Immigration detainee held in Ontario jail 'treated like an animal'
Richard Abuwa is about to be deported to Nigeria from an Ontario maximum security jail, but he's still speaking out on behalf of his fellow immigration detainees.
Abuwa is one of dozens of detainees who are hunger striking to protest their detention inside two Ontario facilities. Calling from inside the Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, Ontario, Abuwa tells As It Happens guest host Helen Mann that he has spent the last 27 months in what's called indefinite detention.
Abuwa arrived in Canada as a child but repeated run-ins with the law cost him his residency status and left him ineligible for citizenship. Abuwa had come from Nigeria but, until recently, the Nigerian government refused to allow his return. Abuwa says that the Canada Border Services Agency decided he was a flight risk and he joined the ranks of other immigration detainees, imprisoned indefinitely alongside criminals serving criminal sentences.
RICHARD ABUWA: To me there's no reason for me with no criminal charges living in a cage like an animal, treated like an animal, and then they expect me to behave rationally. It's not right. It's not fair.
HELEN MANN: So what are the demands then of those of you who've been on this hunger strike?
RA: We're trying to speak with [Public Safety Minister] Ralph Goodale to find out exactly where he stands on this message that he's trying to push out to us, because apparently he said that he's looking into the case of long-term detainees and that they're trying to implement something towards this fall, but the thing is, the fall, you know, that's just asking us to sit in here longer, more and more months, and that's not even a promise that in the fall we're going to be facing release. The longer we sit here in limbo, the hope starts to dwindle.
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On Thursday, a spokesman for Goodale said the minister's new plan for Canadian immigration detainees would be released "in the near future."
Abuwa talks more about the hunger strike and the anxieties he's feeling ahead of his deportation back to Nigeria on Monday. For more, listen to our full interview.