Chinese Drug Dealer Fights Deportation
Drug trafficking charges generally involve stiff punishments such as time in prison but, for Canadian immigrant Wing Wha Wong, his bad decision looked like it was going to land him back in his home country of China.
Wong, who has been living in Canada for the last 16 years following political unrest in China, found himself in the midst of a drug trafficking nightmare after he chose to plead guilty to selling cocaine. Wong was charged with the crime after her sold cocaine to an undercover police officer in Vernon.
Following his conviction, Wong was sentenced to nine months in jail. While spending nine months is jail would be unpleasant for anyone, for Chinese-immigrant Wong, it risked the entire future of his life in Canada.
Although he didn’t know it, being locked away would void his ability to be kept in Canada under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Not only would the country no longer welcome him, but any prison term of greater than six months would render his attempts to appeal a removal order completely useless.
Wong discovered that, once he got out of prison, he was looking toward deportation back to China. Since he was nine months past the deadline of filing a conviction appeal, Wong had to have special permission to proceed. It looked like Wong’s hopes of an appeal were very small and unlikely.
In his appeal, Wong contended that he got bad advice from his lawyer and should have been able to withdraw his guilty plea. According to Wong, justice was not served in his court proceedings.
After his claims were reviewed by a three-judge panel of the B.C. Court of Appeal, Wong’s conviction appeal was dismissed; however, the judges agreed that the sentence appeal should be reviewed when his status as an immigrant and likelihood of deportation is taken into consideration.
Justice Mary Saunders pointed out that when judges do not act with care to preserve one’s immigration status during their sentencing, their ruling may be deemed unfit.
Justice Saunders pointed out that the judge initially seemed to have positive expectations that Mr. Wong would rehabilitate and be able to return to his community crime-free following his release from prison. She suggests that perhaps the judge did not have the right information to understand what his sentence could do to Mr. Wong’s immigrant status and had no intention of Mr. Wong being deported.
She also went on to add that Mr. Wong’s lawyer did not stand up against the sentencing nor did he try to suggest that a shorter jail time would help to protect Wong’s immigration status.
While the court has yet to hear the appeal, it will proceed forward, giving Mr. Wong the chance to retain his place in Canada.
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