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J'can woman waits to know if she will be deported from Canada

A Jamaican mother of two will hear on Tuesday if she will be deported or allowed to remain in Canada to fight for her baby who is in the custody of Children’s Aid officials.

A lawyer representing the unidentified 30-year old woman was at the Federal Court of Canada on Monday seeking a stay of her removal so she can try to obtain custody of her six-month-old daughter.

She was escorted by immigration officers for a final visit with her daughter on Friday.

Immigration consultant, Roy Kellogg, who is helping the woman pro bono, said she would not be legally able to return to Canada to fight for the child if deported.

The Jamaican woman arrived in Canada in 2001 as a visitor and overstayed her visa.

A warrant was issued for her arrest for not showing up for removal.

She also has a four-year-old son who is in the care of relatives.

The woman's baby was taken by Halton Children’s Aid officials, who feared for the infant's safety after her birth in March.

The woman was arrested on October 7 after she went to visit the infant at a state-run home.

An Ontario family court will decide next month who will get custody of the child.

Source:RadioJamaica

she nuh landed weh she a breed twice fah one a mistake and the other come on now if you nuh landed how you a go run with two pickney if need be.... what happen to de man weh breed har....

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Why the bumbo claat yuh ha fe sey bumbo claat so many bumbo claat times . Cho bumbo claat...

Finger-raped in Barbados

Thursday, March 24, 2011

ALLEGATIONS by a Jamaican woman that she was finger-raped by an immigration officer before being thrown out of Barbados, have brought the spotlight on poor treatment of Jamaicans visiting that eastern Caribbean island.

Shanique Myrie complained bitterly to the Observer yesterday that when she attempted to enter Barbados on March 14, 2011, she was subjected to two demeaning cavity searches by a female immigration officer who continuously spewed venom about Jamaicans. It was her first trip out of the island

Myrie's story was corroborated by former Jamaican honorary consul to Barbados, Marlon Gordon.

Gordon, an attorney, said even though some Jamaicans do enter Barbados and get involved in nefarious activities, that was no excuse for wholesale discrimination against Jamaica nationals.
"This arbitrary kind of behaviour that is being exhibited by the Government in Barbados has to be looked at. You can't penalise an entire nation," Gordon said.

Jamaican Jaydene Thomas, a former journalist and now a practising attorney in Barbados, said the Jamaican foreign ministry had for too long ignored the cries of Jamaicans who suffered at the hands of Barbadians when they visited that island.

"Every time that a flight arrives from Jamaica, the nothing-to-declare line is automatically closed, she said. "We are treated like criminals by the authorities."

Myrie, in relating her story to the Observer said: "The lady took me into a bathroom and told me to take off my clothes. I did as requested. After searching me and my clothes she found no contraband or narcotics. She then asked me to bend over, open my legs and spread (my private parts). She said that if I did not comply then she would see that I end up in prison in Barbados.

"When I bent over and spread my (private parts) I felt something enter my (private parts) and when I looked between my legs I saw her gloved hand in my (private parts). I screamed and stood up. She then told me if I obstructed her doing a cavity search she would have me locked up. I bent over again and spread. She again inserted her fingers and poked around. I felt like I was being raped. I was so hurt and ashamed. I felt dirty and defiled," she said.

"I asked her who she was and she said 'I am your worst nightmare'. She then said 'All you (expletive) Jamaicans come here to do is either steal people's man or bring drugs here," Myrie recounted.
Myrie said the immigration officer removed her identification tag before humiliating her and that she complied because she was alone with the woman and feared what she would do to her.

She was interrogated and her luggage searched by at least four other immigration officials at intervals and was further cursed by the woman who searched her.

"She said I hate these (expletive) Jamaicans," she said.
Even though she was originally given clearance to enter the country, she said a male officer took her passport and returned with the entry permit cancelled and left her in a waiting area for more than two hours before carting her off to a small room and informing her that she would be spending the night in the cramped setting.
"It was only a board cot with a small, raw sponge, there was no pillow or bed linen. The room had no windows," she said.
When she entered the room, Myrie said, another traumatised woman was already in confinement.

