CBSA says Muslim asylum seekers´ answers to targeted questions were never used
(The Star Fashion & Style)

The Canada Border Services Agency has pledged that information Muslim asylum seekers gave RCMP officers about their faith and cultural beliefs will not be used in processing their refugee claims. The Canada Border Services Agency said Tuesday that while the RCMP passed on information gleaned from a questionnaire the federal police force used at an informal Quebec border crossing for more than a year, “at no time was it used by the CBSA in the processing of asylum claims.�“The CBSA is currently removing information related to the RCMP questionnaire from its holdings,� a CBSA spokesperson wrote in an email to the Star.Read more:RCMP will redact more than 5,000 records collected using questionnaire targeting Muslim asylum seekersThree questions on an RCMP survey — which had been in use for to screen refugees at the Roxham Road crossing from New York to Quebec — specifically targeted Muslims. It asked how many times per day they prayed, or how they felt about extremist groups with Muslim membership.Immigration lawyers compared the line of questioning to the widely lampooned campaign pledge by Conservative MP Kellie Leitch to screen immigrants for “Canadian values.�The RCMP immediately removed the offensive questions from the questionnaire last month after being contacted by the Star.For months, immigration lawyers and refugee claimants had talked about an unusual questionnaire, but it wasn’t until a client of Toronto lawyer Clifford McCarten was mistakenly given his completed form that there was proof of its use.Although there have been refugee claimants fleeing what they allege is a U.S. administration that discriminates against Muslims, the majority of asylum seekers into Canada have been Haitian, or from Central America. The Trump administration has ended what is known as the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) — a special immigration designation that allows those hailing from countries wrecked by natural d ...