Good Morning everybody. My name is Sally Santiago, I'm the organizer of Women Against Abusive Sponsored Spouses.

I would like to thank Mr. Raj Chouhan and his secretary, Sam Schechter for giving us the opportunity to meet with them today. I want to thank also Mr. Bill Siksay and Mr. Peter Julian who are here to support us with our campaign to change the out-dated immigration policy. For our supporters and friends thank you so much for giving us the courage to continue what Shajila and I have started more than a year ago. I have organized Women Against Abusive Sponsored Spouses in late 2001 when I learned that there is no organization in Canada that supports deportation of abusive convicted sponsored spouses. I have been working in my own case for 6 years now.

Sham Marriage is becoming an epidemic nowadays and most of the time, abusers were given more protection than victims like us. A lot of times men will only stay in jail for overnight then they will be given freedom the following day. Men knows that they can not be deported if they are given the permanent residency here in Canada, they are automatically immigrant because they were sponsored by their spouses and this is one reason why they continue to abuse the immigration system and continuously abusing the sponsors.

It took 3 years for me to process my application from Manila to come to Canada and work as a baby sitter. Most of the time women came to Canada to work as a nanny then we waited for 2 years before we can apply to be an immigrant. For these men who are abusing the immigration system, when they come to Canada they are automatically given a permanent residency status.

Men continue to victimize the sponsors and most of the time they find victims one after the other. A victim like us never ends the suffering inflicted to us by our sponsored spouses. We are always scared that anytime these men will harm us because they knew that they can get away always of any crimes they are committing towards us. A lot of times these men goes to court and the court gives a restraining order in which most of the times the abusers never obeyed the orders set by the court.

I have met lots of women who are battered by the sponsored spouse and I am sick and tired of hearing the same stories over and over again. These cases have been happening more than 3 decades ago but the huge problem with women is, THEY ARE SCARED AND ASHAMED TO SPEAK OUT.

The cases of Sham marriages are becoming an organized crime. This is not happening to women alone but it is also happening to men as well. There is so much conspiracy within the family members of the abusers and the investigations are not properly done. It is not only the conspiracy within the family members of the abusers but also the conspiracy in the criminal court as well as in the family court.

My question is why the immigration has not change yet the immigration policy when in fact most of the MP's and MLA's knew that the Immigration fails to help Canadian victims of Sham Marriage? People's answer to that question is, because there is no policy in place to deport the abusive sponsored spouse. Shajila and I are campaigning to change the immigration policy so that we can protect the sponsors and the victims.

No matter how thick is the police file of the sponsored spouse the immigration is not doing any actions to deport abusive sponsored spouses even though they have a criminal conviction here in Canada. The problem also is that the police never support deportation, there is no support from the provincial government and these are the reasons why the immigration is not doing any actions with regards to this issue.

Violence against women is a serious crime and we should not tolerate these to happen. Abusers should be given a stiffer punishment if they are found that they only used the spouse to gain entry in Canada. Women Against Abusive Sponsored Spouses will not tolerate this kind of abuse and I proposed that they should be given at least 6 months jail time in which the immigration can easily give them a notice of deportation. Abusers of Immigration System should not be given the right to appeal because most of the time when they are given the right to appeal the more they lie in court. This is not the issue of sham marriage alone in court but once any other type of criminals were allowed to lie in court, the more chains of lies they tell.

One more problem that we found out is that, there is no proper channel between the Immigration Department and the Enforcement Office. Victims who are working hard to deport abusive convicted sponsored spouses are like a ball being tossed back and forth and time flies the abusers continues to stay in Canada and continues to abuse the sponsor and find more victims to abuse.

The abuse of the immigration system and the abuse to the sponsors SHOULD not be tolerated in our country.

We want the immigration policy change so that we can give protection to sponsors and victims rather than giving protection to abusive sponsored spouse. LET'S DEPORT ABUSIVE SPONSORED SPOUSES.

In conclusion, we are asking our MLA's to support us with our campaign because we need support from the provincial government. We want our MP's to help victims of marriage fraud to bring our issues in the House of Commons and that the Minister of Immigration should review the present Immigration and Refugee Protection Act of Canada.

The Minister of Public Safety and also the Justice Minister should also work on our issues and that the abusers should be given a stiffer punishment rather than punishing the sponsors who are already victims of the sponsored spouse.