Community groups gathered outside the federal immigration minister’s office in Montreal Friday morning to demand a stop to next month’s planned deportation of a local family originally from Nigeria.
Deborah Adegboye says she, her husband and first child were fleeing religious persecution in their home country when they entered Canada as asylum-seekers via the now-shuttered Roxham Road crossing in 2017. Now the family, which has since grown by two, is facing deportation on April 5.
Adegboye now works as an orderly, travelling between the homes of patients with disabilities offering assistance with basic tasks.
According to the affidavit submitted by Adegboye, her husband belonged to a religious cult. The husband began receiving threats from family members after he converted to Christianity and refused to take over as the high priest of the cult, as per the affidavit. In it, Adegboye also details an attempted kidnapping of her son in Nigeria by her husband’s family.
She issued a plea for Canada to reverse the deportation so she can continue to build a life for her children and care for her patients.
Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, a member of Quebec’s national assembly who was present at the demonstration outside Marc Miller’s office, said it is unconscionable that Canada would expel an essential worker during a labour shortage in the health care sector.
Deputy leader of the NDP Alexandre Boulerice, who was present at the rally, called on Miller to “do [his] job” and review the family’s case.
“If we are kicking out workers like Deborah in our society, who are we going to keep?” he said.
“She’s doing everything with her husband, to integrate, to work, sometimes having two jobs, three jobs. The children are going to French school, she’s learning French. What more can we ask?”
In a letter sent to the Adegboye family by the CBSA, the enforcement officer assigned to the case says Nigeria’s constitution protects individual freedom of religion. The letter also says the evidence provided by the couple doesn’t demonstrate that the family is “personally at risk, more so than the rest of the population of Nigeria,” among other reasons for denying deferring deportation.
