CRIMINAL WITH 76 CONVICTIONS FIGHTS TO STAY

The better question is how can anyone even possibly accumulate 76 criminal convictions? This is absurd.

Career criminal fights deportation Toronto & GTA News Toronto Sun

Career criminal fights deportation
TOM GODFREY, Toronto Sun

First posted: Monday, April 18, 2011 5:08:23 EDT PM

TORONTO - A deportee-turned-refugee who racked up a record-setting 76 criminal convictions in Canada is fighting tooth-and-nail through the courts to stay here.

Immigration officials were before the Federal Court of Canada in a bid to turf out Walford Uriah Steer, 39, of Toronto, who was sponsored to Canada from Jamaica in 1993 by a parent.

Steer began breaking the law months after his arrival and was deported in 1999 for criminal offences that included three assaults, according to documents filed to the federal court.

He snuck back into Canada in March 2000 and filed a refugee claim that was accepted by an Immigration and Refugee Board in June 2003, documents show.

Police believe he may have returned to Canada by using a fake identity.

He was granted refugee status because board members believed Steer would be killed if he was sent back to Jamaica.

Steer “amassed 76 convictions in Canada, nine of them for violence,” court was told. He was so violent that he was deemed a “present and future danger to the Canadian public” by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney in August 2010.

Steer was in and out of prison and his sentences were usually for less than three-months each time.

He tried to obtain permanent resident status in Canada but was rejected due to his lengthy criminal record.

An urgent motion was filed by immigration officials on April 6 to prevent Steer from being released from jail. He has been detained since August 2010 and was about to be freed.

Court heard Steer has been fighting a deportation order since March 2006. He was released in June on a $5,000 bond and on the condition he report weekly. He was re-arrested in 2010.

Court heard Steer repeatedly refused to sign documents to be deported back to Jamaica.

“The respondent continued his criminal behaviour upon returning to Canada,” Judge Danièle Tremblay-Lamer said last week.

Tremblay-Lamer quashed an order for Steer to be released so he can be removed from Canada.

Toronto immigration lawyers contacted by the Toronto Sun said they’ve never heard of a deportee facing removal for 76 criminal convictions.

No date has been set for Steer’s removal from Canada.

Steer’s record includes:

-Nine convictions for violence
-Three convictions for assault
-Two for assaulting a peace officer
-Four theft convictions
-Two for break and entry
-Four for fraud convictions