A gay teen runaway from Nicaragua who faces deportation next week is "scared" to return home, he says, after being denied asylum because the Immigration and Refugee Board didn't believe he was a homosexual.

Alvaro Antonio Orozco, now 21, based his refugee claim on fears of homophobia in a country where sodomy is illegal. He also cited fears of domestic abuse at the hands of his father.

When asked how he felt about his imminent deportation, Orozco told CTV's Canada AM that he was "scared" about the "discrimination by the people there."

Orozco left Managua in 1998 at age 12, fleeing an alcoholic father who threatened to kill any child of his who was homosexual.

"When he was a child and living within his family home, he was subject to abuse and violence within the home and in his community, because he was different, because he didn't conform to gender norms," Orozco's lawyer El-Farouk Khaki told Canada AM.

After a year hitchhiking through Central America and Mexico, Orozco arrived in Texas.

He was detained by immigration officials who placed him in a group home, but was released when he agreed to return to Nicaragua.

Instead, he fled and was taken in by the Seventh Day Adventist Church.

He says he kept his sexual orientation private because he was worried they would reject him if they found out.

Orozco travelled to Toronto in 2005 after learning that Canada respects gay rights.

"Gay people in Latin America have to act straight to hide their (sexual) identity because people there are Catholic and are very conservative. I was afraid," he told the Toronto Star.

"The (refugee) judge just didn't think I was gay enough and I didn't qualify to be gay."

IRB adjudicator Deborah Lamont, who heard the case from Calgary via videoconference, questioned his lack of same-sex relationships while he lived in the U.S.

"I found the claimant's many explanations unsatisfactory for why he chose not to pursue same-sex relationships in the U.S. as he alleged it was his intention to do so and he wanted to do so," she wrote in her decision.

Instead, she concluded: "...he is not a homosexual... and fabricated the sexual orientation component to support a non-existent claim for protection in Canada."

Orozco's lawyer questioned the logic that his client was expected to be pursuing same-sex relationships at that age.

Khaki, who didn't represent Orozco at the hearing, will file a motion in federal court to stay the removal. He is also filing a motion to reopen his refugee claim, arguing the IRB failed to consider guidelines on treatment of a vulnerable person.

"We're alleging that there was a breach of natural justice, in that there was a failure to recognize that Alvaro is a vulnerable person because of the abuse that he's suffered. He's got a grade 6 education. He's been on the run since he was 12 years old," Khaki said, appearing on CTV's Canada AM.

Orozco is vulnerable, Khaki says, because he is young, uneducated, alone, homeless, and a victim of domestic abuse.

Khaki is also seeking a ministerial permit from Immigration Minister Diane Finley that would allow Orozco to stay.

A Nicaraguan law introduced in 1992 could see individuals campaigning for gay rights prosecuted, according to a 2006 Amnesty International Report.