With an economic crisis, COVID-19 lockdowns and the summer’s Beirut explosion, Syrian refugees living in Lebanon express increasing fears that they will be scapegoated or forced to return to Syria by authorities trying to explain away crippling levels of unemployment and overwhelmed social services.
Some refugees hope to find a new refuge in Canada. Canada is a world leader in refugee resettlement in large part because of its use of private sponsorship programs to encourage citizens and charitable organizations to support the integration of refugees into their communities.
But Canadians looking to help through sponsorship will find that most of these programs require that — in big bold letters — applicants already have refugee status.