Student delegation to visit Quebec's Ministry of Education in support of Algerian refugee
["We didn't come here to stare at walls and do nothing." -- Nacera Behlouli, mother of Yasmine.]
September 30, 2004, Montreal - No One Is Illegal Campaign
This morning a delegation of Cegep (college-level) students will be visiting the offices of Quebec Education Minister, Pierre Reid, on behalf of an Algerian refugee, Yasmine Behlouli. Yasmine is unable to attend Cegep, for the second year in a row, because of foot dragging by the federal government.
Yasmine, 19, and her family have lived in Montreal for 9 years as non-status Algerian refugees. Due to the mobilization efforts of the Action Committee of Non-Status Algerians -- including petitions, pickets, delegations, demonstrations, occupations, and in one case, the taking of sanctuary -- Yasmine's family and hundreds of other non-status Algerian refugees were able to force both the Quebec and Canadian goverments to offer special procedures towards permanent residency in October 2002. Under those procedures, Yasmine's family were selected as immigrants to Quebec.
But, for two years, Yasmine has not been able to attend Cegep, because she has yet to be accepted formally as a permanent resident by the federal government. Quebec's Education Minister has the power to offer Yasmine a place in school, at the regular Quebec fee, for humanitarian reasons. Despite repeated phone calls, Ministry officials have refused to budge. So, this morning, students from various Cegeps in Montreal, who have taken on Yasmine's case, will be visiting the Minister's office, to make their case directly at the source of power.
Included below is a press communique, and an open letter to Education Minister Pierre Reid by the students (in French-only). For English readers, a recent article in the Montreal Gazette is also included, which provides background to Yasmine's case.
The struggle of Montreal's non-status Algerians is not over!
To stay in touch, or to offer help, contact the No One Is Illegal Campaign of Montreal at noii-montreal@resist.ca
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COMMUNIQUE DE PRESSE
Entrée au cégep encore retardée pour Yasmine Behlouli
Montréal, le 30 septembre 2004.
Une délégation étudiante rendra visite aujourd’hui au Ministère de l’?ducation, Pierre Reid, afin d’exiger son intervention dans le cas de Yasmine Behlouli, 19 ans. Yasmine, réfugiée algérienne dont la famille attend depuis deux ans l’obtention de sa résidence permanente, tente depuis plusieurs sessions de s’inscrire au cégep. La délégation remettra au ministre Reid une lettre ouverte (voir texte ci-dessous) le pressant d’agir dans ce dossier afin de permettre à Yasmine Behlouli de continuer ses études inutilement interrompues.
Le point de rendez-vous est fixé pour le jeudi 30 septembre, 10h45, au bureau du Ministère de l’?ducation, situé au 9e étage du 600, rue Fullum.
Cette délégation fait suite à une campagne d’appuis à Yasmine qui a permis à la population étudiante du Québec et à ses supporters de faire part de leur indignation auprès du Ministre.
Info : 514-885-8246 (celluaire) ou 514-525-9399
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Lettre ouverte à Pierre Reid, Ministre de l’?ducation du Québec.
Nous écrivons cette lettre afin de déplorer l’inaction de votre Ministère dans le dossier de Yasmine Behlouli, 19 ans et réfugiée algérienne en voie d’obtenir sa résidence permanente au Canada.
Yasmine et sa famille ont fui la guerre civile en Algérie et sont venus s’établir au Québec. Longtemps sans statut, sans papiers et menacée de déportation, la famille a finalement reçu le certificat de sélection du gouvernement québécois en mars 2003, en vertu de l’entente spéciale sur les sans-statut algérien-ne-s mise en place par Québec et Ottawa en 2002. Mais deux ans ont passé et la famille n’a pas encore obtenu le statut définitif de résidence permanente, elle qui pourtant demeure ici depuis 9 ans.
Pendant ce temps, Yasmine Behlouli se voit nier son droit à une éducation accessible. Cela fait déjà plusieurs sessions qu’elle tente de s’inscrire au cégep. Mais à chaque fois, on la considère comme une étudiante étrangère, donc on exige des droits des scolarité d’environ 4000$ par session, sans compter les livres et autres frais reliés. Ne pouvant pas défrayer un montant aussi faramineux, elle est condamnée à endurer l’incertitude et l’évolution très lente du dossier de sa famille, perdu depuis trop longtemps (18 mois, en fait) dans l’océan bureaucratique du Service canadien du renseignement de sécurité (SCRS).
