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The following article (attached below) is about a Canadian woman by the name of Berna Cruz who INS officials deported to India. Is she a Goan? Neal Pinto [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.nealpinto.com -----------------------------------------------------------------OTTAWA ASKS U.S. ABOUT CLAIM OF 'DEPORTED' CANADIAN http://ca.news.yahoo.com/030214/5/rtnu.html OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada said on Friday it would press Washington to probe the case of a Canadian citizen who said U.S. officials destroyed her passport at Chicago's O'Hare Airport and put her on a plane to India. Berna Cruz -- who was born in India -- told the Toronto Star that Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) officials accused her of using a fake passport, denied her consular assistance and threatened her with jail. The newspaper ran picture of Cruz holding up her mutilated passport. "We're going to bring her case to the attention of the State Department in Washington, request an explanation on the INS refusal to grant at least one phone call to Ms Cruz, and we'll see what the American response is going to be," Canadian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Kimberly Phillips told Reuters. Cruz said her nightmare began on Jan. 27 when her flight from India arrived in Chicago and an INS official accused her of having a fake passport. She said another official suggested she had bought the passport in Sri Lanka and threatened to throw her in jail. Her requests to talk to Canadian officials were denied, she said. An INS officer cut out the front page of the passport and filled each page with "expedited removal" stamps, she said, then she was photographed, fingerprinted, barred from reentering the U.S. for five years and put on a plane to India, via Kuwait. "It was a total abuse," Cruz told the Star. "I want to see them punished for this and bring some justice." Cruz said she managed to leave the plane in Kuwait and waited three days before Canadian officials issued her with an emergency passport. No one at the U.S. embassy in Ottawa was immediately available to comment. Last September U.S. agents at New York's John F. Kennedy airport arrested a Canadian they suspected of links to militant groups and expelled him to Syria. Mohamed Arar is still in detention while authorities are probing whether he has links to groups such as al Qaeda. In the wake of the Arar affair Canada issued a rare travel advisory telling citizens born in countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia to think carefully before entering the United States for any reason. ----------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.goanet.org/mailman/listinfo/goanet
