Finally CHC Islamabad is in the news for its torture and discrimination against Pakistanis.
http://timestranscript.canadaeast.com/front/article/1400131
For the last four years, Robyn Kumar has found herself in the strange and awkward position of having to prove to the Canadian government that she and her husband are in love.
Robyn Kumar holds a picture of her husband, Sanjeet Kumar of Pakistan, who she married in September 2007. "I am heart-broken and tired and I just want to be able to wake up every morning to see the face of the man I love," says the Lakeville woman, who was born in Saint John but grew up in Moncton.
Robyn, 45, of Lakeville, married her husband Sanjeet Kumar - a 34-year-old with a bachelor of arts degree - in September 2007 and she's been working ever since at obtaining a spousal sponsorship so he can come to Canada from his native Pakistan and become a permanent resident. Unfortunately for the couple, an immigration officer who interviewed her husband after the wedding decided the marriage was a sham.
The Canadian official, who's based in Islamabad, Pakistan, ruled the marriage was one of convenience, designed to allow Sanjeet to immigrate to Canada.
"I think she just had a hunch," says Robyn. "She made assumptions he didn't know me or my two children well enough."
The couple is still fighting to get him to Canada but it's taking its toll.
"It's become taxing on us," she says, breaking down in tears. "I can barely talk about it without crying."
Robyn is represented by Lee Cohen, the Halifax-based lawyer who specializes in immigration and human rights law. He says his client and her husband have inexplicably been mistreated by the federal government.
"This is disrespectful and disgraceful," says Cohen. "I have no idea when he'll be able to come to Canada. He should have already been in Moncton by now."
The story began back in spring of 2005. Robyn had recently split from her husband and was a single mother taking care of two kids.
"I was going through a divorce and it was a tough time, so I wasn't looking for love," she says. "But isn't that the way it happens?"
She met Sanjeet online and they started chatting over the Internet and got along well, talking every day. She went to visit him in Pakistan a year and a half later, in fall 2006, and they got engaged.
"I went to meet him and his family and I was swept off my feet," recalls Robyn, who works at Second Cup in Champlain Place.
A year later she returned to Pakistan, became a Hindu and married Sanjeet. They filled out the paperwork so he could come to Canada and waited for the process to play out.
But Robyn says the interview with the immigration official in Pakistan went poorly. She says the biggest mistake was Sanjeet agreeing to do the interview in English, which is his third language. While he could communicate in English while writing online, he didn't speak it that well and Robyn says there were communication problems.
The couple was shocked when Sanjeet was denied permanent residency and appealed the decision. Robyn says she sent almost 2,000 pages of Internet chats to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, along with cards they sent to each other, proof of gifts exchanged and anything else that showed they were in a relationship.
"I fought to prove my marriage is real and isn't a sham and a fraud," she says.
Robyn went through the immigration department's appeal process and successfully had the decision overturned in June 2010, meaning the government accepted her marriage as legitimate. But immigration then appealed that decision to a federal court, something Cohen says he has never seen in his years of practising immigration law.
"I don't know why they did that," says the lawyer. "I don't know what it is about the appeal decision they found offensive."
Once again, the couple were successful and the court upheld the appeal decision in October 2010. Robyn and Sanjeet understood the application would now be processed so he could gain his permanent resident status.
But nothing has happened. Sanjeet is still in Pakistan working for the family business and Robyn is still waiting.
"Six or seven months have passed without so much as a whisper," says Cohen. "He should have been here by now."
Cohen says even if the couple received a phone call from the Canadian government today saying the process was underway, it would probably still take six months to get him to Canada.
"The immigration system is, at best, inefficient," says Cohen. "There doesn't seem to be a level of respect for the applicant or the Canadian national who's sponsoring him. This is particularly irksome to me."
Robyn has spoken to staff in Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe MP Brian Murphy's office on a couple of occasions and a letter was sent to Immigration Minister Jason Kenny on her behalf and they are awaiting response. The last time she saw Sanjeet was during a three-week trip to Pakistan in November and she hopes they will be reunited in Canada by their fourth anniversary in September, but doubts it.
Jon Stone, director of communications for Citizenship and Immigration Canada's Atlantic region, says he can't discuss this particular case, due to the Privacy Act. But he says marriages of convenience designed to bring an immigrant to this country are very common and something immigration officers work hard to prevent.
"Marriages of convenience are always a concern," says Stone. "Canada is extremely attractive for immigrants around the world and we have cases all the time involving marriages of convenience. People look at it as an avenue to abuse the system, hence the vigilance of immigration officers to put good processes into place."
Stone says files are thoroughly reviewed and not just rubber stamped.
The immigration officers have to be convinced the spousal relationship is for real and has been in place for a while.
Stone says the rules are clear on the type of things officials look for to determine if a relationship is genuine. He also says because the process is so thorough, it can delay honest couples who aren't trying to fool the government.
"We try to ensure those who have legitimate relationships and can prove that are given fair and due process," he says, adding spousal sponsorships are given high priority by immigration. "But this can be a time-consuming process."
He adds that Canadian immigration offices in Colombo (Sri Lanka), Beijing (China) and Islamabad tend to have the heaviest caseloads, so there can be delays.
Meanwhile, Robyn continues to wait.
"I'm going to be 'celebrating' my fourth wedding anniversary this September, likely alone," she says. "Almost four years without my husband."
