Criticism of Canada's Immigrant Detention Practices: Human Rights Concerns and Advocacy

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Criticism of Canada's immigrant detention practices
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Even if Canada is a global leader when it comes to welcoming refugees and immigrants, it has
been argued by the critics that the immigration system of Canada severely violates the human
rights in case of the migrants. In this regard the practice of indefinite detention of the immigrants
is the main target of this criticism recently (Hernández, 2013). According to these experts, the
treatment of migrants by Canada needs to be criticized and there is a need for UN review of the
human rights record of Canada. Every four years, the UN Human Rights Council reviews the
domestic human rights conditions and record of Canada.
Regarding this issue, the human rights advocate of Canada have been pushing for a review by an
independent body to see how the immigrant detainees are handled by the Canada Border
Services Agency (CBSA). According to these persons, it is necessary that Canada introduces
changes in this detention system and these changes need to be introduced quickly (Larsen and
Piché, 2009). While Canada enjoys a very high reputation regarding the human rights standards,
the country still fails to match the required standards related with the treatment of vulnerable
people. For example during the previous year, the Government of Canada made efforts to deal
with some of the issues that were present in the immigration system. However, according to the
advocates of human rights, there are still a lot of issues present as a result of which the human
rights laws are still being violated (Leerkes, 2010). An example in this regard can be given of the
fact that Canada still has not impose any limit on the duration of immigration detention.
Moreover, there are several detainees belonging to vulnerable populations like children and the
persons who are suffering from mental illness.
In 2016, an announcement was made by the government of Canada according to which funds of
$138 million were going to be used for the purpose of improving the alternatives to immigration
detention and rebuilding the facilities. The improvements that have been made to the system so