Over the three weeks, Jang and Althaus filed a 180-page stay motion to the Federal Court of Canada, along with affidavits to support a humanitarian and compassionate application (H&C) to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and a deferral request to the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA).
The two students got to know the family, which helped them add critical information to the original H&C application a Toronto law firm prepared. “It was important to us that we brought their stories to life,” Jang says.
The family came to Canada as refugees in 2017, but the story goes back further. The father, who grew up in the post-Russian invasion of Afghanistan, left at 14 as he feared for his safety. He eventually went back, but there wasn’t much left for him there, Jang says, so he went to Kazakhstan, where he met his wife, a Uighur.
The couple eventually opened a shop. However, the father was beaten and threatened with death by the local “mafia” who was extorting them, so after being on the run for two years, he decided to come to Canada, where his brother and sister lived.
Althaus says that when they arrived in Canada, they applied for refugee status under s. 97 of the Immigration Refugee Protection Act, designed for those who are personally targeted with persecution and have no protection from their government. “You need to show that there is a vendetta against you, and the authorities can do nothing to protect you.”