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I
don’t know what his
immigration status is, but he
is a bad boy — Abraham Foxman, national
director of the
Anti-Defamation League
Zündel headed back to Canada
By COLIN FREEZE Globe and Mail
[Zündel] THE uneasy relationship between German-born
Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel
and his adopted home of Canada may be only days away from resuming.
As Mr. Zündel sat in a Tennessee jail cell awaiting deportation Thursday, a
U.S. immigration spokesman said that the prisoner will now likely be sent back to
Canada – and not Germany, as previously stated.
“I got bad information,” said Temple
Black of the U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service in New Orleans. “It looks like this guy is going to be going back to Canada rather than Germany.”
Saying that the U.S. has been in touch with Canada on the issue, Mr. Black added that “what Canadian authorities will do with him is not known at this time.”
An Immigration Canada spokeswoman could not comment on the case Thursday.
Only last
year, Mr. Zündel vowed that “I
will not set foot in Canada again,” –
an avowal he made because of this
country’s repeated efforts to strap a
muzzle on him while he was a permanent
resident.
For the past three years the self-styled freedom-of-expression activist has been living in Tennessee. He was arrested there last week for allegedly overstaying a temporary U.S. visa.
As Mr. Zündel’s case descends into immigration-law arcana, his future is not clear.
Mr. Zündel, for example, could try to appeal or delay any U.S. deportation order. Already his wife is asking supporters to call upon the American Civil
Liberties Union to intervene.
Currently the INS says that it plans to ship Mr. Zündel back to Canada under the terms of a reciprocal 1987 Canada-U.S. treaty. But some experts say the treaty is not automatic – and that it’s possible the
U.S. could still decide to deport him to
Germany, a country with tough anti-hate laws that Mr. Zündel has ran afoul of before.
Complicating things further is the fact that Mr. Zündel’s status in Canada is unclear.
He arrived in
Canada in 1958 and became a permanent
resident, but his attempts to get
Canadian citizenship were not
successful.
Because Mr. Zündel has been outside of Canada for a long period, his permanent residency status may be in jeopardy. But this question is muddled by a change in law.
Prior to this past June, it used to be that any permanent residents who stayed outside of Canada for more than six months could have their status stripped by an immigration officer.
New laws, however, set the bar differently: It is only permanent residents who stay outside of Canada for more than three of the past five years whose status is in jeopardy.
Mr. Zündel left Canada for the
United States sometime in 2000, making it unclear as to whether he has exceeded the three-year limit.
If he has no status, Canada could attempt to send him back to Germany. But
Mr. Zündel would still have access to various appeals and recourses. [Index on Ernst Zündel]