Time is running out for a two-year-old Quebec girl born in Montreal and her family, whose parents, brother and sister are threatened with deportation. The Nigerian family, well integrated into the Montreal community since their arrival in early 2020, will face deportation on July 31 unless the federal government intervenes in extremis.
“We are not a burden!” thunders Lanre, the father of the family, met by The duty. We contribute positively [à la société]. »
The calm man, with a soft voice and a calm but worried look, knows basic French learned in three series of training courses, but the interview is rather conducted in English, a language he masters perfectly. Preferring not to give his last name for security reasons, he recounts his journey and to what extent his children are now first and foremost Montrealers.
The two oldest were educated in French and all their friends are obviously here, where they have lived for four and a half years. The boy of the family, 9, has almost no memory of his country of birth. His big sister, 12, is getting ready to start high school in a limited international education program. “She works very hard,” says his father proudly, “we have already bought her uniform.” [pour la rentrée]. »
The family is supported by the Collectif Bienvenue, a refugee support organisation, which believes they are “victims of restrictions on access to asylum”.
Before settling in Montreal, the family lived for more than a year in the United States, where they filed an asylum application after suffering religious repression in Nigeria. Their application was denied without even a hearing. “I have not received any decision, neither positive nor negative,” says Lanre, information confirmed in official documents consulted by The duty.
In January 2020, the family decided to take Roxham Road and ended up at the YMCA in downtown Montreal. They applied for asylum in Canada upon arrival, but it was automatically deemed inadmissible because of their previous American application, the result of rules in effect since 2019 that do not take into account the particular circumstances of refusal in the other country.
“These children should be able to continue living in the environment they know, in the language they know, and not suffer the significant harm that a return to Nigeria would constitute,” complains Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, Québec solidaire’s spokesperson on immigration. “How is it that we can have children sent back without humanitarian considerations being assessed?” he asks, calling on Canada’s Immigration Minister, Marc Miller, to intervene.
The speakers met by The duty consider that humanitarian factors are sufficient to justify granting permanent residence. The processing times for such applications are very long, and the lack of response is not a sufficient reason to prevent expulsion from the country, they say.
It is at the discretion of the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada whether or not to grant a temporary resident permit until the application is processed. Minister Miller declined to grant an interview to the Dutyhis office saying in an email that it could not comment on the details of any particular case.
“Fighters” course
The family’s woes began more than six years ago when members of Lanre’s extended family began harassing him to force his eldest daughter to leave the home and join their traditional religious movement. When the threats became concrete and immediate, he and his wife, both Christians, resigned themselves to leaving the country.
After being refused in the United States and Canada without even being able to present their case to an independent judge, the family requested a pre-removal risk assessment, a procedure provided for by the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, but whose success rate is tiny. More than three years later, in 2023, this request was refused. To avoid deportation while waiting for a response for permanent residence, an administrative stay was also recently requested due to the health problems of their baby born in Quebec, without any more success.
The family is now waiting for an immigration officer to assess their application for permanent residency on humanitarian grounds, a process that began last December but is expected to take a very long time. The decision will be made qualitatively based on factors related to integration into society, such as employment, children, friends and language.
“This is a family of fighters,” says Maryse Poisson, director of social initiatives at Collectif Bienvenue. When the pandemic hit, a few months after his arrival, Lanre, waiting for his work permit, tried to get involved as best he could, as a volunteer. “I’m not the type to sit at home,” he says.
The forty-something father worked full-time for four months for Moisson Montréal, where he met his friend Michel Racine, a Quebec retiree who immediately took him under his wing. “I have unwavering confidence in him,” says Racine. “People like him are assets to Canadian society.”
In Nigeria, Lanre worked as a project manager for a multinational telecommunications company. Across the Atlantic, he finally landed a job in his field of expertise, this time with a large energy company based in Alberta. “I’m very comfortable with numbers,” he explains.
Even though he has to travel back and forth between the two provinces regularly, he assures that he “really loves it [son] “work”. It was not for economic reasons that he left his country, but for security reasons.
Lanre says he remains hopeful that a solution will be found in time, but his throat tightens as he admits to worrying that returning to Nigeria “would be like a death sentence” for his entire family. “This is our home.”