Thanks to Canada’s awesome Prime Minister, Stephen Harper.
When Army Sgt. Patrick Hart decided a decade ago that he would not serve in the war in Iraq, he expected to follow the same path as thousands of American war resisters during the Vietnam era and take refuge across the border.
But after five years of wrangling with the Canadian immigration system, he came back to the U.S. – and ended up in a military prison.
The country that once welcomed war resisters has developed a much different reputation during the conflicts in Iran and Afghanistan: Supporters say no U.S. soldier who has sought legal residence in Canada, either as a refugee or on humanitarian grounds, has been successful.
“Nobody’s won,” said Hart, a Buffalo native who exhausted his legal options then turned himself in to the Army, was court-martialed for desertion and sentenced to two years in prison.
There are an estimated two dozen U.S. military members still waiting out their fate in Canada, and the resisters’ movement is seen as nearing a crossroads. With a national election three months away, supporters are hopeful for a Liberal Party victory and more sympathetic stance toward American military exiles, but bracing for the possibility Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper wins re-election.[…]
Government guidance issued to immigration officers in 2010 requires them to consult supervisors on U.S. military cases and spells out that desertion is a crime that may render those who’ve left the military as criminally inadmissible to Canada.
“Military deserters from the United States are not genuine refugees under the internationally accepted meaning of the term,” Citizenship and Immigration Canada spokeswoman Nancy Caron said in an emailed statement. “These unfounded claims clog up our system for genuine refugees who are actually fleeing persecution.”[…]
Hart left his Fort Campbell, Kentucky, base in 2005, a month before he was to be sent to Iraq and after serving nearly a year in Kuwait in 2003. He now lives in Florida and is pursuing a nursing degree, helped by the G.I. Bill. He is seeking to have his bad conduct discharge – a step up from dishonorable – upgraded to other than honorable.
“Up until the second part of the Iraq War, I was pretty much a model soldier,” said the sergeant, who had hoped his more than 10-year record would work in his favor upon his return, “but they didn’t see it that way.”