"The cot was definitely too small for both of us to lay on at the same time so we took turns laying and sitting while we recounted our ordeal. We did this through the night," Myrie said.
Myrie said in the morning the door was flung open and three women informed them that their flight was about to leave at any minute and they would have no time to shower so they were only able to wash their faces and brush their teeth before they were carted off to the plane and sent back to Jamaica.

"I did not resist any orders, nor did I refuse to answer any questions. No drugs or contraband was ever found on me or my luggage. Therefore, I must ask if the treatment meted out to me was based solely on the fact that I am a Jamaican?" Myrie said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade said yesterday that it had received a letter of complaint from Myrie and other Jamaicans and promised that the matter would be dealt with on a government to government level.

"We have received a number of complaints on a regular basis and those matters will be investigated. The matter has been brought up at the Caricom (Caribbean Community) level and we are aware of the situation," Ann Margaret Lim, the ministry's head of communications told the Observer.

However, the ministry was not able to provide actual figures of the number of Jamaicans treated unfairly in Barbados.

Source:JamaicaObserver

Mi no find no part of di "finger rape" story funny, da woman deh too fuckin bright she no meet her match yet.

Used And Abused, Teachers Recruited To Work In New York Cry Foul

Published: Sunday | March 27, 2011.

Judith Hall addressing journalists as international teachers in the United States of America held a press conference on the steps of City Hall last week to condemn the treatment of teachers. - Contributed
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Janet Silvera, Senior Gleaner Writer

WESTERN BUREAU:

Thousands of Caribbean teachers who were lured to the United States with promises of better-paying jobs, improved educational opportunities, housing assistance, and the path to permanent residency are crying foul, claiming that they are victims of victimisation.

Some have staged public rallies since the start of the month to air their grouses and have since formed an alliance with an American lobby and will take their case to the deputy mayor of New York tomorrow, accompanied by Congresswoman Yvette Clarke.

Jamaicans, Bahamians, Trinidadians, Grenadians, St Lucians, Dominicans - all recruited by New York City Schools, some from as far back as 2001 - are yet to receive promises of permanent residency. They say they have had no support from the Department of Education (DOE) in a report tagged 'Broken Promises' that has sparked a firestorm in the United States.

"We have been classified as unskilled workers and are treated as indentured servants. How is this possible when we were chosen because we were the best and brightest our countries had to offer? This is an egregious situation, and we are demanding redress from the city, state, federal, and international levels," chairman of the International Association of Educators (IAE), Judith Hall, told The Sunday Gleaner.

Describing the promised green card as "ephemeral", Hall said, "It's like a mirage. Every time you try to grasp it, you find it's beyond your reach."

After 10 years in the US, Hall has two master's degrees and a principal's licence since 2008 - which she cannot use - and no pension. Her son cannot access any form of scholarship because he is treated as an international student, and her spouse cannot work.

Disenchanted and fearing deportation, Hall, a Jamaican, and her team of 400-strong educators, have joined forces with The Black Institute, an organisation founded to shape intellectual discourse and dialogue, and influence public policy from a Black perspective. This includes all people of colour in the United States and throughout the diaspora.

The Black Institute was founded by Bertha Lewis, former CEO of the Association of Community Organisations for Reform Now (ACORN).

Lamenting the uphill battle, Lewis said she has had to fight with little information from the DOE on the number of teachers affected, however, she estimated that the figure ranged from a minimum of 2,000 to anywhere between 5,000 and 8,000, and "that's what we have pieced together".

She said the educators had paid an average of US$10,000 each over the last eight years to lawyers recommended by the DOE. The job of the lawyers was to make their transition to permanent residency seamless.

The IAE said it later found out that these same lawyers were employed to the DOE.

At tomorrow's meeting, Lewis said that she wants the status of the immigrant teachers addressed first and foremost.

