The fact that we are dealing with individuals and human beings makes this very emotional. Each case is very emotional. I know it would be literally impossible to operate a country and an immigration program where every case is viewed from an emotional perspective. But in terms of what the other panellists here have been sharing, in terms of bringing temporary foreign workers in, I believe there are a number of people being deported these days, who are already here, who could be very beneficial to our country. But because immigration officials don't look at the needs or the value of what they add, what these people bring to the country—they only look at the method, the route, they took to get into the country—we're in fact in danger of losing some very good people.
I mentioned in my comments that Alexi has been victimized on a number of levels. I'll just share with you two such ways in which he's been victimized. His application on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, which was filed in March 2006 and the decision rendered in February 2007, was reviewed by the Federal Court judge.
When he questioned the immigration department lawyer about the process that was followed, she admitted that they really simply took the previous decision from another application, which was on an agency basis, and said they just applied the decision from that earlier decision to this application and rejected it.
The judge asked what process they went through to question the validity of his statement, such as whether they contacted anyone who had written letters in his support, and the lawyer said, “We don't know these people and don't know if their opinions would be valid.”
The judge did not know I was sitting in the courtroom at that time, and he said, “Well, I'm looking at a letter here from a Reverend Gordon Sutherland. I would assume he has some level of education and some insight into the situation. You didn't feel it necessary to contact him?”
Alexi gets victimized because they only see the route he took to get into the country.