JOSE FIGUEROA – TEDx VANCOUVER TALK – 2011 INTRODUCTIONHello!My name is Jose Figueroa. I am from El Salvador. My wife and I came to Canada in 1997 and are the proud parents of 3 Canadian children: Jose Ivan, Esmeralda and Ruby. We love Canada the very same way that we love El Salvador. Canada provided our family with a safe place where we have been working, making friends, and especially helping my son who was diagnosed with autism in 2002. The Immigration authorities issued a deportation order in May 2010. It was one of the darkest days of my life. That deportation order threatens the future and the rights of my family. Silence was no longer an option for us - I am convinced that they are wrong and I am not the only refugee who is at risk. My challenge today is to provide you with facts about the immigration case that would allow you to reach a logical and objective opinion. In just 15 minutes! And I hope that you will feel the need to do something to and join us in making a change to this problem with our immigration laws before it is too late.PART ONE: Brief History of the problems in El Salvador.Let me start by telling you about where we are from and why we came to Canada as refugees.My wife and I graduated as teachers from the University of El Salvador. I was a member of the Student Union in my faculty, and also member of the Faculty Council representing the Students!During the time of the Civil War in El Salvador just being a student at the University was dangerous. I was a student leader and that made me a target of the Death Squads. The reason why I decided to join the Student Union, despite the risk, was that I could no longer remain silent in the face of what was happening to the innocent people of El Salvador. In 1980 there were atrocities being committed against our people, and we were witnesses to the genocide being committed by an oppressive Military regime that had been backed by the United States of America. Roberto D’Aubuisson a death squad leader along with some other Army members led the genocide that took the lives of more than 80,000 of my people between 1980 and 1992; not including the thousands more who died before 1980. That is when I first truly learned about the “T” word. Tyrant.Archbishop Oscar Romero who was murdered by the death squads tells us in his homilies about the injustices and the suffering of our people before 1980, by those tyrants. I was just a kid when Archbishop Romero was murdered, but the images of people being repressed by the Salvadoran army during his funeral left a mark in my mind. I grew up being fearful of the death squads, of the Salvadoran Army. Knowing what was going on, I did what thousands of young Salvadorans did, I joined the Student Union movement to try and save my country. At that time, the only group with enough courage to oppose the regime was the FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front). We supported them and believed they could help to save El Salvador.

PART TWO: Leaving El Salvador / a Canadian Refugee

But with “Tyrants” – things are never simple for the people. Despite the peace agreement of Chapultepec in 1992, the political unrest continued; and due to my role as a Student leader and my political support of the FMLN, I became a target of revenge. In 1997, my wife and I arrived in Canada and made a refugee claim. I will never forget that day! I will never forget how it felt to fill out the paperwork at the Canada-US border. It is a strange thing to reduce the story and horror of why one must flee one’s homeland to a few phrases on a personal information form. In my original refugee claim I openly, and honestly stated my support of and relations with the FMLN.Before I left El Salvador, I always thought that Canada was a place where human rights were always respected, and it was my first option as a place where we could be safe. I talked to a Canadian UN blue helmet who was overseeing the peace agreement in 1992, and he was the one who brought to my attention to the Century long Canadian Heritage and later on I contemplated Canada as the place where we could restart our lives after years of constant struggle. We have strong ties with the community and as you might expect, in a very Canadian way, they welcomed us with open arms.In 2002, like thousands of children in Canada each year, our son was diagnosed with autism. My son is an extraordinary and wonderful boy. Like any parent, we would do anything to support him – and so we decided that I would continue working and my wife would spend all of her time caring for my son’s needs. Despite not having a defined status for a long time and not having even access to Medicare, we did what we could and loved all our children more and more.But then it happened. The “T” word returned into our lives. But it was not the same. In a post-9/11 Canada, the “T” word meant something very, very different. Terrorism.PART THREE: Getting the News/ the T-Word/What it felt like:At the end of Dec 2009, we received a notice to appear at an admissibility hearing. It was then that we heard for the first time the allegation for the deportation order. You cannot imagine the feeling in my stomach. The adjudicator of the admissibility hearing declared that I am inadmissible into Canada because I was a member of an organization that carried out acts of terror while I was a member. Can you imagine one day being told that you were actually a member of a terrorist organization? This was not true. It was a mistake – how could someone say such a thing? They made this ruling based on Section 34.1 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the implication that the FMLN is a terrorist organization.The ruling against me is flawed for so many reasons – I wonder how many others are powerless to do anything about it? Consider this:

• Just two years ago, the FMLN formed the government in El Salvador. The Canadian government recognizes FMLN as the democratically elected government and even has diplomatic relations with El Salvador. How can we deport one and yet maintain strong diplomatic relations with another?

• There is a General List of Entities administered by CTC (Counter Terrorism Committee) of the UN; Canada has its own List of entities which is updated regularly and published in the official paper. As of today, the FMLN is not listed on either of them.

• CIC (Canada Immigration and Citizenship) knew about the relation with FMLN the very same day I presented my refugee claim. No allegations of membership

with a terrorist organization were brought up then, or even a year later. Why now?

I tell you these things today to illustrate that our system is flawed and innocent people are in danger. It all has to do with a broad definition of terrorism, which is intended to include everyone who is involved in terrorism in some way. But this broad definition of terrorism, such as the one used in Section 34.1 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act is also catching innocent people who are not terrorists, bringing them into admissibility hearings and making them face deportation and something worse if they are forced to return to the country they have fled.I think that you would agree with me that there is a fundamental difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter who seeks to resist tyrants and oppressive governments.

CLOSING MESSAGEI want to illustrate the problems with the current immigration laws so that hopefully this cannot happen to another person in Canada ever again.Nobel Laureate Nelson Mandela is more than just an extraordinary leader in our time – he is an honorary Canadian citizen as well. Imagine for a moment that he was not so famous or well known. Based on the system I have shown you today, if he was seeking refugee or immigrant status in our country he would be found inadmissible because he was once member of the ANC. The same ANC that fought to end apartheid in their Country. Can you imagine anyone labeling him a Terrorist today? This is not just my struggle, but one hundreds, maybe thousands of others are faced with right now, today, here in Canada.“Rwanda will never ever leave me. It's in the pores of my body. My soul is in those hills, my spirit is with the spirits of all those people who were slaughtered and killed that I know of, and many that I didn't know. …”General Romeo Dallaire once wrote those words about what he saw in Rwanda. I feel the same way about El Salvador.

Our failure in defining the “T” word has made it a word that no one can truly understand or agree upon. That is the problem and something must be done.There is an urgent need to deconstruct the definition of terrorism, and find a definition that would be closer to justice and not the just the law. “The law cannot be just the law, it must be justice”Every country has the right and the obligation to protect its citizen against terrorism. While doing so they also have the obligation to protect innocent people mis-characterized as “terrorists”.No honest and hardworking citizen should ever have to lose their home country even one time. And yet, like so many others, I am now in danger of losing it twice.It is an honor and privilege to be on this stage today – On behalf of all us whose lives have been changed forever by the “T” word – I thank you for listening and standing beside us as we take action to solve this problem before it’s too late. Thank You.