Detained at Pearson airport: Man to get hearing into human-rights complaint over CBSA incident
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A Canadian passport photo of Lachlan White, a New Brunswicker who was detained at Pearson International Airport in 2011 while carrying 10 kilos of cocaine. Photo by Chris Ursell, The Globe and Mail.
Story highlights
Lachlan White says he has exhausted his legal options and will be released
His lawyer says he has been in custody for 12 years
He was detained by Canadian Border Services Agency and was refused a passport for years
Canadian citizenship is among options available to deport foreign nationals
Lachlan White, a Canadian National, has exhausted all legal options to fight what he calls a human-rights violation at Pearson International Airport.
White has been detained at the immigration holding center at Pearson airport since February 2011. He has been in the detention center since then, even as he repeatedly appealed to the Canadian government for help.
A lawyer for White says his client has been in the detention center for 12 years and that the government should release him now.
The lawyer is asking the government to grant a request by the Canadian government to deport the man, who has been living in Canada for more than 12 years.
A deportation order based on false charges
The Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board in December 2010 found that White was a security threat in Canada. It said he was a “foreign national having an improper intention to remain in Canada.”
But the board later revoked its decision saying it fell “beyond its jurisdiction and authority” and that White’s “remaining in Canada to be a security risk is no longer justifiable.”
The case has been mired in court since 2010. Court hearings continue to drag on.
According to his advocate, an immigration judge in Montreal last April denied White’s deportation from Canada, saying that White’s case is one where the Canadian government had made false charges.
A spokesman for the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada told The Canadian Press that the immigration board “does not comment on cases that are before the courts.”
However, the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission, which is representing White