L’attente que subit Yasmine constitue une punition cruelle et injuste. Yasmine est une personne extrêmement motivée à poursuivre ses études, ici-même à Montréal. Sa famille va assurément recevoir sa résidence permanente; il n’y a aucune raison qui justifie qu’elle soit traitée de manière différent par rapport à ses camarades de classe résident-e-s permanent-e-s ou citoyen-ne-s canadien-ne-s.
Nous écrivons donc cette lettre en tant qu’étudiant-es au cégep et en tant que supporters de Yasmine afin d’exiger que Pierre Reid lui accorde « une dérogation à la loi pour motif humanitaire » tel que déclaré publiquement lors d’une entrevue parue dans le quotidien La Presse (2 septembre 2004). Nous lui demandons de faire de même pour toutes les personnes qui se trouvent présentement dans cette situation. Yasmine Behlouli doit pouvoir étudier dans le cégep ou institution scolaire de son choix, dans le programme de son choix, et ce en payant les frais de scolarité réguliers.
Monsieur Reid a la responsabilité d’intervenir rapidement pour permettre à Yasmine de débuter, enfin, ses études collégiales. Ne pas le faire, c’est bafouer ses droits fondamentaux, c’est perpétuer son attente douloureuse, c’est l’obliger à la précarité et à l’insécurité.
Le comité d’appui à Yasmine Behlouli
Personne-contact pour les médias : Yasmine Behlouli Tél. : 514-245-9985
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Foot dragging at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service is preventing a 19-year-old from getting on with her studies for the second year in a row.
Montreal Gazette September 8, 2004 By Sue Montgomery
Yasmine Behlouli, her parents, and two sisters were elated to be accepted as immigrants by Quebec under a special deal with Ottawa in March, 2003. But security screening - a task that the intelligence service's own website says should take about 66 days but has now dragged on for 18 months - is preventing the federal government from issuing the Behloulis' permanent residence papers.
Without that document, Behlouli has to pay foreign student fees of close to $4,000 per term instead of the $120 for locals to attend C?gep.The fees are way beyond the family's means - Behlouli's father drives a taxi and her mother works in a community centre. When her ambition to attend C?gep St. Laurent to study communications was thwarted last year because of the holdup, Behlouli took a job as a receptionist, thinking she'd resume her studies this fall.
She gave up that job recently, after being accepted at C?gep Ahuntsic. But on Aug. 8, the school asked for proof of residency - a document that still hadn't arrived at the Behlouli household.
"It was a big crisis for me and I was very disappointed," Behlouli said in an interview in her family's St. Henri apartment. "I spoke to someone in charge at the school, who said I'd have to pay the fees up front before Sept. 10." Her mother, Nacera Behlouli, said she called Canada Immigration in a panic, only to be told by a woman at the other end of the line that she should "take a deep breath and be happy you're in Canada where the bombs aren't falling."
"But we didn't come here to stare at walls and do nothing," she said.
Robert Gervais, spokesman at Citizenship and Immigration Canada, said that while the family cleared an RCMP criminal check last November, his office has yet to hear from CSIS.
"Normally we'd receive the reports around the same time," he said. "We've reminded them that we're waiting and when they're ready, they'll give it to us."
A spokeswoman at CSIS said she couldn't comment on a specific case. "Turnaround times are traditionally pretty good, though," said Nicole Currier.
In 1997, an estimated 1,000 Algerians' lives - including the Behloulis' - were put on hold when the Canadian government placed a moratorium on deportations to Algeria because of political violence in the north African country. They were told, however, that once things improved, they would be sent back to their country. But once that moratorium was lifted in Oct. 2002, a deal was struck between Quebec and Ottawa to allow the Algerians to apply from within Canada to stay on humanitarian grounds.
Many of them had put down roots here and had had children. Quebec accepted 697 out of 747 applicants. According to Gervais, about 600 have received their permanent residence status.