Is this the answer brehs?
A black American man is applying for refugee status in Canada, citing police racism. Don’t laugh.
Americans are kind of at ease ignoring our neighbors to the north. Sure, we pay attention during the Olympic Games there or during the election of a new prime minister with Olympic-quality hair. We tune in when there's a mayor with epic problems. But for the most part, Canada is just a country that's up there, with which we have few problems and do a lot of trade.
But last week, one American went further. Much, much further.
Kyle L. Canty, a native New Yorker, went before Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board in Vancouver and asked the country to grant him refugee status.
That's the official term for political asylum-seekers granted permission to remain, work and live in another country. Canty told Canadian immigration officials that after living in seven different states, he has faced what he describes as harassment and undue targeting by police in each one of them because he is a black man. And, Canty says, the recent spate of high-profile cases involving alleged police misconduct and black male private citizens have only affirmed his fears that this pattern might wind up costing him his life.
Under Canadian law, those seeking permanent refuge in the country must provide evidence that they face grave danger in their homeland. That evidence can include "well-founded fear of persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or affiliation or membership in a particular group," the CBC reported.
Canada, like the United States, has long been an active participant in coordinated global efforts to welcome and resettle refugees. Canada's refugee resettlement program is significantly smaller than that of the United States and always has been. For instance, below is a snapshot of refugee resettlement activity in Canada in 2014. Pay particular attention to the number of asylum-seekers, who like Canty sought permission to move to or remain in Canada because of concerns for their safety. All told, Canada's 2014 count amounted to less than 17,000 people:
Before anyone rushes to a rapid dismissal of Canty's efforts, consider this: Canty presented a case that one member of the country's refugee review board described as "well-prepared," the CBC reported. The CBC itself described Canty's presentation this way:
As part of evidence submitted to the board, Canty edited together multiple point-of-view videos of his interaction with police, including one where he was arrested for trespass in Salem, Ore., when he spent two hours talking on the phone and using free Wi-Fi at a bus station.
"I got bothered because I'm black," Canty said. "This is a history of false arrest. My name is ruined because of the false arrest."
If Canada denies Canty's bid for refugee status, he will have to return to the U.S. and face multiple outstanding charges for crimes such as jaywalking,disorderly conduct and issuing threats.
While Canty's claims might strike some Americans as a preposterous attempt to avoid American justice, the string of mostly low-level charges he faces also offers an example of what many advocates of policing reforms say is the non-lethal but damaging effect of the way that police in the United States all too often interact with people of color.
It leads to undue stops, searches and a sense of harassment, tense and sometimes dangerous (for one or both parties) interactions, growing distrust, citations and arrests, these activists say. That in turn can lead to plea bargains and convictions for those unable to afford a private attorney. However, once a person does so, a criminal record can make it difficult to get a job or, depending on the charges, impossible to receive federal student loans. It's in that sense that policing in the United States, these activists say, helps to maintain and feed all sorts of inequality.
Canty told the board that he has lived in a homeless shelter since arriving in Canada but would hope to work as a photographer in Canada and open a martial arts training center if allowed to remain in the country.
Of course, Canty's case hinges on more than his personal experience.
High-ranking public officials in the United States have said that the data collected on in-custody deaths and police shootings in the United States are, at best, spotty but contain indicators of bias. The Washington Post's investigative team has compiled a data base this year. In the process, the team has identified 821 fatal police shootings in 2015 alone. A slight numerical majority of these shootings -- 393 -- involve white Americans. But a disproportionate share of those shot and killed by police have been black or Latino -- 345 people, or 42 percent of those who have died this year. (Together blacks and Latinos comprise 30.6 percent of the population.)
[Check out The Washington Post's database and all the details it contains about fatal police shootings here]
And the United Nations has all but said that the United States is no exemplar in the human rights category. During a regularly scheduled review of conditions inside the United States in May, U.N. human rights officials questioned American representatives about police brutality and the elevated number of unarmed African Americans shot or who have died in police custody, the continued use of the death penalty and long-term solitary confinement in the U.S. criminal justice system and the detention of undocumented immigrants, including children, in locked facilities.
In 2014, the U.N. also heard testimony on the effects of so-called Stand Your Ground policies in several U.S. states. On top of all this, U.N. observers say that the United States has yet to implement the vast majority of the nearly 240 recommendations global human rights officials suggested during the United States' first-ever periodic review in 2010.
This time around, the United States got a list of 348 recommendationsto improve human rights conditions.
And while Canty's claim might be big and bold, it's not really without precedent.
During the Revolutionary War, Canada offered refuge to Americans who wanted to remain loyal to the British Crown. Along with what's typically described as tens of thousands of white Americans, several thousand black American slaves fled to Canada, a British territory neighboring the United States. American refugees were offered 100 acres of land for each head of household and 50 more for each family member who came along. For black Americans, the land also came with a promise of freedom in Canada. Large communities of former American slaves migrated and settled in Nova Scotia. African-American slaves also used what's known as the Underground Railroad to risk a dangerous escape from slavery in the American South. Some ended their journey in Canada. Settling there put them outside the reach of U.S. laws that called for escaped slaves to be returned to their owners.
More recently, Canada has offered asylum to very small numbers of Americans, typically no more than 10 each year. In 2013, there were three Americans who were granted the right to remain in the country as refugees. In 2014 Denise Harvey, a white Florida woman convicted in that state of having sex with a 16-year-old boy, sought and won asylum in Canada after she was sentenced to 30 years in prison. (In Canada, 16 is the legal age of consent in most cases.) Immigration officials granted Harvey refugee status after she fled to Canada with her family on the grounds that the punishment she faced in the United States was cruel and unusual.
For Americans who find this all a bit ridiculous or even embarrassing, you might be pleased to know that Canada has made reducing the number of frivolous asylum claims a priority for its immigration agencies.
But if Harvey's claim was accepted, who's to say Canty's has no hope?
