The immigration officials in Canada have been instructed to pin the war resistors in American who are trying to seek asylum or are applying for permanent residency for further investigation. The Citizenship and Immigration Canada in its recent operational guide has stated that these illegal migrants could not be permitted to enter as abandonment is considered as an offence in Canada. This is as per the National Defense Act and the sentence for this could go to up to life imprisonment.

According to the critics, the timing of the directive is quite suspicious. Last month, a decision was made in favor of Jeremy Hinzman, an American soldier by the Federal Court of Appeal. Hinzman’s family was initially refused permanent residency but now has been ordered for reconsideration. He had appealed under humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

Hinzman was the first to apply for a refugee status. He is an army paratrooper who took flight to Canada in 2004 as he was against the Iraq invasion. However, his refugee status was refused. Post this application; around fifty such applications from war resisters for permanent residence have been received. This has been either on the basis of humanitarian grounds or under the category of spousal sponsorships.

In 2008 and 2009, there were two motions intending the same thing. These two motions were adopted by the House of Commons. However, they were ignored by the government under Stephen Harper.

With the above directive in place, it would lead to a substantial delay in the application processing of these war resistors. This is for both those applying under the spousal sponsorship category, under the refugee status as well as those applying on humanitarian grounds. More so, the immigration officials would further state these war resistors as being criminals.

On the other hand, Houg Kellam, the Spokesperson for Immigration said that the department tends to upgrade its guidelines for operations timely. This is done to aid the staff when it came to implementing the law. At the same time, these guidelines do not tell them on how to decide on things. More so, a review would be done of the recent appeal on the decision taken by the court.