Searching for Sanctuary

"I don't know if I'm shaking because I'm cold or shaking because I'm nervous. We gave instructions to our kids: if we don't call you by 11:30, then you try to reach us. If you can't reach us, call our lawyer. If you can't reach him, call all of our friends and let them know."
"If you want help and protection, you need to trust the system. We do trust the system and we will co-operate. This is the right thing to do, for our kids especially."
"It will give them a chance of a normal life again."
"Someone really, really seems to want us back in Italy -- and not to greet us with flowers. We are concerned."
The Demitris, fugitive couple from Italy

The fugitive Demitri couple fearing reprisals from the Italian Mafia if deported back to Italy, surrendered themselves for arrest by CBSA authorities at the International Centre Tuesday April 16, where they were then released.   Peter J. Thompson/National Post

This is a family that has applied for refugee status in Canada. The parents, both in their 40s, and their four children are awaiting reconsideration of their refugee claim which has already been refused once, before they appealed. They appear to have a well-founded fear for their lives, yet they found little sympathy for their plight in official quarters. They felt forced to go into hiding once their asylum claim was denied and Canada Border Services Agents were dispatched to deport the family last year.

Last month, a Federal Court handed down a decision allowing those declaring asylum who have come to Canada from countries like Italy to be entitled to a pre-removal risk assessment so it can be determined whether it is safe to deport them to their home countries. This ruling gave the Demitri couple new hope that such a risk assessment hearing might be their salvation and relieve them from the onus of their fugitive status.

They girded their resolve in hope of a resolution in their favour, to emerge from hiding and surrender to the Canada Border Services Agency enforcement office and there to formally apply for a Pre-Removal Risk Assessment. Their immediate fear of deporation temporarily abated. Still, uncertainty assailed them before making that final decision and striking out for the office to make their application.

Born into a notorious crime clan in southern Italy, Ms. Demitri spurned the underworld life. A relative, once a leader in the Mafia family, had become a co-operating witness for the Italian government and in seeking vengeaqnce the family attempted to discover his whereabouts to kill him as a traitor. Because she had been close to this cousin when they were younger, it was assumed she knew his hideout and she was pressured to divulge what she knew, and threatened to make her cooperate.

But their assumption was wrong, she knew nothing about his whereabouts. At the same time her husband, a civilian who had undercover police connections and was investigating her relatives who were leading members of a clan in the Sacra Corona Unita, a crime syndicate, came under suspicion himself. The two had fallen in love and married and his cover was subsequently revealed, so he too became a target of the same mobsters threatening his wife.

They moved away from her family, establishing themselves elsewhere in Italy, after local police had recommended they move, and they did, about 1,000 kilometres distant, taking shelter in a monastery. However, when they were forced to register with local authorities to be enabled to have health care when one of their children became ill, their cover appears to have been breached with a frightening visit to their home by a threatening individual leading them to swiftly pack up and fly to Toronto.

While the Immigration and Refugee Board cast no doubt on their evidence, nor found fault with their credibility, it was also believed that adequate protection existed for them in Italy which led the Board to turn down the refugee application. An appeal to the court and to the Minister of Immigration, himself once a refugee from Somalia, on humanitarian and compassionate grounds asking for intervention, proved unsuccessful; no response was forthcoming.

The interview with CBSA officials has given this family new hope. Though whether or not they will, in the final analysis, be permitted to remain in Canada permanently is unknown, they now have newfound hope that through these legal means their application may be rewarded by assent. They are aware that an article about their case was recently published in a newspaper in Mesagne, the Sacra Corona stronghold. Under the article was an advertisement for cheap funerals. A message? They hope not.

The fugitive Demitri couple. Peter J. Thompson/National Post