Immigration: who gets a spot in the lifeboat?

A while ago in his CBC Massey Lectures, Conor Cruise O’Brien compared the West to a lifeboat. Actually, it’s Andre Gide’s metaphor: the lifeboat is full, it’s surrounded by soon-to-drown men, and is in danger of capsizing if many more are brought onboard. Of course, desperate men try to climb aboard. As they do, the captain orders out the hatchets. Problem solved–for those in the boat. Those in the water will continue to try to win a place in the lifeboat.

What criteria should count when it comes to deciding who gets in?

Regardless of the criteria, should sacrifice or service tip the scales in an applicants’ favour?

Take a look at the story below. When this family’s case is reviewed, perhaps the information available will be more favourably read in light of their son’s deed… but if their claim–on its own merits–still falls short, should the boy’s actions tip the balance in his family’s favour?
(I believe there’s a program to fast-track citizenship for those who serve in the US military. Does this spontaneous act provide an analogous justification for acceptance?)

[quote=“Toronto Star”]Victim’s kin face deportation
Despite drowning, father ‘proud’ of son’s efforts to save friend, but worries about the future of his other four children


The family of an 11-year-old boy who drowned while trying to save a friend who plunged through the frozen surface of a Scarborough pond is fighting deportation after a failed claim for refugee status.

Surrounded by grieving relatives and friends, Muralidaran Nadarajah and his wife Sathyasri Ratnasingham, originally from Sri Lanka, said they are still trying to come to terms with the death of their son Birunthan on Sunday.

“On the one hand, I’m proud of him because he didn’t run away and went to try and help,” said an emotional Nadarajah, 47, who arrived in Canada in the late 1990s with his wife. "He was not scared to try to go and rescue (his friend).

“On the other hand, I’m still trying to absorb his loss,” Nadarajah said about his son, who was in Grade 6 at Thomas L. Wells Public School and was a star player for the Scarborough Rangers in the Ontario Soccer League.

"He was brilliant and smart, involved in sports. He wanted to be a doctor or a scientist.

“Every parent wants their kids to become successful,” he said as his wife sobbed uncontrollably beside him."

As for the rest of his family, which includes two other sons and two daughters, Nadarajah said he doesn’t know what the future holds. “We still don’t have status,” he said, adding that the family has been fighting the deportation order in Federal Court.
[…]
Friends said the nightmare began when a group of five friends were taking a shortcut as they headed toward an impromptu soccer game. As the boys passed the pond, Kishoban stepped out on to the ice and began skipping stones across the surface.

When he fell through the ice, Birunthan, a strong swimmer, stepped on to the ice and grabbed his friend’s hands, but the ice broke and he also fell in.[/quote]

Interesting…and certainly a tragic story.

I don’t know much about the details of Canadian immigration law. In the U.S. I would say the immigrant’s job would be to get close enough to satisfying the asylum requirments (I don’t recall if there is any particular refugee status available here), and then if they can get to the discretionary analysis this would weigh in their favor.

Having some sort of immigration benefits for heroic actions is an interesting idea, though I’d have to think it over a little more before I would endorse it. Like all immigration benefits there would be a lot of people trying to abuse it, and I’m not sure if it is a good idea to impute heroic actions of one family member to another member. Also I think there would have to be a lot of conditions on what is a heroic act, who can benefit from it, and what precisely the benefits would be (for example if someone entered illegally, committed numerous crimes, and then saved someone’s life, I don’t think granting them citizenship would be appropriate). Also there’s generally no reward other than gratitude for saving someone’s life now, so is it really right to award someone in the immigration context when we wouldn’t otherwise?

I don’t like the idea of having a “Heroic Action” or “Exemplary Service” box to check on the immigration form, primarily because there’d be a rash of stunt rescues when it appears that friends are going to drown, die from exposure when they get lost skiing out of bounds, or suffocation in house fires. And without a doubt, some of those stunts would go tragically wrong.

At the same time, such action demonstrates that an individual possesses many of the qualities that one hopes to find in society… and manifest in a child, it’s natural to assume that those qualities are common within the family. That may be taken as new information, or shed new light on old information, leading to a different conclusion.

I suspect that this will make a difference. This kind of action often leads to significant honours being bestowed, and it’d be a hell of a bad image to bestow honours on the son one day, and give his family the boot the next, or if they’ve already been deported, to bestow the honours on the son and not allow the family to return and attend (as they’d already made a failed refugee claim). Just doesn’t feel right.

Well, yeah, I pretty much agree with your sentiments, which is why after considering it, I think that discretionary analysis is the best place for it. That way they have to at least make a plausible legal case, and the judge is free to weigh it against all sorts of other factors. As for the possibility of giving an award one day and deporting them the next day, it could happen but it seems like it would be incredibly rare. People save each others lives all the time without getting any reward except hopefully gratitude from whoever’s life it was they saved. Mostly the awards don’t come unless it’s a public figure or somehow manages to make the newspapers. (though perhaps that’s different in Canada?) Heck, if they’re handing out awards for saving lives, where’s the line?