"The first thing we want is to have these teachers' status changed to skilled professionals," stated Lewis. Currently, they are classified as unskilled labourers, even though many of them are holders of bachelor's and master's degrees.

Wants reinstatement

Lewis, who argues that these immigrants have been totally abused and used by the system, also wants all international teachers who were dismissed immediately reinstated as "unlike others, they never got due process". Of note is the fact that European teachers are not given the same treatment. The Caribbean educators fall in the same category as countries such as the Philippines and Africa, said the IAE.

According to Lewis, one of the many horror stories coming out of the 'broken promises' was the disintegration of families. "Because of their H-1 status, their spouses cannot work, and when they were recruited, they were promised legal help, that their spouses could work and their children would be taken care of."

Teachers are allowed to work on a J-1 'exchange' visa for two years. After that, an H-1B visa is required to establish eligibility of residency for their families.

Source:Jamaica Gleaner/Power 106

Those hard court benches!

Wooden seats blamed for prevalence of prostate cancer among retired judges

BY DESMOND ALLEN Executive Editor - Special Assignment allend@jamaicaobserver.com

Monday, July 15, 2013

THE long hours sitting on the hard wooden benches in courtrooms is being blamed for the fact that a majority of retired Jamaican judges now suffer from prostate cancer.

Many courtrooms still feature the traditional long wooden benches, some dating back to colonial times and from which the word 'bench' came to describe the judiciary in present and former British territories.

[Hide Description] Sybil Hibbert

"I am very aware of the difficulty suffered by those who have to sit for extended hours on those hard benches," said A J Nicholson, a former justice minister. "Our courts need to be user-friendly and customer-friendly."

Nicholson who is currently Jamaica's foreign minister, said he would expect that the proposed refurbishment of courts would factor in the need for change in the seating arrangements to eliminate the hard wooden benches.

Queen's Counsel RNA Henriques, one of Jamaica's most senior attorneys, with 54 years under his belt, pointed to Antigua-Barbuda and Anguilla as two small countries that had done away with the wooden benches in favour of padded seats in their courtrooms.

"The court in Anguilla is actually quite posh. Antigua has individual seats for people in court. We are way behind in Jamaica," Henriques argued.

Attorney Raymond Clough said he found it odd that Jamaica was contributing $100 million to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) when the country could take appeal cases to the United Kingdom Privy Council for free.

"That money could then be used to modernise our courts and get rid of things like the wooden benches," Clough suggested.

Sybil Hibbert, veteran journalist and retired court reporting specialist, was amused by the fact that the wooden benches she sat on during the 1960s were still in the Supreme Court today.

"Interestingly, a policeman wrote something distasteful about me on one of the benches in the early 1970s and that was still there when I visited last week," said Hibbert, the current author of the popular Sunday Observer series "Crimes that rocked the nation".

Hibbert who has close relations with many retired judges, said she was told by a majority of them that they had been informed by doctors that their prostate cancer was caused by the long hours on those hard wooden benches.

"It's a sad case because so many of them are suffering from prostate cancer," she told the Jamaica Observer.

In the absence of any government effort to remove the wooden benches over the years, many people, including lawyers, who have to sit for long hours in court, have resorted to taking a cushion along.

As recently as last week, attorney Deborah Martin walked with her cushion, — which is shaped like a seat, with backrest — to court four of the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's Court at Half-Way-Tree where she is on the defence for three former ATL executives who are on trial for allegedly forging letters to show consent for distributing $1.7 billion in pension surpluses.

Several other women who attend the court to support defence witnesses in that case have been seen taking cushions to court. A newspaper reporter sat on a copy of his broadsheet paper last Thursday. A second reporter complained of pain in his back from sitting on the benches for upwards of five or six hours over many days.

The presiding magistrate, Lorna Shelly Williams sits on a padded chair and orderlies also have padded chairs, suggesting that some changes had been made. But the clerk of court has to sit on the benches beside the prosecuting attorneys.

