Documents Sent By Senator To Family Trapped In Afghanistan Were Not Authentic Federal Immigration Says

In the final days of a chaotic and inadequate government effort to rescue people from the Taliban last summer, Sen. Marilou McPhedran and one of her staff members sent travel documents to a family trying to flee Afghanistan. The documents, called facilitation letters, were supposed to help Afghans bypass checkpoints set up around Kabul airport so they could catch one of the last evacuation flights out of the country. The letters, copies of which were obtained by The Globe and Mail, have the appearance of official Canadian government documents. They say that each of the Afghans they refer to has been “granted a VISA to enter Canada” and is asking that the group be given “safe travel to Hamid Karzai International Airport so they can board their scheduled flight.” A year later, the people who received those documents are still stuck in Afghanistan. And the Canadian government has finally explained why: The facilitation letters they received from the senator and her office were not authentic and the people named in them were not approved to come to Canada. Behind the scenes, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the federal immigration department, conducted an internal investigation and referred the matter to the police. Ms McPhedran, a long-time human rights activist and lawyer, says she was trying to help and acted in good faith. But communications obtained by The Globe indicate that her office’s receipt of the documents could have hindered the Afghans’ attempts to escape, giving them the false impression that they had received permission to travel. The family had officially applied for resettlement in Canada, but later discovered that their application had been lost. A second application, which they submitted this year, was rejected because Canada’s immigration programs for Afghans were already in place. The group remains at risk in Afghanistan, which is being hunted by the Taliban. “The use of non-authentic facilitation letters is a serious matter,” IRCC spokesman Rémi Larivière said in an emailed statement. After the department’s internal investigation, he added, it “made a referral to appropriate law enforcement partners.” The RCMP and Canada Border Services Agency declined to say whether any investigations have been launched, adding that it is generally their policy not to comment on cases unless charges are laid. IRCC’s emailed statements on the matter did not name Ms. McPhedran, but two government sources said the internal investigation was directly related to the documents sent by the senator and her office. The Globe is not identifying the sources because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly. A source said the government is not aware of anyone coming to Canada using the inauthentic documents, but was unable to say whether anyone had successfully used them to leave Afghanistan. In an interview, in an e-mail to The Globe and in letters sent by her lawyer, Ms. McPhedran defended her efforts to save vulnerable Afghans, who are now subject to the Taliban’s brutal fundamentalist regime. He acknowledged that he used a standard version of a government facilitation letter, but denied that the documents were forged or that he had used them in an unauthorized manner. She said the sample facilitation letter was sent to her by a “trusted high-level Canadian government official,” whom she declined to identify. She also did not say who added the names to the facilitation letters she and her office sent. And he did not respond to a question about whether he knew the Afghans were not approved for resettlement in Canada. “There is nothing fraudulent or illegal about the actions I took in connection with the rescue efforts in Afghanistan last August,” he said in an e-mail. “That my good faith efforts to help save Afghan lives are now being mischaracterized as unauthorized or overreach is a sad commentary on our government and nothing more than a politically motivated smear campaign.” Despite repeated requests to IRCC and Global Affairs Canada, the government declined to say whether any federal officials helped Ms. McPhedran. IRCC’s Mr Larivière said he would not comment further, to “protect the integrity and confidentiality of the investigations”. The senator said she was working around the clock with supporters and non-governmental organizations in August 2021 as she tried to save the people most at risk from the Taliban’s hardline rule – namely, women and girls. She has spent most of her life fighting for women’s rights. In 1985, she was invested with the Order of Canada for her work ensuring that equal rights for women are enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recommended her for a Senate appointment in 2016. For years before the events of 2021, the Canadian government had promised Afghans who had worked closely with the country’s military and diplomatic missions in Afghanistan that they and their families could settle in Canada. In 2012, Embassy staff in Kabul asked the government to start a special immigration program for these Afghans. Such a program was finally created in July 2021, just weeks before the Taliban took power on August 15. On the same day as he took over, 10,000km away in Afghanistan, Mr Trudeau called a snap election and the government closed its mission in Kabul and evacuated its staff from the city. The speed of Afghanistan’s decline surprised NATO countries. They were left trying to evacuate Afghans whose cooperation with foreign governments put them at risk of Taliban retaliation. Ms. McPhedran’s lawyer, Matthew Gottlieb, said the senator had received the facilitation letter template by a government official on August 25. Flights from Afghanistan were about to end, and the federal government’s immigration programs for Afghans had been crippled by overwhelming demand and a cumbersome application process. Advocates say eligibility criteria were opaque and the process was difficult to navigate in a war zone. At the time, Kabul airport was constantly besieged by thousands of Afghans hoping to be among the lucky few allowed to pass through military guards and board flights. The stakes were so high that some resorted to desperate measures. In at least one case, parents passed an infant to American soldiers over a barbed-wire barrier. In other cases, people tried to cling to the outside of planes as they took off. On August 26, a suicide bombing at one of the airport’s entrances killed dozens of civilians. In the end, tens of thousands of people who had helped NATO in its war in Afghanistan were left behind. Some are being tortured by the Taliban. Ms. McPhedran told The Globe that she acted as one would in a life-or-death situation. He said her efforts “were known by high-ranking government officials.” In some cases, he said, those officials “were directly involved in these rescue efforts.” He added that there are e-mails showing that people in the government knew about her work. Her lawyer, Mr. Gottlieb, said the senator did not have “the authority or permission” to provide those emails. Mr. Gottlieb added that she “understood and was told” that the facilitation letters “could and should be used to help Afghans get to the tarmac” at Kabul airport. IRCC’s Mr Larivière said the government was using facilitation letters in August 2021 to ensure Afghans could pass security checkpoints on their way to Kabul airport. However, he said the original documents were sent only by Global Affairs Canada and IRCC, and only through official government email addresses. Ms. McPhedran and her staff member sent at least two identical e-mails to a recipient of the facilitation letters in Afghanistan. The messages said Ms. McPhedran had learned the person’s name from the New York-based Global Network of Women Peacemakers, where the senator is a board member. The organization did not respond to questions from The Globe. The e-mails were short. They said there was “no guarantee” that the attached documents would help. They directed the recipient to a specific gate at Kabul airport and concluded by saying, “Please do not discuss. Just present this document to any Canadian soldier first – flights end on the 26th!” The Globe is not naming the recipient of the e-mails or the other people named in the documents to protect their safety in Afghanistan. The Globe also obtained a letter sent by Rep. Michelle Rebel Garner, whose family members of the voter in Afghanistan they are the people who received the original documents. Ms Rebel Garner’s letter, dated July 7, was sent to the constituency as well as Immigration Minister Sean Fraser, Global Affairs Minister Melanie Joly and Ms McPhedran. The letter describes nearly a year of work Ms. Rebel Garner’s office had done to help the constituency family navigate the immigration system. She said her office initially believed the facilitation letters were legitimate government documents and tried to help the constituency understand why some members of her family had been approved to come to Canada while others had not. During that work, the letter said, Ms. Rebel Garner’s office began to have concerns about the validity of the facilitation letters. Ms. Rebel Garner wrote that, despite 10 months of work and after corresponding with government officials more than 30 times, no one in government had said whether the documents her constituent’s family had received were legitimate. The letter also said that because the family had believed that…