Family faces deportation..deport..cYA!
Saturday, January 23, 2010 Oh cry me a river and quit bullshiting as you jump the line. BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT... Send them back to Israel. Yea, it's sad the father got killed in an accident, and the accident could of happened anywhere, doesn't mean they automatically get those immigration papers. There are much more in need people who are waiting for their application to come here. And the media needs not to use children to win people's hearts and feel sorry for these type of people.
Send them back! Deport them!
For the past three weeks, 7-year-old Daniela Korostin has made daily visits to her father's grave to tell him she loves him and not to worry about his family.
Often, the North York Grade 2 student brings flowers and notes with her to Beechwood Cemetery, like one that reads: "I hope you're alive there (in heaven). That you'll never die. That you'll never be sick. That it'll be a good place for you. Don't worry, Daddy."
But while the family of Vladimir Korostin still struggles to make sense of his death in a scaffolding accident on Christmas Eve, they are now also facing the possibility of being deported.
The family came here as refugee claimants from Israel three years ago, saying they didn't want their daughters to be forced to serve in the military; they also felt uncomfortable, as Orthodox Christians in a predominantly Jewish country. They're unable to afford a lawyer for their refugee hearing Feb. 23.
Korostin's ex-wife Irina Cherniakova, 37, says it was horrible to tell her two children they had lost their father, and unimaginable to tell them they might lose their home.
"I'm really worried that the decision might be negative," Cherniakova said. "That if they send us to Israel, nobody will be able to look after the grave."
Korostin, 40, was one of the four immigrant, non-union workers who fell to their deaths on Christmas Eve when the scaffold they were working upon at a Kipling Ave. highrise complex collapsed 13 floors above the ground.
It was the worst one-day construction accident in Toronto in the past 50 years.
Cherniakova worries the graveside visits by Daniela and her big sister Inna Korostin will soon stop if the family loses the deportation hearing next month.
Last year, the acceptance rate for refugee claims for people fighting deportation to Israel was 5 per cent, compared to 6 per cent in 2008 and 17 per cent in 2007.
Cherniakova could win at the hearing if she can convince the board that she and her daughters left the country three years ago because of a well-founded fear of persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group, board spokesperson Charles Hawkins said.
They could also continue living in Toronto if they convince the board that they're in need of protection, because their deportation would subject them to a danger of torture, a risk to their life or a risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment, he added.
If this fails, there's one last hope for the family to remain in Canada.
"They can still make a humanitarian and compassionate application for staying," Hawkins said.
Cherniakova said it's tough enough for Inna to cope with being a 14-year-old, Grade 9 student without adding the sudden death of her father and deportation fears.
"(Inna) started crying because she basically grew up here," Cherniakova said. "She went to school here. She has a lot of friends here."
On New Year's Eve, Cherniakova got a letter from the Immigration and Refugee Board, telling her she has a hearing Feb. 23. Cherniakova, who speaks little English, knows if things don't go well in the Victoria St. hearing room, she and her two girls may very well be uprooted.
This, she said, would mean Korostin's dream of a future in Canada for his girls would be snuffed out.
Korostin always put his girls first, and left Israel in part because he worried about them doing mandatory military service once they completed high school, she said.
He also thought Canada would be a better fit for his family, who are Orthodox Christian and originally from the tiny community of Guzar, Uzbekistan, which is predominantly Muslim.
They decided to move here three years ago from Israel after a visit from friends who had moved to Canada. "They said, `If you're Muslim, Christian or Jewish, you can find your place in Canada,'" Cherniakova recalled, through a Russian language interpreter. "You will be respected for who you are as a human being.'"
She and Korostin divorced here, but they remained on friendly terms and he continued to make daily visits to see his daughters. He called Daniela "Rijik," which is Russian for "Orangey," referring to her reddish hair, and the two loved playing soccer together.
Cherniakova has noticed something remarkable in Daniela's behaviour since her father's death. She still cries daily, but has taken it upon herself to try to console both her mother, in their North York highrise apartment, and her father, whom she believes is watching over them in heaven.
"She has comforted me," Cherniakova said, "saying, 'Don't cry, Mommy. Everything will be okay.' She was Daddy's little girl."
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