Canadian MP Decries Discrimination Against Iranian Migrants

Arian, Rosa and Taravat have quite a bit in common. They are all Iranians living in Canada and they are studying in either medicine or engineering – the dream fields of Iranian parents everywhere. Young Iranians like them fill the rooms of youth-oriented Norooz celebrations on many a North American university campus.

A closer look adds a less pleasant common point: they have all been waiting a long time for permanent residency in Canada. The process should take just six months. But these three are among at least 200 Iranians who have waited in limbo for as long as three years without hearing a word from the government. They are among dozens who have taken to Twitter to tell their stories with the hashtag #DelayedIranianApplications.

Official statistics shows a persistent pattern of delay for Iranian applications that could be interpreted as discrimination. Canadian media have repeatedly covered the story and Canada’s Iranian community, some 300,000-strong and politically important across several electoral constituencies, is getting frustrated.

At least one prominent member of parliament from the social democratic NDP is already accusing the government of anti-Iranian discrimination. Tom Mulcair, a former cabinet minister in Quebec and opposition leader, told the CBC that “hundreds of cases across Canada” shows that “treatment of the Iranians... is completely different from everyone else.”

A staffer within Canada’s ruling Liberal Party told IranWire the issue is a source of worry in the party. 

“It’s clear that these Iranian applications are being delayed for no reason and it can hurt us politically,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “These bureaucrats in Ottawa are taking the decision to delay and it’s not even clear why. I mean, how exactly is your average Persian software engineer a security threat?” 

The staffer added that the worry was not only with Iranian voters – which can be decisive in Liberal-held constituencies like northern Toronto or the nearby town of Richmond Hill – but that the story can hurt Justin Trudeau’s efforts to project a pro-immigration image of his government. 

Taravat Germchi is one of the software engineers mentioned by the Liberal Party source. Taravat works in Montreal and applied for permanent residency 18 months ago. She took to Twitter this week to declare that she has not heard back and that the “uncertainty is causing a lot of stress.”

Rosa belongs to another familiar Iranian tribe: medical researchers. She has been in Canada for eight years, earned her PhD in Canada, and is now pursuing postdoctoral research on cancer cell mechanics at McGill University in Montreal. She has been waiting for 26 months to receive her permanent residency.

Arian is among many Iranians who left the United States for Canada in the hopes of finding a better migration climate. He has two Masters degrees in geotechnical and civil engineering and arrived in Canada in 2014 to start his PhD in the prestigious University of Alberta. His wife holds a PhD in audiology. And they have been waiting 10 months to hear about their residency applications.

Twitter is littered with stories like this. They include people of various professions whose only commonality is their Iranian nationality. Data extracted by IranWire from myimmitracker.com shows that Iranians are indeed the only applicant nationality in Canada who face such long delays. 

Some have taken action beyond Twitter. Vincent Valai, a lawyer in the French-speaking province of Quebec, says he is working on 38 cases of delayed Iranian permanent residency applications. Valai also represent a group called the Collective of Iranian Graduate Students, some of whose members have waited close to three years to hear back from Immigration Canada. 

"We cannot have that blanket statement — that the files are under security review. We do consider that this is [an] excessive and unreasonable delay," Valai told CBC News. 

A spokesperson from Canada’s immigration ministry told the CBC that security screenings were part of the normal procedure, “regardless of an applicant's country of origin. Security checks have no set processing time as they do vary and are done on a case-by-case basis.”

The statement, however, flies in the face of the facts. Faced with a possible variation on the so-called “Muslim ban” in Donald Trump’s United States, Iranian immigrants have long hoped that thee Liberal-led Canada will be fundamentally different. But their faith in the True North is being tested.