For nearly two years, Claudia Zamorano has been quietly working to help keep hospital patients safe in the face of COVID-19 through her work as a housekeeper at Royal Columbian Hospital.
Now she faces the prospect of being deported from the country she has called home for more than four years.
Zamorano and her family — her mother-in-law Leticia Bazan Porto, her brother-in-law Isaias Liberato Bazan, her husband Andres Liberato Bazan and their nine-year-old daughter Evangeline — are all facing deportation to Mexico while they await a decision on their ongoing application for permanent residency on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
Sanctuary Health, a grassroots community group that advocates for migrant justice, held a rally at Sapperton Park Wednesday morning to draw attention to the family’s plight.
The family fled Mexico in 2017 under threat from organized crime. They’re now living in New Westminster, where Evangeline is set to start Grade 4 in the fall — but they may not be allowed to stay.
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.
The two Bazan brothers, meanwhile, have been working in construction, and their employer, CWL Contracting, is supporting their application for permanent residence. They, too, missed out on a federal program designed to regularize the status of construction workers. Such a policy was introduced in July 2019 for out-of-status construction workers in the Greater Toronto Area, in recognition of the economic contributions of those workers, but there’s nothing similar for B.C. refugee claimants.
“We can't afford as a society to exclude and deport families like these,” said Omar Chu of Sanctuary Health. “We’re standing together because we won't let the government continually chew up and spit out members of our community by introducing piecemeal programs that exclude far more people than they support.”
Porto, meanwhile, has been serving the community through volunteer work at the South Granville Seniors Centre, Carnegie Community Centre, Mission Possible and Watari Counselling and Support Services — where she has been a pillar of a food security program that helped provide meals and food hampers through the height of pandemic restrictions and beyond.
“They’re a truly remarkable family that has given so much to the community,” Chu said. “The trauma, the anxiety and the fear that our immigration has created for this family is unacceptable.”
'I like my job; I do it with joy,' says health-care worker
The soft-spoken Zamorano is unassuming about her own contributions.
“I like my job; I do it with joy,” she said. “We are short of staff, so if I can help the patient and the nurse, then I will.”
She’s even been able to use her language skills to help nurses deal with Spanish-speaking patients.
Despite her close contact with the virus throughout the pandemic, she was able to dodge COVID-19 until last week — when, finally, she tested positive after working in a seniors’ ward with a COVID outbreak.
“I’ve been doing my work carefully, cleaning up everything,” she said, but added the workload is high for housekeepers tending to large numbers of rooms. “One person, it’s just not enough.”
Zamorano has gone through her own personal struggles over the past few years, including miscarriage she attributes to the stress of the family’s immigration situation.
But her concern is focused largely on her daughter — who was forced to attend a family meeting with immigration officials on July 8, where she was told her family would be deported.
“For nine years old, how can she understand?” Zamorano said. “She cannot sleep properly right now. She’s scared of officers. She cried and asked why we cannot be here if we are not bad people.
“CBSA has to change and protect the mental health of every children in the same situation.”
Hospital Employees' Union backs New Westminster family fighting deportation
The family has earned the support of the Hospital Employees’ Union, which is publicly urging Immigration Minister Sean Fraser to support the family’s permanent residency application.
“It is clear that Claudia has an active role in ensuring safe direct patient care, and she never should have been excluded from the special measures that were introduced for refugee claimants working in health care,” said HEU president Barb Nederpel, who spoke at the rally. “She continues to this day to be a critical part of the health-care team, especially at a time when our hospitals and our health-care facilities are facing dire staffing shortages. And we need to retain every single one of our qualified and dedicated health-care workers that we can in order to prevent placing further burden on our already understaffed and overworked health-care sector.”
Sanctuary Health is also conducting a letter-writing campaign in support of the family, and more than 900 people have already signed letters of support.
The organization is also fighting on behalf of another New Westminster couple, Adriana Rosales Contreras and Alberto Vargas Mendez, who are also fighting to stay in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
Follow Julie MacLellan on Twitter @juliemaclellan.
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