Quebec's Crushing Immigration Policy

Familial separation can have devastating consequences on mental health and productivity

- SHEIMA BENEMBAREK

STEPHANIA DESMORNES came to Quebec in January 2020, fleeing an increasingly crushing humanitarian crisis in Haiti. A few months into the COVID-19 pandemic, she qualified for a temporary measure the federal government had set up at the time to give asylum claimants working on the front lines in health care a path to permanent residency. After she got her permanent residency in March 2022, her plan was to then sponsor her husband, Valéry, and two boys, Christian and Louis, so that they could join her.

That July, she submitted her family's sponsorship application. In November, Desmornes received a notice that the Quebec government had chosen her husband and sons as suitable potential immigration candidates.

"But since then," she says, "it's been complete silence." Nearly two years later, she's still waiting for her adoptive government to process her family's immigration case. "When I first left, my youngest was two years old," says Desmornes. "I'm missing out on their childhood. I often can't sleep." Now she also suffers from bulimia and has gained weight.