Deborah Adegboye said she felt overwhelmed with love as she stood among a group of people protesting her family’s imminent deportation to Nigeria in front of Immigration Minister Marc Miller’s Montreal office Friday morning.
Adegboye, her husband and first-born child came to Canada via the unofficial border crossing Roxham Road in 2017 after facing threats to their lives in their home country of Nigeria. Now the family, which has since grown by two, is facing deportation on April 5.
“Since I have the date, [for] myself and my family it’s been like they have given us a death sentence because I see no hope, no future for my children,” she said.
The couple began working within the public health system as personal support workers shortly after settling down. They first saw their asylum application get rejected in 2020 over doubts about the risks they face back in Nigeria. They then applied for permanent residence for humanitarian and compassionate reasons — to no avail.
On March 3, 2024, CBSA purchased their tickets out of the country. A notice was sent out to the family on March 13.
“It sounds so embarrassing when you enter your house coming back from work, your children looking at your face [asking], ‘Mommy are you still crying?'” said Adegboye.
According to the affidavit submitted by Adegboye, her husband belonged to a religious cult. CBC News has agreed not to name him over fears that his family might be able to locate him.
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.
The Welcome Collective, an organization that helps asylum seekers intergrate in Quebec, says all their documents prove their situation is dangerous. Director of social initiatives Maryse Poisson has been supporting the family throughout the entire process.
“We think this family is really a symbol of how the deportation process is really quick, violent and doesn’t allow families to defend their case,” said Poisson.
Poisson says they’re calling on the federal government to take a closer look at the case and suspend the deportation.
Elected officials weigh in
Deputy leader of the NDP Alexandre Boulerice was present at the rally, also calling 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?”
Québec Solidaire’s immigration critic Guillaume Cliche-Rivard also expressed outrage over the series of decisions taken by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
“There’s a gigantic shortage of workers in the health sector and I don’t understand how Quebec and Canada can allow not having them,” he said. “I don’t see what’s the positive outcome of deporting those people.”
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.
Adegboye says she worries about taking her kids out of school before the end of the semester and leaving her clients behind.
“We don’t want to leave these people without being taken care of,” she said.
“They are so important to us, likewise we are so important to them because they need us. We put a smile on their faces.”