WATCH ABOVE: Montrealers rally to help both a Nigerian and a Cameroonian family fight deportation to their native countries, where they may face untenable conditions. Reporter Billy Shields explains.
DORVAL — Sunday afternoon Winifred Agimelen boarded a plane bound for Nigeria with her three children.
She has several fears as she goes back to a country where she has no savings, no home, and no experience over more than five years.
She says she’s afraid of contracting the Ebola virus, fears genital mutilation, and worries about a rash of kidnappings that has plagued Africa’s largest country.
But what’s most infuriating is that these concerns could be easily allayed were it not for red tape, said Angela Potvin. Agimelen has a sponsored application to become a landed immigrant after she applied for refugee status in 2008. Her husband is himself a landed immigrant from Nigeria. But due to immigration regulations, a landed immigrant cannot sponsor another landed immigrant until five years has elapsed, Potvin said.
Potvin said Agimelen had five months to go before her husband could be allowed to sponsor her application. Yet with her back in Nigeria, the wait time extends to no less than 15 months because she becomes an applicant who is outside of the country.
“On top of it, the Canadian government is spending $8,000 to deport this family,” Potvin said. “Is it worth $8,000 when we just could have had five months?”
Additionally, Potvin said the family will have to reimburse the cost of the deportation tickets — and pay an additional application fee of $5,000 — if they want to return.
Agimelen’s struggle to stay in Canada ended when she boarded a plane back to Nigeria. For another family, the battle has started to intensify.
“I’ve been in tears all day,” said Yvette Fuh-Cham, a Cameroonian who came here fearing a similar set of problems that Agimelen said she would face. Fuh-Cham talked during a rally at St. Jean Brebeuf parish as a show of support for her family. “I really feel like I’ll miss them.”
The bureaucratic issues, coupled with the scrutiny that accompanies refugee application has many concerned that cracks are forming in the Canadian mosaic.
“Canadian society should be a welcoming society, one that welcomes immigrants and integrates them into our community,” said Father John Walsh, a former pastor at the church. “And we’re saying ‘no, well, not quite what we want.'”
Like Agimelen, the Fuh-Chams have at least one child born in Canada. They report fearing for their lives in the region of Cameroon they come from, where they say they will face persecution for being Christians. They have a pending appeal to stay on humanitarian grounds, but lawyers say that if they’re deported before it’s heard, it will be automatically nullified.
“We’re basically violating the basic principles of what is a humanitarian case,” said Steward Istvanffy, a human rights lawyer representing the family. “We’re abandoning our human rights tradition in this country.”
The Fuh-Chams are scheduled for deportation October 9.
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