Beliefs

Police Grab Reluctant Deportee

Copyright 1994 Southam Inc. The Ottawa Citizen

November 22, 1994

LEONARD STERN; CITIZEN

A five-hour standoff between immigration officials and a woman fighting deportation ended Monday afternoon when the RCMP broke into an apartment and hustled the distraught woman into a waiting car.

Joy Williams will be held at the regional jail until Wednesday when she is to be escorted on to a flight to Jamaica. A warrant for the woman's arrest was issued last week after the Federal Court refused to hear an appeal of the deportation order.

At about noon Monday, two Immigration investigators dressed in trenchcoats and carrying handcuffs arrived at 2740 Marie St. near Britannia Park, where they met with an RCMP officer. They knocked but were not allowed into the basement apartment that Williams occupied.

By 4:30 p.m., four more RCMP and two police officers had taken positions outside the door. Moments later the officers forced their way into the apartment.

Williams has been fighting deportation to Jamaica on the grounds that her violent ex-husband intends to kill her. Brian Kopke, a Unitarian minister who was comforting Williams inside the apartment, said the woman's sister phoned earlier to say the husband was camping out at the airport in Jamaica, waiting for Williams.

Kopke was outraged at the way Immigration handled the arrest. "Because this is a case of spousal abuse we specifically asked for a woman (to make the arrest) but instead, two great burly men charged in," he said.

Williams's lawyer, Chantal Tie, arrived just as officers were preparing to storm the apartment.

"I've never seen Immigration go after someone with such vigor," said Tie afterward. The lawyer never got a chance to speak to her client. "It doesn't make me very proud to be a Canadian. They knew I was on my way. They didn't have to break (the door lock) like that."

The apartment belongs to John Emissah, a friend of Williams. Both Emissah and Kopke could be charged under the Immigration Act, said Lawanda Willar, one of the two Immigration investigators who executed the arrest warrant.

"I think I stand on solid humanitarian grounds," said Kopke when asked if he's aware he might have broken the law. "If helping someone in trouble is called aiding and abetting under the Canadian system, then I'm ashamed."

Kopke's church, the First Unitarian Congregation on Cleary Avenue, decided Sunday to provide sanctuary for Williams.

Williams, 32, has said her ex-husband in Jamaica nearly killed her with a machete before she fled to Canada in 1986. In 1988 she married a Canadian citizen but could not be sponsored as an immigrant by her new husband because the department concluded the marriage was one of convenience.

Her husband is mentally ill and the couple does not live together. Williams has two children, a five-year-old son born in Canada, and a 14-year-old Jamaican-born daughter. Neither child was with Williams when she was arrested.

Willar insisted the government is not putting Williams's life at risk by sending her back to Jamaica.

A candle-lit vigil is to take place today for Williams at the Women's Memorial in Centretown's Minto Park. Anyone is welcome to bring a candle to the 8 p.m. service.