Quebec family and their 3 children face deportation to separate continents
CBC
A family of five in Trois-Rivières, Que., is bracing themselves for a Federal Court ruling Wednesday that will determine if they will be allowed to stay or if they are to be split up and deported to separate, far-flung continents within hours.
The court is expected to rule on whether to allow the deportation of Arlyn Huilar and her two eldest children to the Philippines, and her husband, David Ajibade, and their six-year-old son to Ajibade's native Nigeria.
Huilar and Ajibade met on a matchmaking website and were married in Nigeria in 2009. Their mixed-race children were met with racism and hostility in the Philippines, then narrowly avoided a kidnapping in Nigeria, said their lawyer, Sabrina Kosseim.
Their hope of finding a safe haven in Canada ended when the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) ordered the family deported — to two different continents.
"Emotionally, it's just killing all of us," Ajibade said over the phone Wednesday. "This was the first time we felt at home."
Kosseim requested that her clients' deportation be deferred until they receive a document from the Philippines proving the youngest child has citizenship there, so that the six-year-old would not be separated from his older siblings.
When the CBSA denied that request, she turned to the Federal Court, seeking a stay of deportation.
Kosseim asked the judge to suspend the family's removal from Canada, pending the outcome of their request for permanent residency on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, which could take months.
"I've never seen a situation where CBSA is about to split up brothers and sisters. I've never seen that," Kosseim said.
The family's eldest child, Kaela, 11, has been profoundly affected by the prospect of seeing her family torn apart.
"She used to be happy and lively, and when she heard about it, there was a great change in her," said Huilar. "She had to go through some therapy sessions."
In the first years of their relationship, the couple travelled back and forth between their home countries to see each other. Ajibade, who studied electrical engineering, worked at a bank in fraud detection, and Huilar was a teacher in the Philippines.
But when Kaela was born in the Philippines in 2011, the couple said she faced racism and discrimination there, so she and her mother joined Ajibade in Nigeria, where their second child, Bradley, was born in 2013.
There, too, the family faced problems. In a country wracked by civil strife, the Ajibade-Huilars were perceived as foreigners. They say they were extorted by police officers and regularly harassed, and Kaela and Bradley narrowly avoided being kidnapped after leaving school one day.
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