“Otherwise, they arrive here and after a few months they are sent back because their request as a refugee is not valid,” said Alessandra Santopadre, 47, co-ordinator of the archdiocese’s refugee sponsorship program.
Asylum seekers now in the United States have to understand that just arriving in Canada does not mean they’ll be accepted as refugees, she said.
“You have to be a convention refugee, not because you are scared of (U.S. President Donald) Trump,” she said. “That is not a reason.”
Convention refugees are defined as people who have a “well-founded fear of persecution” based on five grounds: race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group and political opinion. Fleeing poverty or an environmental crisis will not be enough to guarantee being received into Canada, she said.
Nevertheless, the Montreal archdiocese is poised to help asylum seekers, especially vulnerable pregnant women and women with small children. On Oct. 1, it will open a former rectory that will provide 12 rooms to temporarily house them while their applications are processed and before they can obtain rental accommodation.
Santopadre spent 15 years working for the Scalabrinian religious community in outreach to refugee communities. That work took her around the world to get to know the circumstances on the ground and “find a solution with local people,” she said.
Prior to coming to Canada, she had worked most recently in Haiti, arriving in 2007, three years before the catastrophic 2010 earthquake.
Since taking over the refugeesponsorship program, Santopadre has spent a lot of time in airports, waiting for refugee families to arrive. Sometimes she is with a priest and members of a local parish waiting for their sponsored family; other times she is with a family waiting for a sponsored loved one or loved ones.
“When they see their family coming out, it’s a magic moment,” she said.
After a week or two, she will visit the new family to help ensure they have what they need.
In 2016-17, the archdiocese processed 345 files involving about 700 people from countries such as Syria, Eritrea, Burundi, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan and Iran. Forty-seven parishes are involved in refugee sponsorship efforts — about half involved in direct sponsorships, the rest in fundraising or helping families that are sponsoring relatives.
Her office helps families that wish to sponsor family members navigate the refugee and immigration process with the government.
“We have to be there to help them and support them,” she said.
In March, a family of Pakistani Christians crossed the border illegally into Canada because they had heard of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s tweet welcoming people to Canada.
At first they stayed at a YMCA, but then they came to Santopadre’s office. St. Giovanni Bosco, an Italian parish in Montreal, offered to put them up for while they searched for an apartment, Santopadre said. “They became part of the community” and their children, ages six and eight, have started school.
“I came to visit them regularly,” Santopadre said. “They’re scared the Canadian government will send them back to Pakistan. Christians are persecuted there.”
The father told her, “I don’t want my two children to suffer as I suffered as a Christian,” she said.
In her work, she tries help the sponsored families become aware of cultural differences.
“It’s something I love to do,” she said. “I don’t see difference as a problem but as a richness.”