Source:Jamaicaobserver

Broadcaster Johnny Daley harrassed by T&T Immigration and Customs officers

Friday, January 10, 2014

A view of the Piarco International Airport in Trinidad

DESPITE claims by Trinidad and Tobago officials that Jamaicans are not being singled out for bad treatment when they arrive at the Piarco Airport, popular broadcaster and comedian Christopher 'Johnny' Daley is claiming to have been mistreated by airport officials.

Daley vented his anger at the shabby treatment on the social network website Facebook on Tuesday and said he felt like a criminal even though he broke no immigration law and was not in possession of any contraband or banned items.

In November, the denial of 13 Jamaicans who were forced to sit on a hard bench, taunted by airport officials and sent back to Jamaica drew the ire of many Jamaicans who called for a ban on Trinidadian products.

The issue forced Trinidadian Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar to send a delegation, headed by her foreign minister Winston Dookeran, to hold diplomatic talks with his Jamaican counterpart A J Nicholson.

Dookeran then promised to allow for free travel into that country but his fellow parliamentarian and Trinidadian security minister, Gary Griffith, shot down his promise and vowed to keep out 'undesirables'.

Griffith said immigration matters fell under his ministry and only he could make such pronouncements. He said Trinidad was not a shopping mall.

Daley, in his Facebook post, said: "I had my worst travel experience entering the twin-island Republic of Trinidad and Tobago last night and I'm sorry to say it but Jamaicans are targeted and profiled because it happened to me and my wife.

"A J Nicholson, Mr Minister of Foreign Affairs, there is much work to be done. We were suspects the minute we walked up to immigration. Without scanning our passports the Indian-looking officer took up a phone and called someone to indicate that she felt suspicious. Whilst on the phone, with the receiver by her ears, she then asked a few questions as to the purpose of our trip. She was told. She then asked if we were actually married and was responded to. The officer then pointed out that I had several work permits (for other countries in my passport) to the person on the phone, as if that was her reason for being suspicious. She then scanned our books and asked us to sit across the way and wait.

"After fifteen minuets or so she called us over and handed our passports and sent us through. If the checks had ended there this note would not be written but as soon as we got to our bags and entered the Customs line it was clear that the Customs enforcement team that was waiting was prepped to look out for the suspects, 'aka Jamaican criminals'."

Daley said that he and his wife were the only ones searched by hand, and were asked to break open one of the beef patties they were taking for their hosts, after which the officer broke several pieces of the ginger they were asked to take by their hosts, and squeezed the harddough bread so hard that "it lost its shape".

The interrogation, Daley said, continued by the Customs officer, while two policemen in plain clothes stood by. He was, among other things, asked how long he had been in Jamaica, if he had a criminal record, his travel history.

Daley wrote: "She seemed quite disappointed and annoyed that she found nothing alarming in our luggage and then she did the most ridiculous thing I've ever experienced. She asked if I was wearing two trousers (remember I live in the tropics ) to which my response was an obvious no. Without hesitation she instructed me to go to a room with the two thug-looking men (police). I shook my head and reluctantly entered the tiny room. One thug stood at the door the other asked me to lift my shirt up. I did since I had my undershirt on. He gave me a pat down, searched the seam of my pants and then told me to step out.

"This has never happened before in all my years of travelling, not even in the United States, a country that is constantly having to protect its borders from terrorists. It was humiliating.

"[Minister] Nicholson, there was no respect shown to me and my wife. The Trinidad airport personnel seem to personally enjoy dragging us through the mud of their system. Suffice to say we barely made the connecting flight to Tobago and got attitude from the Caribbean airline staff on the ground for being late for boarding. Oh, and they left our luggage, by the way. Fortunately our hosts in Tobago could drop a few names and it was later delivered.

"My fellow Jamaicans, please have all your ducks in a row and your T's crossed if you need to travel to Trinidad and Tobago because we are being targeted. They had no good reason to treat my wife and I the way they did so I can only assume it's our nationality that was the issue. It's as if the immigration and Customs personnel have replaced The word Jamaican with criminal, so please be careful."

Source: JamacaObserver