Mamadou Konaté, an Ivorian asylum seeker who had been an essential worker during the pandemic and who was due to be deported from Canada on September 30, gets another reprieve. His file has been dragging on in the government for several years, and this is not the first reprieve he has obtained, while many are still pushing for him to stay in the country.
“We don’t yet know why this decision has been made, or when his deportation could be postponed, but we are told that it should still be postponed for soon,” said Ms.e Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, Mr. Konaté’s lawyer. For now, he says he’s happy to hear that his client is getting another reprieve, but says he’s not taking anything for granted.
Mamadou Konaté has been in the country since 2016. He has worked every year since he has been in Canada, among other things as a cleaning agent in CHSLDs during the pandemic.
Last Thursday, a vigil was organized in Montreal to protest against his expulsion, which had moreover been announced by The duty. Representatives of Québec Solidaire — a party for which Mr.e Cliche-Rivard is also currently a candidate in Saint-Henri–Sainte-Anne — the New Democratic Party (NDP) and Amnesty International were among others present to support Mr. Konaté.
Recall that according to Me Cliche-Rivard, an expulsion would represent serious risks for his client, who, he says, supported on social networks a former Ivorian politician sentenced to life imprisonment for attempted coup. It was because he had been part of a group that participated in attempts to overthrow a government that Ottawa had refused to grant him refugee status in the first place.
Initially, Mr. Konaté had received the order to be deported on November 19, 2021. He had therefore obtained a first reprieve, from the order of a federal judge.
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