Erie community credit union

Patricia Anzovino will never forget the wrinkled, weather-beaten face of Hamde Abrehe, a refugee claimant out of Eritrea.

The 80-year-old East African looked like Mother Theresa draped in a pink shroud. "She was like everyone's "grandma," Anzovino recalls. But Canada--its language and people--were completely foreign to her. Despondent and barely able to walk, she shielded herself under blanket, as if "blocking herself from the outside world." When offered pudding and water, the woman could only return a sheepish smile.

"She's not easily forgotten," says Anzovino. The 67-year-old refugee advocate and retired early childhood educator, always looks out for asylum seekers crossing the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie, Ont. "We didn't know anything about refugees at first ... but it's very hard not to become engaged with these vulnerable people, because their needs are so great."

The Peace Bridge over the Niagara River has been a major entry point for goods, tourists--and refugees. During the last week of December, hundreds of claimants assembled here. It was the eve of the controversial Safe Third Country Agreement, which blocks would-be asylum seekers "from travelling into Canada through the United States. Its implementation on Dec. 29 means Canada is now closed to future refugee claimants, who originally land on U.S. soil. Minors under 18 and those with family already regularized in Canada are exempted.

Anzovino describes it as an "exodus of asylum-seekers" to the historic town of Fort Erie. They deluged the border crossing en masse, she remembers, hoping to beat the deadline before the roles for refugees all changed. More concerned with extradition than with food or sleep, claimants didn't know what was going to happen to them next. Some--with lapsed visas or deportation orders--were fearful of being locked-up upon re-entry to the U.S. "The worst thing for me was not being able to help them. It's a terrible feeling of helplessness."

Refugee claimants--like Abrehe--trudged through a 'foot of snow' to make their last-minute claims. Anzovino says they were underdressed for their prospective new home. Men were fitted in spring jackets. Women wore light, long dresses and running shoes. Children were lucky if they scored scarves, gloves and hats. Once at the Customs Building, they ate hot soup and sandwiches. They slept aboard heated school buses in a barren parking lot, with pine trees still seasonally decorated. Immigration officers, Customs and Peace Bridge Authority workers co-operated with NGOs, Red Cross and the Salvation Army, getting claimants fed and 'out-of-the cold.' "It was a challenging couple of nights," Anzovino recalls.

Raised on the family farm in Lindsay, Ont. Anzovino was weaned on Catholicism and Canadian politics. Spirituality and social justice were one in the same, she muses. In 1987, she was a part of the "Teachers for El Salvador," and then in 1989, researched health and education in the Brazilian Amazon with a Catholic solidarity group. She says: "I met some really wonderful people from Latin America--from all parts of the world. They certainly have enriched our lives. We'll never be the same again because of our experience."

Anzovino, who is modest about her work, is a recipient of the Canadian Government's Teresa Casgrain Volunteer Award. For 20 years now, she's been rooted in the refugee movement in the Niagara Peninsula. Here, she and her late husband Gerard, a General Motors electrician, picked up Peace Bridge refugees and hosted them before their hearings. Though emotionally "taxed" now and then, Anzovino's family saw a Salvadoran boy, a former altar boy for famed Archbishop Oscar Romero, go on to study at the University of Montreal. And a Burundian they once took in graduated from the University of Ottawa Medical School. He is now a doctor with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). In 1990, Anzovino finally convinced a credit union to mortgage a modest Central Avenue house in Fort Erie. Later assisted by the Sisters of St. Joseph in Peterborough, Ont, Casa E1 Norte hostel would house more than 10,000 refugees.

Anzovino is now a community developer at the Fort Erie Multicultural Centre, funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage. There, she is still able keep an "eye on the bridge."

"Social justice is the main emphasis in my life; it's a big part of my spirituality. I feel very much attached in the refugee movement--the 'preferential option for the poor,'" she says. "We are better off for the regularization of more diverse people. We should welcome them and what they bring, produce--their gifts, their talents."

A cultural mosaic brimming with social services, Canada is attractive to the world's refugees. However, post-9/11 security concerns now overshadow humanitarian ones, affecting the "true refugees," according to Anzovino.

The Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the U.S. is meant to shore up the border. Refugee claimants from "third countries" must now seek protection in the first country they reach. For many it's the U.S., which is far more accessible 'on foot' and by air. Signed in December 2002, the agreement is a part of the Smart Border Action Plan for displaced persons. In it, both governments boast "generous systems" of refugee protection, and say they are committed to the "burden-sharing" of asylum seekers.

However, many NGOs contest the notion that the U.S. is a "safe country" for claimants.

The agreement is the "single, most significant decision" affecting refugees in the last 25 years, according to Mary Jo Leddy, director of Romero House Community for Refugees, which facilitates claimants awaiting their tribunal hearing. Although Canada only accepts a slightly higher percentage of refugees than the U.S., 'it is less likely to jail asylum seekers. In contrast, the U.S.'s "heavy-handed" detention program sees mostly Arabs and Colombians--without proper identification--held without cause or trial for several months. The American Congress is also in the process of passing amendments to the Patriot Act, which would allow the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Geneva Convention on Refugees and the Convention against Torture.

Fr. Jack Costello, director of the Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and Justice in Toronto says: "The border is a way of controlling and reducing the number of people who want to come into Canada. Canada, therefore, cannot claim we are equally open and welcoming, when we've just put in place legislation that will reduce the inflow of people by an average of 11,000 each year."

Fr. Costello is also the co-ordinator of the Jesuit Refugee Service ORS) in English-speaking Canada, and a board member and researcher for the Canadian Council of Refugees. Although the government claims it is curbing "asylum shopping," he argues claimants want to come to a place where they will be "best received," where they'll have greater assurances of getting on their feet.

"(Refugee claimants) are not buying a product, they are searching for security for one's life and one's family," Fr. Costello says.

Charging that the Safe Third Country will likely weaken the border, opponents maintain refugees will just exit the United States "irregularly." It's speculated that people smuggling rings will mushroom, exposing asylum seekers to physical danger and economic exploitation. "Oh, they will come," Anzovino says assuredly. "When people want to come, they will always find a way."

Getting into Canada has been described as a marathon. Refugees cross into Fort Erie hoping to be handed status as if it was a glass of water. On the evening of Dec. 23, 17 Tibetan refugees were the last to board the bus bound for the U.S.--and uncertainty, according to Anzovino. "Save me, save me" they cried in staccato outbursts. "I don't want to go back to America." When immigration officials warned claimants to pick up their belongings--plastic bags stuffed with clothing--the Tibetans knelt on the floor, folded their hands and respectfully bowed their heads. Taken aback by their woeful pleas, one Peace Bridge Authority officer left the room fighting back tears. Anzovino recalls. "It was so difficult that night because we weren't able to do anything directly for them. They are just beautiful, beautiful people."