Detained by immigration. Every day counts.
Sultan Avocat inc. represents people held at the request of the Canada Border Services Agency before the Immigration Division, in Laval and Montréal. The first review takes place within forty-eight hours: little time to build a solid case for release.
Immigration detention is not a punishment. It is a measure that must be justified, review after review.
A credible bondsperson and a precise release plan usually carry more weight than a long argument.
Preparing the release, not just the hearing
A detention review is rarely won in the hearing room alone. It is won beforehand.
First review (48 hours)
Stepping in at once so the first hearing does not end in continued detention for lack of preparation.
7-day and 30-day reviews
Every review is a fresh decision: the case has to be rebuilt each time.
Identity to be established
Gathering the documents and testimony that establish who you are.
Alleged flight risk
Answering the claim that you will not appear, with ties, an address and a verifiable plan.
Bondsperson and guarantee
Preparing the person who will stand as bondsperson, setting the deposit or guarantee, and having them heard.
Alternatives to detention
Proposing concrete conditions: residence, reporting, curfew, supervision.
Forty-eight hours to be ready
Make contact
Reaching you and the Canada Border Services Agency as soon as we are retained.
Pin down the ground
Identifying exactly what is alleged: identity, danger, failure to appear, or inadmissibility.
Build
Finding the bondsperson, gathering the documents, building the release plan.
Argue
Presenting the request for release before the Immigration Division.
Return
Coming back to the next review with whatever has changed since the last one.
Detention must be justified at every review
The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act governs detention and imposes short deadlines. Nothing about the situation is fixed.
- The first review takes place within forty-eight hours of detention, the next within seven days, and every thirty days after that.
- Four grounds can support continued detention: danger to the public, the risk that you will not appear, identity that has not been established, and inadmissibility on grounds of security, criminality or human rights violations.
- The member must weigh the time already spent in detention, how long it is likely to last, any delays, and the alternatives available.
- The best interests of any directly affected child must be considered at every review.
- You have the right to be represented by counsel at each of these hearings.
- Separate rules apply to designated foreign nationals, whose first review takes place within fourteen days.
A credible bondsperson. A precise plan. A file that is ready.
We start from the exact ground being relied on, because the answer is not the same when you are said not to have established your identity as when you are said to be unlikely to appear. We then build what the member has to be able to weigh: a responsible person, an amount, an address, conditions.
Every review is a fresh decision. Detention continued today is not detention forever, and a better-prepared file changes the outcome of the next review.
Detention can be challenged, review after review.
If someone close to you is detained, time is working against you. Contact the firm without waiting for the next hearing.
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