Deportation date set for Mamadou Konate, COVID-19 CHSLD janitor: supporters

Mamadou Konaté, a CHSLD janitor from Ivory Coast who has fought deportation from Canada for months, will have to leave the country by the end of September.

That's according to a collective of activists and politicians mobilizing around Konate.

His experience, they say, is "like that of thousands of people living in similar situations."

Konaté worked in several Montreal nursing homes during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic as part of a workforce then-Premier François Legault called "angels" at the time.

The Quebec government promised to fast-track asylum for those working on the front lines during the pandemic, but only nurses and orderlies qualified.

Konaté has been in Canada since 2016, fighting a deportation order over fears his life could be in danger if he returns to Ivory Coast.

"We write with rage and sadness; we never wanted to get to this point," wrote the support coalition in a Thursday press release. "Despite all of the mobilizing, despite all of Mamadou's efforts to expose the injustice of his situation, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has decided that Mamadou Konaté will be deported on Sept. 30."

According to the group, Konaté's application for regularization was blocked because of Canada's immigration law, which, because of his involvement in Ivory Coast conflicts, renders him inadmissible.

They say he was living in a village occupied by rebel forces during the 1999 coup d’état and became a de-facto member. He was 19 at the time.

However, they say he was never involved in violence. Instead, he was a cleaner.

Section 34 1.B of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act says permanent residents and foreign nationals are inadmissible on security grounds if they engaged in or instigated the subversion by force of any government.

His supporters say the law "fails to take into account geopolitical contexts."

"People like Mamadou are denied status because they have had the misfortune to live in countries torn apart by armed conflicts," they argue.

He was working at a long-term care home in September 2020 when he was detained at the Immigration Holding Centre in Laval.

Konaté was eventually released by a federal court but has remained under threat of deportation ever since.

The group says Konaté plans to file an emergency application to the federal court for a stay of deportation.