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OTTAWA : Canadian authorities said Monday they quietly collected DNA from migrants and brought them closer to distant relatives using genealogical sites to establish their nationality.
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) says only in extreme cases – such as that of a man who claims to be Guinean but who was driven back from that country after Canada attempted to l & # 39; expulsion.
Immigration lawyers worry about the collection of DNA by law enforcement agencies. "The CBSA uses DNA testing to determine the identity of longer-term inmates when other investigative pathways have been exhausted," spokesman Jayden Robertson said.
The agency said the tests help to "determine identity by providing nationality indicators, which allows us to target other leads of inquiry on particular countries. ". 19659002] He still gets the consent of the individual before submitting his DNA to these websites, he adds
but Toronto immigration lawyer, Jared Will, who represents several people whose DNA has been analyzed to establish their nationality, contests it. 19659002] "In my experience, the CBSA has addressed these requests to inmates who are accused of not cooperating with removal efforts if they refuse, and that non-cooperation is invoked to justify prolonged detention. and prolonged, "he said. AFP .
"In other words, while inmates can give their consent formally, the validity of that consent is questionable," he said.
Others noted that their ethnicity or family
The practice review comes as Canada announced Monday that it was expanding the collection of biometric data such as fingerprints and photos for refugee claimants, extradition persons and natio Border security has become a political hot potato with the arrival of United States 30 000 asylum seekers since January 2017, putting a strain on the refugee determination system in Canada and causing a public outcry.
According to court documents, migrant Ebrahim Toure spent more than four years in detention in Canada pending his removal. He initially refused a DNA sample, but finally gave in last year
Toure arrived in Canada in 2011 using a fraudulent French passport and was deported.
Later, he claimed to be a Guinean national there. But on his arrival at Conakry airport, the Guinean authorities denied him entry, saying that a birth certificate that he had provided was fraudulent. They also noted that he did not speak French, the official language of Guinea.
The CBSA then reviewed his Facebook account which listed 48 friends mainly from Gambia, interviewed members of the Toronto Gambian community who knew him, concluded from a linguistic analysis that he was " very likely "Gambian, and sought to match his DNA on genealogical sites to relatives in The Gambia. – AFP
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