The Canada Border Services Agency has issued a deportation date to Mamadou Konaté, an essential worker during the pandemic. Of Ivorian origin, the asylum seeker has lived in Canada since 2016, but he may have to leave the country on September 30. A vigil is planned in Montreal next week in his support.
“Obviously, I’m really disappointed. We presented an extensive file, I do not understand the decision, “says his lawyer, Mr.e Guillaume Cliche-Rivard.
The latter therefore issued a “request for examination of the risks” that the deportation would pose to Mr. Konaté to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). The ministry must decide “by the end of the week”, indicates Me Cliche-Rivard.
According to him, an eviction would pose serious risks to his client: “The risks have not been assessed since 2018, but they have increased since, because Mr. Konaté supported, on social networks, Guillaume Soro, the former president of the National Assembly of Côte d’Ivoire”, sentenced last summer to life imprisonment for an attempted coup.
It was also because Mr. Konaté had been part of a group that participated in attempts to overthrow a government that Ottawa had refused to grant him refugee status.
“Amnesty International has filed a report proving that he would be arrested and possibly even tortured if he returned to his country,” adds Ms.e Cliche-Rivard. Amnesty International as well as the New Democratic Party and Québec solidaire — for which the lawyer is currently a candidate in Saint-Henri–Sainte-Anne — have all pleaded in favor of Mr. Konaté in the past.
Me Cliche-Rivard specifies that if the IRCC decides not to assess the risks of his client’s deportation, he could challenge the decision in Federal Court, or even file a complaint with the UN Human Rights Council.
Mr. Konaté worked as a maintenance worker in CHSLDs in Montreal during the first wave of COVID-19. Having not provided “direct care” to patients, he does not, however, qualify for the access program to permanent residence for “guardian angels”.