Welcome mat for North Koreans yanked by Jason Kenney: Goar

They call Nettie Hoffman an “honorary mother” at the Alpha Korean United Church. The retired United Church minister from Windsor, who now lives in a Toronto seniors residence, is a tireless fundraiser for refugees from the Hermit Kingdom. She works with other church volunteers to find them a safe place to live, legal help and social services. And she listens — raptly, patiently, with no demands. Hoffman is one of the few Canadians they trust, to the extent that fugitives from repressive North Korea trust anyone.

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2013/07/12/welcome_mat_for_north_koreans_yanked_by_jason_kenney_goar.html

The battle began this spring, when the first of the North Korean refugee claimants her church had taken under its wing appeared before the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB). Minseo Kim, a single mother with an 18-month-old daughter, told her story to Joel Bousfield, an experienced IRB adjudicator. To her relief, he believed her. He found her account plausible, her testimony straightforward and her fear of persecution to be well-founded. On April 30, he granted Kim and little Sangah convention refugee status.
 

The Korean community was jubilant. But exultation quickly turned to despair. Seven days after the decision, Kim received a 99-page document from the Immigration Appeal Division, notifying her that her case was being appealed by the minister of immigration. Bewildered, she asked her church friends what it meant. When they explained, the bottom fell out of her world.