility for the health and well-being and safety of immigration detainees in its care very seriously. Detained individuals can speak to a CBSA officer about any aspect of their detention …

“Individuals may raise any concerns during their detention reviews before the IRB (Immigration and Refugee Board) and at any time with representatives of the Canadian Red Cross, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees or other non-government organizations.”

But these avenues and others cited by the border services agency, including access to a CBSA officer with detainee liaison responsibilities, don’t effectively deal with the problem, say refugee lawyers and advocates. Many detainees are intimidated by CBSA officials and fear speaking out. The lack of oversight of the agency is worrying, says Lorne Waldman, a Toronto immigration and refugee lawyer and president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers.

“I think Canadians should be deeply concerned about an organization that has such broad powers of search and seizure, and there is no mechanism whereby anyone oversees their proper conduct and their authority.”

Calls for oversight have come from many avenues, including the 2006 Maher Arar judicial inquiry, which recommended that the CBSA’s national security activities be subject to independent review. More recently, a Senate committee heard evidence this spring detailing the need for independent oversight of the CBSA. Briefing notes in 2012 to the Minister of Public Safety by the CBSA referred to gaps in the “avenue for redress in the CBSA,” including the lack of “an independent review body to review, investigate and respond to complaints in general or officer conduct complaints.”

The Star requested an interview with Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney to discuss the call for oversight, but was told he was not available.

It’s not just the Jimenez case that has advocates and lawyers speaking out. They say the CBSA has routinely overstepped its powers of arrest, detention and deportation since its inception, leaving migrants fearful to speak up. Refugees and detainees don’t report incidents of bullying, threats or abusive interrogations fearful of being deported or imprisoned, says Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees. There is a litany of abuses – both big and small – occurring across the country, she and others believe.

Advocates and lawyers alike say they’ve heard stories from refugees about unlawful detention of migrants for failing to have their suitcases packed a couple of days prior to deportation; belittling and threatening clients; unlawful requests for documents in workplace raids; racial profiling of possible migrants in traffic blitzes; requests by CBSA officers for passwords for email and Facebook to check their stories; lack of due process; lack of mental services and counsellors; black-market sales of shampoo and phone cards to migrants in detention by CBSA officers; disclosure of claimants’ personal information to their country of origin; and inconsistency in applying procedures.

The Canadian Red Cross report for 2012-2013, criticizes the CBSA’s treatment of detainees, though it notes there have been some improvements over the last few years..

The report also urges the border services agency to “ensure all individuals in immigration detention, including the most vulnerable, are able to maintain full access to due process. This consideration should also include an assessment of the implementation of alternatives to detention nationally.”

But not everyone believes independent oversight is the solution to problems plaguing the CBSA. Groups like Vancouver-based Immigration Watch Canada and Centre for Immigration Policy Reform believe CBSA needs more resources to do its job, not oversight.

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“Nobody is cheering when someone like that woman hangs herself,” says Dan Murray, a spokesman for Immigration Watch Canada, says about Jimenez. “We sympathize with her frustration . . . But she was here illegally and had previously been deported. She knew what she might be facing in the end. I would say if anything the CBSA’s powers have to be increased.” Murray objects to an independent civilian oversight agency if it were to constrict the CBSA from acting and removing people.

Martin Collacott, a retired former Canadian ambassador and now spokesperson for the Centre for Immigration Policy Reform, also want more financial resources poured into the CBSA. But he’s not opposed to oversight in theory. Any agency should be prepared to have its work reviewed, he says.

“My main concern is that the CBSA doesn’t have enough resources to do its job properly to protect our borders,” says Collacott. “It takes a lot of resources to screen people properly when they enter the country and I don’t think we have enough to do it properly … I think our border officers are the best in the world; the best trained and most courteous … It’s perfectly natural that lawyers who have clients will say it’s not good enough and on occasion it’s not. But I think we can take credit for the best managed system anywhere.”

Others like Reg Williams, a former CBSA senior officer who has been critical of the agency, isn’t sure an independent monitor would put an end to the troubles at the agency. He believes many problems in the agency could be solved administratively by tightening supervision and management.

The problem lies with management of the CBSA, says Williams, who took early retirement from his post as director of the Greater Toronto Enforcement Centre in 2012 when he was abruptly transferred to another job after the deportation of a detainee failed. “There is no management of officers,” he says. “There’s no management of cases … The philosophy is: “I’m in my office. I’m closing my doors. I’m not involved in the day-to-day operation.”

He calls the situation in B.C. “absolutely reckless” and an abuse of public money. CBSA had a contract with a security company to provide guards for the detention centre that housed Jimenez in Vancouver. According to evidence at the inquest three guards — including one female — were to be on duty, under the terms of the contact with the private security company. But only one guard was on duty. The security guard company did not fulfill the obligations of its contract, and the CBSA did not monitor whether those terms were being met.

“The poor guy couldn’t even do his rounds and he had to check off that he did,” Williams says. “The contract says there has to be a female at all times. A female officer may have prevented her death.”

Staffing was not the only issue. Evidence at the inquest pointed to the fact the private security company failed to comply with basic requirements set out by the CBSA. Many terms of the contract weren’t fulfilled, says the civil liberties association’s Paterson. “Their own rules were not being followed.”

The CBSA in fact has outside contracts for security and transportation services in Quebec and the GTA as well as in B.C. The private services include: care and control of detainees at a holding centre; transportation of detainees to and from the holding centre; escorting detainees and confirming their departure from Canada and other security duties. “Contracting out for immigration detention is a common practice in like-minded countries,” including the U.S. and the U.K., says the CBSA’s Bailey.

But would better supervision of cases and officers,and better monitoring of security firms’ contracts, be enough? Advocates and critics say no, claiming that the CBSA has such sweeping powers of investigation, with few constraints and no oversight, that it is virtually unstoppable.

The CBSA’s formation a decade ago triggered what many describe as a clash of cultures, with the paramilitary culture of Customs officials winning out and setting the tone for the new agency.

Williams believes that over the years this “paramilitary culture” has affected the way things are done by the CBSA today. He says the culture of treating migrants with respect at the CBSA is no longer prevalent.

He blames many of the problems facing the CBSA on lack of internal oversight. Many of the complaints against the CBSA are a “symptom of poor management,” maintains Williams.

But for Petra Molnar of theDetention & Asylum Research Cluster of the Refugee Research Network , independent oversight is perhaps the only way to be able to lift the shroud of secrecy that surrounds CBSA and what she calls the lack of consistency in application of the law. Internal oversight or better management doesn’t cut it, she says.

So just what would oversight of the CBSA look like? A good question, says the Canadian Council for Refugees’ Dench. Her organization is planning to develop a detailed model of what it would like to see implemented.

“We’re wanting to have a mechanism to complain to something outside of the CBSA and your complaint will be taken seriously.”

Dench points to the power imbalances at play between migrants and the CBSA. “You’re talking about people without status in Canada. Their ability to fight back is so limited. Maybe they don’t speak English or French. They’re worried they’ll be deported and (once deported) then they’re not here to make a complaint.”

The CBSA has many of the same powers as police in terms of arrest and detention, says Dench. “Yet it may be the only enforcement agency in Canada that has no external complaint mechanism, and that’s perverse.”

The Canada Border Services Agency is once more under fire for the way it handles arrests, detentions and deportations of refugee claimants and migrants.

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