The arrival of 492 Tamil migrants has almost doubled British Columbia’s Legal Services Society’s yearly refugee caseload, the Vancouver Sun reported.

Normally, the Legal Services Society helps 700 people go through the refugee process over the course of a year, Mark Benton, executive director of the society, said.
“So 500 in one day creates a lot of extra work for us,” he said.

The Legal Services Society is providing legal assistance for the people who arrived on the Sun Sea last week.

Some staff members are working evenings and weekends to deal with the influx of Tamil migrants, he added.

Normally, the society has one lawyer to help claimants through the detention process. Last year it cost the society $150,000 to help people through this process, said David Griffiths, the manager of legal services for the society.

But the surge in demand has forced the society to contract six or seven additional lawyers to help with the detention hearings that all 492 people who arrived on the ship must go through. It is too soon to estimate how much this will cost, Griffiths said.

‘And that is only the beginning of the refugee process’.
The society has a budget of $1.5 million to spend on immigration services, most of which goes to refugee claims, Griffiths said.

Aside from the detention hearings and reviews, migrants must also make a refugee claim.
Within 28 days of arriving in Canada, they then must fill out a detailed personal information form that has legal significance, said Griffiths.

Usually, the society provides a claimant with a lawyer to help them fill out the complicated form, Griffiths said. But with such high demand, that probably won’t be possible within 28 days, he said.

On top of legal aid being stretched thin, the process is further slowed by a lack of interpreters, Griffiths said.

“Border services officers from across the Pacific region and throughout Canada have been allocated to process the migrants in an orderly and expeditious manner,” said CBSA spokeswoman Marsha Johnston in an e-mail.

Despite the extra workforce, the process will take longer than usual because of the high volume of people who arrived on the ship, IRB adjudicator Lynda Mackie said at a detention hearing. Hearings for about 100 Tamils were expected to take place throughout the day.
Forty-four children from the cargo ship are being detained at the Burnaby Youth Detention Centre.

"The children are staying with their mothers, 25 women, as the women await detention hearings and reviews. One child is unaccompanied by his mother or father, but is under the temporary care of a woman who has a small child. The woman’s own child has a head injury, believed to be from a piece of shrapnel, and her lawyer has asked that her case be expedited," the Vancouver Sun said.