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| Great White North |
| Belgian family 'hidden' in Canada |
| 2006-01-14 |
| A Canadian rural Rights group says they are hiding a Belgian family in a safe place to protect them from deportation. About 50 farmers from across the region gathered outside the family's home in Navan to protest the deportation order for Michel Van Hauve, his wife, Suzy Myers, and their son, Blaise. The family moved here eight years ago from Belgium, when Michel secured a work permit as a farm hand. A 26-year-old conviction for shoplifting in Van Hauve's native Belgium is cited as the reason for the deportation order. Six months ago, Immigration Canada denied the family's application for permanent residency in Canada, allegedly because of a shoplifting conviction Michel had from when he was a teenager. Their teenage son, Blaise, also got into legal trouble after crashing his mother's vehicle during a joyride. "They are trying to find anything they can to get us out. Why and who were we bothering so much that they have to treat us like criminals and throw us out? My son has not done anything a normal Canadian teenager has not done," Suzy Myers told CBC. They were told of their scheduled deportation on December 29, two weeks after immigration officers arrested them because their various visas had expired in August. Ms Myers said the government has ordered that they leave with nothing more than 32 kilogrammes of clothing. "I have to leave a fully furnished home behind," she said. "All of my sadness over this issue has now turned into anger." The family was scheduled for KLM flight out of Montreal on Thursday evening, but protestors said they were helping the family hide from authorities. "The landowners have taken them into sanctuary. We have provided them with safety, we will keep him here, and we will defy Immigration Canada," said the protest organiser, Randy Hillier. Hillier says the worst authorities can do is deport the family, and they've already ordered that. In a press release, the Landowners say they will not allow the family to be "unjustly deported to serve crass political ends." The house is surrounded by heavy equipment and area landowners who say they will prevent any and all attempts by any officials to enter the Van Hauve family farm. The angry protestors barred the driveway with a large tractor in a symbolic gesture and refused to reveal where they've allegedly hidden the family. |
| Posted by:lotp |
| #6 It baffles me how foreigners think that a visa is a trifling matter. I just got my visa renewed yesterday, and I took great pains to get everything lined up properly. If I didn't have a visa, I would expect to be promptly deported. This whole mentality just baffles me. |
| Posted by: gromky 2006-01-14 23:22 |
| #5 just back off for a month and he'll have to come out to play. If he's got as much as he says he does, and there is not more to this story, what good is it for him to hide in the attic? |
| Posted by: 2b 2006-01-14 22:13 |
| #4 A Canadian rural Rights group says they are hiding a Belgian family in a safe place to protect them from deportation. Simple solution, arrest the members of the "Rights group" that have confessed to the crime of harboring wanted persons, start at the top and go down untill some member talks. Then continue down the members list untill you have arrested all the participants (Members) and jail the bunch of them. Stop this before it spreads. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2006-01-14 21:45 |
| #3 No sympathy here. They had visas, not permanent status, and they knew that. Cut them a break and you'll have to do the same for others on visas or with expired visas. You may as well just open the borders. No way. What gives them the right to be beyond the law? |
| Posted by: Darrell 2006-01-14 21:06 |
| #2 This makes no sense at all. How much can a farm hand, supporting a wife and teenaged son, have accumulated? For that matter, how can a farm hand's salary support a wife and son? And why does the government care so much about an ancient shoplifting conviction, when outright terrorism garners government support? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-01-14 20:53 |
| #1 There's an easier solution. Michel should change his name to Mohammed Al-Van Hauve and have his wife wear a scarf and his son grow a scraggly beard/mustache and take to wearing a bulky vest. Then the Canadian immigration authorities wouldn't DARE touch them, let alone deport them. >:-( |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2006-01-14 20:49 |