The Peruvian refugee, who is facing deportation after nearly 20 years in the country, is finally able to stay with her teenage daughter.
• Also read: “I have to leave my daughter here”: Peruvian refugee threatens deportation after horrific experience
“I’m very happy,” Gledicia Dimitla Sedano Rivera sighs on the phone. Until last Friday, Ms Sedano believed she would be forced to leave Canada due to a mistake crept into her 2003 asylum application.
After spending unbearable days fearing deportation, the 52-year-old Peruvian learned on June 30, a day before her departure, that she could finally stay in the country.
“Around 9:30 p.m., we received a call from immigration. [Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada] to let us know that my mother didn’t have to go to the airport the next day and could stay,” explains Stephanie, their 16-year-old daughter.
In April, Gledicia Dimitla Sedano Rivera learned that she must leave Canada no later than July 1, 2023. She has been fighting to stay in the country since the spring.
Without his daughter
The thought of having to leave Quebec and leave her daughter Stéphanie behind made her even ill. After nearly 20 years in Canada, Ms. Sedano suffered from fear of returning to Peru, the country she had fled and where she had experienced domestic violence.
On Thursday, Le Journal was contacted by the owner of the building where Gledicia Dimitla Sedano Rivera has lived for 17 years. Samia Sassine confided in us to help her tenant, whom she values very much.
In a telephone interview on Monday, she stressed how relieved she was at the turn of events.
“It is inhuman to let something like this happen to a mother and her daughter.” […] [S]I even said to myself at the time that I would host Stephanie at my house,” she laments.
After all the efforts of the 52-year-old mother and her relatives to enable her to stay here, it is “a story that ends well,” as Samia Sassine emphasizes.
Gledicia Dimitla Sedano Rivera can return to work immediately and make a humanitarian application to remain in the country permanently.
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