Working with the #UyghurThree

 By: Alexa Cheung (2L), Maddie Andrew-Gee (2L) and Rachel Bryce (4L JD/MGA) 

Caption: The #UyghurThree and their families. Photos courtesy of DLS

Our summer working at the University of Toronto's Downtown Legal Services (DLS) Refugee and Immigration Law division involved spending a significant amount of our time with three men: Ayub Mohammed, Khalil Mamut, and Salahidin Abdulahad. These men, whose cases became combined under the hashtag "#UyghurThree," have experienced unimaginable pain and trauma in both the United States and Canada.

Aspects of their stories have appeared in the Toronto Star, and op-eds on themes surrounding their stories were published over the summer. Looking back at our work on their files, what stands out the most to us is the continued pain caused by the prolonged process of wrongful detainment and the recounting of traumatic stories to government, media, and ourselves. We learned important lessons about client-centred, trauma-informed practice, and the need to demonstrate the humanity of these men and their families that powerful actors  failed to recognize.

The complexity of inadmissibility cases

Cases involving inadmissibility concerns are among the most challenging in refugee and immigration (RI) law. Prasanna Balasundaram, our staff lawyer, led us as we immersed ourselves in this area of practice to get up to speed and understand where these cases have been and where they were going.

As a brief primer, sections 34 to 39 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) outline the possible grounds for inadmissibility to Canada, spanning from security and criminality to health and financial reasons. Our clients face potential inadmissibility pursuant to subsections 34(1)(f) and 34(1)(c), which holds:

34 (1) A permanent resident or a foreign national is inadmissible on security grounds for [...]

(c) engaging in terrorism; [...]

(f) being a member of an organization that there are reasonable grounds to believe engages, has engaged or will engage in acts referred to in paragraph (a), (b), (b.1) or (c).

The Government of Canada bases this potential inadmissibility on the same facts that underlay the U.S.’ wrongful detention of Mohammed, Mamut, and Abdulahad in Guantanamo Bay. These facts were ultimately dismissed, which led to the men’s exoneration and eventual release from Guantanamo Bay.

We learned from these brave men and their families how uncertain and opaque the decision-making in these inadmissibility processes is. Months would go by without any communication, despite multiple attempts to correspond with the relevant offices and receive necessary disclosures to best represent our clients. When we did hear from these offices, we would receive scant information and seemingly baseless allegations of non-credibility. This process was exasperating us as caseworkers, and it terrified our clients.

“Why do they not believe us?” “How can we convince them of our innocence?” “I would never do what they are saying I did.” We heard our clients repeat these devastating lines with each delay or negative reply. It was our job to reassure them that we were doing all that we could to convey their innocence and establish an undeniable record supporting their stories. It was our job to explain seemingly inexplicable actions by the government.

The black mark of Guantanamo Bay still hangs over their heads. The whispers of “terrorism” haunt them. As one of our clients shared, they are the victims of politics; they are caught in a heated geopolitical mess with which they have no involvement. Being at the wrong place at the wrong time two decades ago has defined and derailed their entire adult lives.

The emotional toll

Facing this uncertainty and incessant delay, we next faced the conundrum: do we go to the media and share our clients’ sensitive stories with a potentially unforgiving public?

We met many times with our team and our clients to go over the benefits and concerns, ultimately deciding that a public media campaign was the only way to create public pressure and induce government action. That said, despite knowing that we had more control over the campaign, the decision to tell the men’s stories to a wider audience introduced new struggles.

Leading up to the launch of the campaign, we were hopeful that it would lead to an outpouring of public awareness and support that could turn into a positive outcome for our clients. Despite our optimism, it was important to manage both our own and our clients’ expectations. Before reaching out to newspapers and other organizations, we had to devise a strategy to see which organization was most appropriate for our target audience, and conduct research into the individual journalists to see whether they had experience writing about similar immigration stories. After reaching out to journalists, we often received polite rejection emails with rationales that the editors did not like the story, or the journalists were too busy to take on a new pitch.

Even after successfully pitching the story, and conducting the interviews with the men, not everything went according to plan. Publication dates were frequently pushed back, which was understandable due to the nature of journalism and the ongoing pandemic. Still, it felt like a personal failure to tell our clients that they would have to keep waiting to see the articles in print.

The most difficult aspect of the media campaign was balancing our desire to reach as many people as we could with the need to protect our clients. Each interview lasted at least an hour, with lengthy questions about their experience with Uyghur persecution in China, the fear and uncertainty they faced in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the years they lost while in Guantanamo Bay, and ultimately, the sadness and frustration born from staying apart from their families here in Canada. The journalists we worked with also asked to speak with their wives, who spoke about feeling lost and alone, while their children often cried for their fathers at night. By the end of the summer, we had heard these stories so many times we had almost memorized them. But we never got used to hearing the deep pain in the men and their wives’ voices. 

During the interviews, we were responsible for following along and ensuring that the narratives remained consistent with the legal record. Despite this relatively minimal role, the emotional toll of our work was significant. In the RI division, many clients have undergone unspeakable pain and suffering in their home country, just to encounter more difficulties during the process of migration and seeking status in their new countries. In this sense, the cases of Mohammed, Mamut, and Abdulahad did not differ much from our other clients. Due to the nature of the media campaign and the frequency with which we interacted with the men and their wives, we developed strong emotional attachments to their cases.

Hearing their stories of trauma and suffering time and time again was difficult for us as student caseworkers, and it became essential to recognize and manage the vicarious trauma stemming from our work. Since we were working closely together, we were able to discuss the emotional impacts of our work, check in with each other, and debrief after each interview. Having these open and honest discussions was extremely helpful, as we were able to support each other and share the emotional burden of our work.

Client-centered and trauma-informed practice

Through complicated legal questions and painful vicarious trauma, we developed an instinctual understanding of the importance of maintaining a client-centred and trauma-informed practice. Focusing on our clients’ lived experiences ensured stronger relationships between our team and the men, establishing trust and mutual comprehension. Working with trauma-informed lenses created more compassionate communication with our clients, gently pointing to certain painful steps that needed to be faced, while always allowing for breaks and compromises to not push them too far.

However deeply we rooted our practice in our clients’ experiences and an awareness of their traumas, we still ran up against unforeseen challenges. After a few particularly difficult interviews, our clients emphasized the toll speaking about aspects of their past were taking on their mental and physical health. Our desire to advocate and push these stories publicly put added stress on the men, despite doing all we could to care for these potential side effects of our work.

Among the most meaningful lessons learned this summer is the importance of building trust with clients. Once we established a strong rapport, we navigated these difficult legal and media questions together. We were able to communicate the significance of what our team hoped to do and each of our clients understood and were willing to push forward. Without these relationships formed through client-centered and trauma-informed practice, we may not have been able to advocate as effectively and as creatively. Our clients understood how much we cared and expressed hope for the future, if only because of our team’s dedicated and forward-looking work.