Swathi Visalakshi Sekhar, BA, JD
Barrister and Solicitor
The decision to leave your home is not an easy one. Having grown up in a family of immigrants, I have a personal understanding of the unique challenges that come with resettling in a new country; these experiences directly inform my approach to practising law.
I have been privileged to work with hundreds of immigrants and refugees from diverse backgrounds, each with their own story, and I am aware that the current system often creates unfair barriers for newcomers to Canada. I believe that we must continue to work within our communities and across our borders, to support movements for migrant justice and dignity.
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I am an immigration and refugee lawyer practicing in Toronto, Canada (Tkaronto, Turtle Island).
I have been working with immigrants and refugees for more than a decade in variety of community and legal settings, both in Canada and internationally. While in law school, I was privileged to design and implement a prisoner justice project in Malawi, and while studying at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa, I worked at the UCT Refugee Rights Project legal clinic, dealing with migration and migrants in the South African context. In Toronto, I facilitated interactive, theatre based workshops for newcomer youth in Ontario at the Ontario Justice Education Network (OJEN).
Within my practice, I am actively engaged in various constitutional challenges to the current immigration detention system in Canada, including the right to habeas corpus for immigration detainees and the need for a maximum time limit for which people can be detained in Canada. In this regard I am counsel for the End Immigration Detention Network (EIDN), which advocates for the human rights and demands of migrants detained in Canada.
I have appeared before all levels of the Immigration and Refugee Board, as well as the Federal Court, the Federal Court of Appeal, the Superior Court of Justice and the Ontario Court of Appeal.
Education:
McGill University (B.A. Honours, International Development Studies)
National University of Singapore (semester abroad)
Osgoode Hall Law School (Juris Doctor)
University of Cape Town, South Africa (semester abroad)
Memberships:
Law Society of Ontario (2013 call)
Refugee Lawyers Association
Immigration Legal Committee (working group of No One is Illegal and the Law Union of Ontario)
Prisoner’s Correspondence Project Toronto
Swathi speaks English, French, and Tamil.
Tel: (416) 885-8534
Fax: (416) 352-5830
Email: swathi@sekharlawoffice.com
