Lebanese man who lost refugee status for returning to his homeland five times gets shot at staying in Canada
An 81-year-old Lebanese man with dementia who obtained refugee status in Canada “on the basis of threats from terrorist organizations” in his homeland, then lost it for returning to Lebanon five times to visit his sick and dying siblings and to attend their funerals, has won another shot at staying in this country.
Ezzat Fahs, who holds Lebanese citizenship, obtained refugee protection in Canada about 14 years ago, according to a recent Federal Court decision regarding his case.
“Since he obtained permanent resident status in 2017, Mr. Fahs returned to Lebanon on five occasions,” said the June 11 decision out of Ottawa.
Immigration Minister Lena Diab “brought an application for cessation of his Convention Refugee status” to Canada’s Refugee Protection Division (RPD), which allowed it, and found Fahs “voluntarily re-availed himself of the protection of Lebanon,” said the decision.
“This resulted in Mr. Fahs losing his protected person status and permanent residence status.”
“Ultimately, the RPD found that the three elements of the cessation test were met: Mr. Fahs acted voluntarily, intended to re-avail himself of Lebanon’s protection and actually obtained such protection. The RPD accepted that Mr. Fahs travelled to Lebanon to visit sick and dying siblings and to attend their funerals but found that these were not exceptional circumstances and therefore, his actions were voluntary,” said the decision.
Fahs started showing “early signs of dementia” in 2012, according to his doctor.
“The RPD found that the medical evidence did not establish that Mr. Fahs was unaware of the consequences of his decision to travel to Lebanon because of his medical condition. The RPD also found that Mr. Fahs took minimal safety precautions that did not demonstrate that he was living in hiding while in Lebanon.”
It acknowledged that Fahs “travelled by car with a family member directly from the airport to his family’s home in the south of Lebanon and that he would cover his face with a scarf to avoid detection,” said the decision.
“The RPD also noted that Mr. Fahs ‘visited his sibling(s) in state-run hospitals and attended their public funerals’ and that the airport in Beirut is infiltrated by Hezbollah who would ‘have no trouble identifying (Fah’s) arrival and departure from Beirut International Airport.’”
It concluded “the totality of the evidence before it demonstrates that while (Fahs) may have been making minimal efforts to conceal his identity, they do not amount to him being in hiding.”
That analysis contains “two significant problems,” wrote Federal Court Justice Lobat Sadrehashemi, who ordered the decision to be reviewed.
“First, the RPD required that Mr. Fahs demonstrate that the efforts he took amounted to living in hiding. This is not the requirement,” said the judge.
“Similarly, the RPD erred by requiring (Fahs) to have been ‘in hiding’ during (his) travels.”
The “relevant consideration,” Sadrehashemi said, is whether he took any precautionary measures while in Lebanon.
The RPD failed, “to consider the impact of the totality of the evidence about the precautionary measures taken by Mr. Fahs and instead focused on the binary question of whether these actions amounted to living in hiding,” said the judge. “This is a sufficient basis on which to set aside the decision.”
The RPD failed to consider that Fahs visited his siblings “briefly, during quiet hours and that the hospital itself is in a village in the south of Lebanon where it is not busy,” she said.
“The determinative issue is the RPD’s treatment of the security precautions taken by Mr. Fahs while he was in Lebanon,” Sadrehashemi said.
She found that the RPD’s focus on whether Fahs had actually been “in hiding” when he returned did not allow it to consider the nature and impact of his security precautions. This is a sufficient basis to allow the judicial review and send the decision back for redetermination, she said.
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