A mother and her five children have been told they can remain in Canada permanently, after they were nearly deported to their native Guinea four times since arriving in Quebec.
Family matriarch Kankou Keita-Mansare learned Friday that she and her children will be allowed to remain in Canada on humanitarian grounds. The family arrived in Laval in 2007, and sought refugee status on the grounds that the 17- and 18-year-old daughters faced genital mutilation and forced marriages in Guinea.
“That’s the way it is in my country,” Keita-Mansare, speaking in French, told CTV Montreal on Saturday. Keita-Mansare said after her five-year battle, she is “happy to stay in Canada.”
The family’s ordeal began in 2009, when their asylum application was denied, as was their application for leave and judicial review.
The family was nearly deported on four separate occasions.
In one instance, in March of this year, Keita-Mansare fell ill shortly before boarding a flight and was taken from the airport in an ambulance. Another attempt to leave in April was stymied because the children did not have valid passports.
In April, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney granted the family a last-minute reprieve from deportation, saying they could remain in Canada indefinitely as immigration officials reviewed their claim.
Kenney’s move came mere hours after a federal judge refused the family’s last-ditch appeal to remain in Canada. The minister used his discretionary authority to over-rule the court decision.
In a statement explaining Kenney’s decision, Citizenship and Immigration Canada said the issue of potential gender-based violence never came up during proceedings before the Immigration and Refugee Board, Federal Court or the department's Pre-Removal Risk Assessment.
"They and their representatives have now voiced this concern to the media -- never to the government -- for the first time as they face imminent removal," the statement noted.
"Out of an abundance of caution, the family will be provided a second Pre-Removal Risk Assessment."
Ousmane Mansare, 20, said the family’s ordeal took a toll on his mother.
“Before she was always stressed, worried about what the response would be from Immigration Canada,” he told CTV Montreal, speaking in French. “It wasn’t stable.”
The family is also pleased that daughter Zenab, 17, will be able to receive the complex medical treatment she needs for her hyperthyroidism, help she would not get back home.
“If I was in Africa, it would have been different,” she said.
The family’s lawyer, Salif Sangare, said they will be able to apply for citizenship in about two years.
With a report from CTV Montreal’s Maya Johnson
