A maximum security prison is not a place for anyone to experience, let alone someone with disabilities and over immigration matters. But there he was, standing confused at the entrance of the immigration unit at Fraser Regional Correctional Centre. He had a friendly smile on his face, but I could tell that he was scared. What I couldn’t tell was that Jack had been born with congenital hearing loss. This meant that he could not understand the directions the jail guard was giving to the new detainees as he simply followed the line of uniforms ahead of him. So, when he was put in the unit, most of the detainees dispersed to their assigned cells which left Jack standing alone not knowing what to do. Bobak was the first to approach him and somehow found out he was Iranian and also that he was deaf.
Failing to fully communicate and realizing that this person was going to need some help, Bobak rushed to our table, telling us there was a new guy on the unit and he was deaf. As it turned out, Bobak was Persian and could speak the language, Steve, another detainee, could communicate in sign language, and I had extensive knowledge from assisting detainees with their legal matters and disputes. Between the three of us, we had six years of detention experience and had witnessed hundreds of detainees come and go through the system. We knew the type of help Jack would need. It was our usual routine to connect new arrivals with Legal Aid BC to see whether they qualified for counsel, plus connect with any interpreters that may be needed. But, as we were able to find out, Jack had his own lawyer. In fact, his wife and their child were in the Lower Mainland with her parents. Jack was desperately trying to reach them, as was his right. But how could he? If he approached the guards, they would ask him to set up his phone identification to make calls to the outside, which is a process required by any detainee. This system, however, is designed for English-speaking inmates and does not offer provisions for the hearing impaired. This set-up would have been impossible for Jack to do on his own. So, we approached the staff desk and explained the problem to them. Eventually a supervisor came down and escorted Jack to some hardly-used room in the facility, dusted off a teletypewriter, and allowed Jack to make a call to connect with the outside world. These very basic rights to let someone know of his whereabouts took the extended efforts of a number of people. This step could arguably be difficult for any English-speaking person with a hearing impairment but was close to impossible for someone like Jack. It was by chance that there were detainees with the skills and compassion to help initiate the process. Which raises the question, again, of what infringements are being placed on people with disabilities who are going through the Canadian immigration system? And what is being done, if anything, to make it better?
Days later, Jack was deported to Australia which was the country of his citizenship, and that was the last we knew of him. It is now, five years later, that he has reached out to explain he is still trying desperately to rejoin his family in Canada. Because of separate circumstances within the family, his Canadian wife and children—he has a second child that he has not met—are not able to join him in Australia. Jack has made requests and appeals but continues to face stonewalling by Canadian immigration officials and embassy staff in Australia. Every effort he makes goes unheard by those who are capable of hearing, if they want to. In his updates are the words of a desperate man who just wants to see his family again, and one can easily see the toll this has taken on his mental health and psychological well-being. In those short few days he spent scared and confused in Fraser Regional Correctional Centre, he always managed to have a smile on his face and never used his hearing impairment as an excuse for anything. This was a fact of his life and he just wanted the ability to communicate in the way he could. His years-long struggle has surely wiped that smile away, but he is still doing everything he can to make his voice heard. A deaf man is crying out for help and no one is willing to listen.
©The Imprisoned Blogger
This story is included in the book The Imprisoned Blogger: Real Stories of Struggle with Immigration Detention in Canada, by Othman Hamdan.
The Imprisoned Blogger 