Abdoul Abdi, refugee at risk of being deported, moved to detention centre in Toronto

A Somali refugee at risk of being deported has been moved to an immigration detention centre in Toronto, according to his lawyer.

Abdoul Abdi, 24, was being held in segregation by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) following his release from a New Brunswick prison last Thursday.

Abdi, who just completed a four-year sentence for crimes including aggravated assault, is at risk of being deported because he is not a Canadian citizen, despite living in the country most of his life.

"He's not doing very well," said Abdi's lawyer, Benjamin Perryman. "He's happy to be out of segregation. He's of course nervous and scared of the upcoming deportation proceedings."

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Abdi came to Nova Scotia as a refugee when he was six years old but was taken into foster care soon after and subsequently lived at more than two dozen foster homes.

It was the responsibility of the province's Department of Community Services to make an application for his citizenship, but that never happened. 

His lawyer said before the CBSA intervened, correctional services had deemed him safe to release, and had planned to have him stay at a halfway house in Toronto.

"Moving him there makes him closer to where he needs to be should border services and the Immigration and Refugee Board agree to his release," Perryman said.

Province lacks policy for citizenship application

Nova Scotia has no policy to ensure that immigrant children in foster care are able to apply for and receive citizenship, Perryman said.

"From a compassionate perspective, you cannot look at the deplorable treatment Mr. Abdi received while he was a child in care and the failure to get citizenship and think it's morally justified to deport him," Perryman said. 

Cases like Abdi's aren't unique, according to Julie Chamagne, executive director of the Halifax Refugee Clinic.  

Chamagne said in some cases, the person thinks they're a Canadian citizen, and doesn't find out they aren't until they're charged with a crime.

Deportations not rare, says advocate

Chamagne said despite spending most of his life in Canada, Abdi's life is now at risk if he is sent back to Somalia.

"Abdoul Abdi is going to be deported to a country where Canada issues the starkest of travel advisory warnings, and Canada won't even send its own citizens," Chamagne said.

Abdoul Abdi is going to be deported to a country where Canada . . . won't even send its own citizens.Julie Chamagne, executive director of the Halifax Refugee Clinic

"That to me is a terrible contrast. He's someone who should be, and for all intents and purposes is, a Canadian citizen."

But Canada has a history of deporting people like Abdi, even when the United Nations found it would be in violation of international law, according to his lawyer.

"International law is clear that deporting somebody like Mr. Abdi in these circumstances would be a violation of the law," he said.

Abdi is set to have a detention review hearing on Monday, and a deportation hearing in the next three to four weeks, according to his lawyer.

In the meantime, Perryman is challenging the deportation order in federal court, and said it's up to the Canadian government to stop it.​

"[The federal government] didn't look at the country conditions in Somalia, they did not look at the experience of Mr. Abdi in care and they did not look at the reason why he did not become a Canadian citizen," he said.