Refugee sponsors put on hold by quota
The Office for Refugees, Archdiocese of Toronto has been forced to suspend all new applications to sponsor refugees for the rest of this year due to persistent backlogs in government processing.
The problem of long processing times for refugees to Canada will be fixed by 2019, promises Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Ahmed Hussen.
Sponsors frustrated by delays keeping Mideast refugees out of Canada’s reach
TORONTO – In just 100 days beginning last Sept. 8, the Archdiocese of Toronto raised $3.7 million and formed 105 volunteer groups in the hope of sponsoring at least 100 refugee families from the Middle East. Those sponsorship committees actually launched 154 applications to bring refugee families to Canada. A year later most of those refugee families are still living in limbo in Lebanon and Jordan while their paperwork piles up in Winnipeg.
AJAX, ONT. – Members of an Ajax parish are growing frustrated as the wait grows longer for the Iraqi refugee family they have sponsored to be approved for resettlement in Canada.