Victoria Ordu and Ihuoma were given deportation notices last summer
By Michael Chmielewski
REGINA (CUP) — Two University of Regina students from Nigeria are facing deportation for violating terms of their visas that said they could not work off campus.
Victoria Ordu and Ihuoma Amadi were given the deportation notice last summer after the end of the 2012 winter semester, and have been taking sanctuary in a Regina church since then.
Since the beginning of the academic year, the case has generated significant attention at both the U of R and in the House of Commons.
In Question Period, Ralph Goodale, Liberal MP for Wascana, asked why the Conservative government is demanding deportation, while the U of R and the Government of Saskatchewan oppose these measures.
“I have information in my hands from the Canada Border Services Agency indicating that one of the subjects had not attended classes at the university in the Winter 2011 semester [and] was required to discontinue from studies based on failure to meet academic standards,” said Jason Kenney, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism.
However, Goodale argues that Kenny is wrong.
“The university has been very clear that at all material times, these two young women were properly registered as students at the University of Regina,” Goodale said in an interview with The Carillon. He also said that Kenney’s statement “flies in the face of the facts.”
In the past couple of months, the Saskatchewan Immigration Justice Network, a local community group, has protested the deportation of the two students.
Events hosted included “teach-ins,” rallies both on- and off-campus, and a viral Twitter campaign called ‘#honestmistake,’ where people were encouraged to use the hashtag to share honest mistakes with Kenny and Vic Toews, the public safety minister.
These events have raised many questions surrounding the case, such as how the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) treated the students, and what role Walmart — the employer of the two women — played in the ordeal.
Joseph Mburu, professor of political science at the U of R, claimed that the students were “arrested by the CBSA” and that “one of them was arrested at Walmart, while serving customers at the till . . . [and was] taken through the walkway and through the shop in handcuffs into the car, brought into campus in handcuffs, walked around from the car-park to her dorm in handcuffs, which was very humiliating.”
When asked what role Walmart had in this situation, Mburu stated that “if the students presented their social insurance numbers, it’s expected that the employers would have detected that these students needed work permits, but Walmart did not notify these particular students, and so Walmart failed in this case.”
It was suggested that this situation could have been avoided if Walmart had noticed that these students were not allowed to work outside the campus.
Although many remain optimistic that the students will be able to finish up their last year of studies, Goodale said that if they were to experience the “guillotine of deportation” it would “certainly destroy any chance of these two young people ever being able to complete their education, and have long term negative consequences for the rest of their lives.
“It’s in effect a kind of life sentence that the government is trying to dole out here, and it’s just wrong.”
Goodale suggests that more appropriate measures would be reprimands, or warnings or fines.
He also felt it was strange that the government was taking such a harsh stance.
“That’s the other factor that needs to be noted in all of this: none of this is costing the government of Canada anything, because these students are on scholarship provided by the Nigerian Government. So it’s their nickel, not the [Canadian] government’s.”
Professor Mburu questions the government’s stance on this case.
“These two young women, who have done a small mistake, should they really be sent away? They will lose one whole year of their education, and we don’t know if they’ll ever be able to come back, because their funding [from the Nigerian Government] may be terminated,” he said.
He also explained the problems that the two women would encounter in re-applying and re-funding their visas if they were deported, because the deportation would affect their evaluation if they tried to come back to Canada to finish their studies.
“Their future would be ruined by the fact that they are being deported. They wouldn’t be able to get a job, they would be seen as people who are not good, there is a shame, and a lot of social exclusion.”
He said that in Nigeria, the effect of deportation would not only be felt by the students, but also by their parents.
Furthermore, the Conservative government’s insistence that the two students be deported has been seen, according to Goodale, as “anti-immigrant” and might deter other international students from taking up their studies in Canada.
Mburu poses a similar question in which potential foreign students will then be asking themselves if they should come study in Canada.
Goodale feels that international students significantly contribute to Canadian society and bring with them “brainpower, creativity, productivity, innovation and contribute to a larger tax base.”
He believes that Kenney is sending a “very negative, very contradictory message” that is saying, “Yeah, we want you to come, but watch out for CBSA, watch out for Immigration Canada, you cannot rely on them to be fair, or to be consistent, or to follow due process, or to behave in a reasonable manner.”
“[This] will give some international students reason to pause and think, ‘well, if that’s the way the border service works in Canada, maybe we should go to the UK or maybe the US, or maybe we should go to Japan rather than going to Canada,’ ” he said.
Even through all the messy details in this case, both Mburu and Goodale remain optimistic, with Goodale hoping that “saner heads will prevail here.”
