A New Westminster family facing deportation to Mexico will have to leave the country just days before Christmas — unless political pressure can keep them in Canada.
The B.C. Hospital Employees’ Union is urging federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos to help stop the deportation of a local health-care worker.
Claudia Zamorano, a housekeeper at Royal Columbian Hospital, is facing deportation on Dec. 19 along with her family — her husband Andres Liberato Bazan and their nine-year-old daughter Evangeline, along with Bazan’s brother and mother. They could be sent out of Canada despite having a current application for permanent residency on humanitarian and compassionate grounds that has yet to be processed by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
The family arrived in Canada in 2017, fleeing organized crime in Mexico, and started working while they waited for their refugee application to be processed.
Since the pandemic began, they haven’t qualified to stay in Canada despite some federal programs designed to regularize the immigration status of essential workers.
Though Zamorano worked in COVID-19 wards that put her at direct risk from the virus, she didn’t qualify for a federal program launched in December 2020 to regularize the status of refugee claimants who worked in health care.
Meena Brisard, HEU’s secretary-business manager, said keeping Zamorano in Canada just makes sense.
“Our health-care system is facing dire staff shortages nationwide,” she said in a press release. “There are permanent residency applications, like that of Claudia’s family, that the immigration minister can approve today to keep another needed health-care worker on the job. We should be doing everything we can to keep health-care workers like Claudia.”
Brisard noted Claudia has been on the front lines throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
“She has put herself and her family at risk of contracting COVID for three years to help keep Canadians safe,” Brisard said.
Zamorano told her story at a media event held in Sapperton in August to raise awareness of the family’s plight.
“I like my job; I do it with joy,” she said at the time. “We are short of staff, so if I can help the patient and the nurse, then I will.”
Sanctuary Health, a migrant justice advocacy group, has also been working on behalf of Zamorano and her family.
“The federal government prides itself as being compassionate and welcoming of immigrants,” spokesperson Omar Chu said in a press release. “And yet, this December, six days before Christmas, we’ll be deporting a health-care worker, her daughter — who has only ever known the Canadian school system — and their family back to Mexico, where their safety is at risk. It doesn’t make any sense.”
The issue came back into the news this week when health ministers from across Canada gathered in Vancouver to discuss health-care staffing shortages — a meeting that fizzled after the ministers left Tuesday without assurances of more federal funding. The HEU took the opportunity to shine a light on the challenges facing health-care workers like Zamorano.
Meanwhile, a grassroots campaign by Sanctuary Health to put pressure on Immigration Minister Sean Fraser continues. A letter-writing campaign is continuing, with 1,305 letters sent as of this posting.
Follow Julie MacLellan on Twitter @juliemaclellan.
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