They own two cars, a 3,000-sq-ft home by the lake and run a successful landscaping business that rings in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in revenue.By most accounts, they are the hardworking and well-established immigrants that Canada needs and wants.
Since their arrival from Mexico in 2007, however, the Dias family has lived a life of secrecy — off the population map and, by necessity, the radar of Canadian immigration officials.Jose Dias, his wife Sofia, both in their 40s, their adult son Carlos and daughter Antonia are among tens of thousands of people in Greater Toronto who live and work here without legal status.
Known as “the undocumented,” they are failed refugee claimants dodging deportation or those who overstayed temporary work, student or visitor visas. Many are economic migrants, often from developing countries, seeking work or a better lifestyle.With Toronto poised to become Canada’s first “sanctuary city,” which would open up municipally funded services to immigrants, legal or not, it raises the politically contentious question: Do these migrants deserve to stay?
The Dias family agreed to share their personal story though they asked that their names be changed to protect them from authorities. While their story may not represent the experience of all undocumented people, they say they want to show the human side to a vulnerable population. “We want Canadians to see the other side of the story and understand why we do the things we do,” says Antonia. “We want a better life, which is not possible in Mexico.”
In many ways the undocumented are indistinguishable from ordinary Canadians and well-integrated in the community. They work, though often for low pay. They lay shingles, labour on construction sites, indoor positioning system, clean offices and homes. They feed a whole industry, from employers who rely on cheap labour and job recruiters who take their cut to payday loan managers who charge fees to cash the illegal’s paycheques.
The undocumented live in a constant state of fear. If caught, they most certainly face deportation. So they rarely report a crime, go to a doctor’s office or complain about unfair treatment by employers. They avoid the public library, or any other government service, for fear it will prompt questions about their status. Some parents go so far as to keep their kids home from school.
A City of Toronto report estimates there are anywhere between 100,000 and 250,000 undocumented migrants in the GTA, roughly 2 to 5 per cent of the population.Estimates are extremely unreliable, however, because no one is able to track such a transient population. City officials hope that by extending services to them, they will have a better grasp of the nature and extent of illegal migration.
In 2015, their numbers are expected to surge when four-year work permits for thousands of temporary foreign workers, currently here legally, expire under a 2011 federal law, potentially moving thousands more underground. Last year alone, 340,000 foreigners on work permits resided in Canada.
To manage the new reality, Toronto City Council has asked staff to report in the fall on ways to improve access to municipal services — public health, shelters, food banks, after-school day care, breakfast programs, emergency medical services — for residents without legal status. It also urged Ottawa to consider a form of amnesty by giving them permanent status.
The issue of illegal migration is highly controversial in the United States, as the Senate passed its landmark immigration bill in June that will allow its estimated 11 million non-status residents to stay legally while boosting crackdown on future illegal migration by hiring 20,000 new border patrol officers and completing an 1,100-kilometre fence to guard the border with Mexico.
By 1998 the couple, in their twenties, had three young kids under 10. Eager to earn more money for his family, Jose crossed the border with other migrantes indocumentados and spent a year in Houston doing drywall and framing. Each month he sent most of his paycheque back home.
“I didn’t want to go,” says Jose, a stocky man whose callused hands tell of years of hard labour. “But I had to go to support my family.”His goal, he says, was to make enough money so his kids could go to university instead of taking on labour jobs out of high school.
The $14-an-hour pay was 10 times more than he made back home and boosted the family’s standard of living. His two daughters and son were able enroll in karate and other after-school programs, and the family renovated their home.But Jose soon became homesick and returned to Mexico the following year.
He crossed the border again in 2005, this time to Los Angeles and again landed a job in construction. But a serious workplace accident cut his stay short. It also convinced him that he no longer wanted to be away from his family.
While on the job site cutting drywall, both his knees became caught in an electrical saw. He was loaded onto the employer’s truck and dumped at the entrance of a hospital where he underwent emergency surgery for torn ligaments. When discharged, he took the subway back to an apartment he shared with other Mexican workers. Scared, alone and with no English, he decided to pack up and go home.
“There were more job opportunities here than in the U.S., because there were so many illegal migrants fighting for jobs there,” Jose says of his decision to come to Canada.Sofia arrived eight months later, followed by their three children, all teenagers by then, in the summer of 2008.They arrived as tourists so didn’t need a visa to enter the country if they would only stay here under six months. That would change a year later when the Canadian government, in 2009, imposed visa requirements on all visitors from Mexico to curb a growing influx of refugees.
The family’s plan was to work and make as much money here as possible in the shortest time, perhaps a few years, and return home. Since they never filed a refugee claim, and Canada does not record visitors’ departures, the Dias family quietly settled into daily life without a paper trail.
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