A U.S. war resister who lived in East Vancouver has gone into hiding to avoid being deported. In a recent phone interview with the Georgia Straight, Brad McCall said he left the city and got rid of all his identification after learning that seven RCMP officers visited his home on Commercial Drive earlier this year.

He said he thinks the Mounties showed up to arrest him because he got confused and missed a “reporting date” set by immigration authorities. McCall added that neither he nor his roommate was home at the time, and the landlord encountered the RCMP trying to enter through a sliding glass door.

“I got my friend to get all my stuff out of the house and bring it to me somewhere else,” McCall said, “and I’ve been on the run ever since.”

McCall, 22, abandoned his U.S. army unit in Colorado Springs in September 2007. Shortly after arriving in Vancouver that month, he told the Straight that he didn’t want to commit “war crimes” in Iraq.

McCall said that the Immigration and Refugee Board has since dismissed his claim for refugee status. (IRB spokesperson Paula Faber told the Straight by phone that refugee claims are private, and she wouldn’t confirm or deny McCall’s statement.) McCall said that following the rejection of his claim, a deportation order was issued against him.

“I’m trying not to live my life in constant fear of them catching me, because [if] I do that, I’m letting them win,” he said.

While he has been in Canada, his grandmother has suffered a heart attack and he has been unable to visit his family in Alabama. McCall added that he has been in contact with the U.S. army and has learned that five members of his platoon were recently killed by a bomb in Iraq. “My unit is out right now in Iraq,” he said. “So if I go back right now, they told me they would give me two years in prison—two to three years in prison—and there was nothing else they could do for me.”

Meanwhile, in Toronto, supporters of Kimberly Rivera—the first female American war resister to seek refuge in Canada—held a vigil on July 8 outside a Federal Court hearing. On March 25, the Federal Court of Canada granted a stay on an order to deport her, which would have separated her from her partner.

Parliament has twice passed motions urging the Conservative government to allow war resisters and their families to remain in Canada, with no effect. Citizenship, Immigration, and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney declared in January that U.S. war resisters are “bogus refugee claimants”. Canadian Council for Refugees president Elizabeth McWeeny wrote a letter to Kenney on January 8 claiming his comment gave “the strong appearance of political interference”.

“This is especially so given that reappointments are made by Cabinet: Board members might fear that if they do not follow your interpretation their chances of reappointment will be reduced,” McWeeny stated in the letter. “Highly publicized cases such as the war resisters are always challenging for the IRB, which must live up to its obligation to make fair, impartial and politically unmotivated determinations, based on the jurisprudence and the evidence before it. Public comments such as yours only make IRB members’ job more difficult and threaten claimants’ right to an unbiased decision.”

On June 26, the three opposition parties’ immigration critics—Maurizio Bevilacqua (Liberal), Olivia Chow (NDP), and Thierry St-Cyr (Bloc Québécois)—wrote a letter to Kenney reminding him of Parliament’s direction regarding Iraq-war resisters. “Therefore, we urge the government to show compassion for those who have chosen not to participate in a war that was not sanctioned by the United Nations,” the three MPs declared.

McCall said he thinks it’s “ridiculous” that the Canadian government wants to deport him. “A good soldier is a soldier who will say no if he needs to say no,” he insisted.