VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Canadian government lawyers are asking a Federal Court to reject a bid to clear the name of a former asylum seeker who spent more than two years in a British Columbia church to avoid being deported as a terrorist.
Court documents say Jose Figueroa’s application to rescind an eight-year-old report by Immigration Canada linking him to a group with alleged ties to terrorism is moot because he has since become a permanent resident.
The report highlights his past membership in Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front in El Salvador, the same group that was elected in 2009 and brought in a new era of democracy.
Figueroa fled the country with his wife in 1997 because of death threats and came to Canada as a refugee.
The respondents in the case, which includes the federal attorney general and the ministers of both public safety and immigration, say Figueroa’s application came five years too late.
It’s been a year since an exemption from Immigration Minister John McCallum allowed Figueroa to leave his church sanctuary in Langley and he begin studying law at the University of Victoria.