‘Breaking my family’: Rally to stop the imminent deportation of a South Asian man

Renewed calls for Canada to stop the deportation of a South Asian man on Thursday.

Over dozen people came out to a rally held outside the Montreal office of federal immigration minister, Marc Miller, as a pressure tactic.

“They have to stop the deportation of my husband,” said Fatima, the wife of the man facing deportation. “They cannot send him back.”

The man, who is referred to as Mr. S for safety reasons, is being held at the Laval Immigration Holding Centre and faces deportation because his refugee claim was refused.

Fatima is putting out a final plea to let him stay in the country until their spousal sponsorship application has been processed.

“They’re breaking my family,” she said.

“It’s so hard knowing that my husband, they’re going to send him to back to his original country where he came from and it’s devastating,” she added.

“I just can’t think about losing him. I can’t do it anymore. Our government needs to do something.”

Before noon, Fatima said her husband called her and told her he was already being taken to the airport.

“It was the last call that he made,” she said.

Despite this, Fatima says it isn’t too late for Miller to intervene.

“The government [can] still step in and help my husband,” she said. “They have the power to do it.”

“There is a sponsorship application in place, it’s been a year, it’s actually very long,” says Rushdia Mehreen, Solidarity Across Borders and the South Asian Diaspora Action Collective. “So the what the minister can do is push that forward and the minister can do that.”

CityNews reached out to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and received the exact same written response as on Aug. 28 when we first contacted them about this.

READ: Solidarity Across Borders demanding immigration minister stop deportation in Montreal

The ministry says they can’t comment on individual cases due to privacy legislation. But state that every individual facing removal is entitled to due process, but once all avenues to appeal are exhausted, they are removed from Canada in accordance with Canadian law.

“There are 500,000 non-status people on the land here, we are asking for status for all of them, we are asking for regularization,” said Mehreen. “Trudeau has promised that. He mandated Sean Fraser to do that in 2021. It’s been two years now.”

Mamadou Konaté from the Ivory Coast can understand.

He worked in Quebec’s long-term care homes during the pandemic  and was temporarily saved from deportation thanks to a federal court decision and showed his support at the rally.

BACKGROUND: Federal court temporarily suspends deportation of Quebec migrant worker who was pandemic hero

“I was in the detention four times,” said Konaté. “I know what happened to him,” referring to Mr. S. “I know the difficulty.”

Fatima’s one wish is for the authorities to reverse their decision.

“My husband is everything is to me,” said Fatima.