Almost four years to the day after her deportation to Guatemala, Lucy Francineth Granados arrived Monday evening in Montreal, to the applause and songs of her longtime friends.
“Thank you for all the things you did for me while I was away. The deportation was terrible. I’m very very happy to be back here, in my second country,” said at the airport Mme Granados, after a trying journey.
His application for permanent residence on humanitarian grounds was accepted in June 2019, a “rare event, because [ces demandes] are almost always rejected after the deportation of migrants”, underlines the organization Solidarité sans frontières, in a press release.
It was not until nearly three years after her status was regularized, due to bureaucratic hurdles and pandemic-caused delays, that Ms.me Granados was able to leave Guatemala. Stopping in Costa Rica, El Salvador and then Toronto, she arrived four hours late. Delays in passing through Canadian immigration caused him to miss his last flight.
The wait, however, did not discourage those who came to welcome him. Everyone stared intently at the arrival gate. Difficult to distinguish Lucy, after four years of absence. They, on the other hand, were unmistakable. Sign and bouquets of flowers in hand, they were impatiently awaiting his arrival.
Those present last night were close friends of Mr.me Granados, linked to the Guatemalan by a community commitment. A member of the Collective of Women Without Status and the Association of Temporary Workers, Lucy Francineth Granados had woven a real social fabric when she lived in Montreal.
According to Amy Darwish, who worked on her return with Solidarity Across Borders, it was these links in particular that worked in her favor. “It’s a very, very rare victory. We believe that no one should be detained or deported, but Lucy was still very involved. There was an unprecedented public campaign to stop his deportation and subsequently secure his return.”
The history of Guatemala indeed seems to have marked the spirits. Without a direct link to her, but simply touched by her adventures, Daniel Lebreux had participated in the mobilizations against her deportation, in 2018. “It seemed like the right thing to do, because he is a human being. I am very happy that she was able to come back to Canada. It’s a small victory,” he commented at the airport last night.
A “violent and arbitrary” system
Claiming to have been threatened since the death of her husband at the hands of the “maras” gangs, Lucy Francineth Granados had filed an asylum application on her arrival in Canada in 2009, which was refused. Since undocumented, she had wanted to regularize her status in 2017, by filing an application for permanent residence on humanitarian grounds, a process that finally brought her case back to the attention of the Canada Border Services Agency. (CBSA).
Arrested at home in March 2018 by CBSA officers, Lucy Francineth Granados was then taken to the Immigration Prevention Center in Laval. “They came back in the night and knocked him down,” denounces his friend Sandra Cordero, stressing that Mme Granados “still has health problems” linked to his violent arrest.
Despite significant citizen mobilization, the widow and mother of three children was “wildly deported” on April 13, 2018, recalls Ms.me Cordero. “She is a decent person, but she was treated like a criminal,” she added.
“What they did to me was not right. How they detained and deported me, I felt like being sequestered. They sent me back without a suitcase or any clothes,” Ms.me Granados. Destitute, she says she had to wear her daughter’s clothes when she arrived in Guatemala.
“I still feel a lot of anger, because I was physically damaged, humiliated, almost kidnapped. It will take time to move forward, but hey, the years go by and the resentment, yes, little by little I think it is going away, ”she added.
According to Amy Darwish, her case is indicative of the “violent and arbitrary nature of the immigration system. If she was to be accepted, why did they deport her in the first place? Why turn her life upside down, why put her through this kind of violence and trauma if she is due to come back? “, she asks.
Once recovered from her emotions and her trip, Lucy Francineth Granados wishes to continue to be involved in community life, but above all to find a job to support her family, still in Guatemala. Still awaiting immigration documents, Mr.me Granados left her three children in the care of her mother. She claims to be today the sole financial support of her family, which has “gone through very difficult situations, sometimes without having anything to eat”.
Mme Granados has already received an offer from a former employer, for whom she worked before being detained and deported. It can also count on the support of Solidarité sans frontières, which opened a fundraiser last week.
“It is certain that his arrival is only the beginning. We will support him in his efforts to recover here, find housing and a job,” says Amy Darwish. “The next step is to continue the fight so that no one else has to go through what Lucy went through,” she concludes.