A Rwandan family consisting of a husband a wife and their children are detained in the immigration detention centre at Laval, Que, Canada after expiry of their stay in the country, the sources told Taarifa.
The woman, 50, whose names were withheld due to the conditions of anonymity was working as a Personal Support Worker in Ottawa and worked full-time at a local retirement home.
According to the Otawa Citizen, a Canadian tabloid, reported that the federal government of Canada introduced a program in March 2021 that gave asylum seekers working on the frontlines of the country’s health care system a path to permanent residence status, but it closed before the wife found the full-time work that would have qualified her for the program.
The decision of deportation will be decided on Friday.
Ottawa Citizen reported that Caroline Gelineault, a social worker at the Centretown Community Health Centre has been trying to issue a public appeal so that the family can remain in Canada on humanitarian grounds and compassionate grounds should also be considered.
“Since they arrived, they’ve made great strides at integrating,” said Gelineault, who worked with family members after they landed in Canada in late 2019.
The two children, 14 and 11, speak both French and English, and attend a francophone school while the bilingual mother works full time as a Personal Support Worker to support the family.
“The mom’s working in health care, and it seems crazy to remove the family when we’re looking for the individuals to work in our health care system,” Gelineault said. “They are so happy to be here and just want to contribute so it makes no sense with the current state of our health care system to send it back.”
Sources adds, couples have two children, 14 and 11, both speaking French and English, and attend a francophone school while the bilingual mother works full-time as a social worker.
The family was issued a removal order in August with an effective date of Sept. 10.
The day before they were scheduled to be flown back to Rwanda, the family tried to escape into the US, but they were caught at the border and were brought back.
