A federal lawyer says a man who was a child refugee from Somalia when he first arrived in Nova Scotia is trying to get Canadian citizenship through the back door despite the fact he has been convicted of a violent crime and is facing possible deportation.
Melissa Grant, who represents the federal public safety minister, told a Federal Court hearing Tuesday that a decision by the Canada Border Services Agency to refer Abdoul Abdi to a deportation hearing should not be overturned by a judicial review.
“What the applicant is actually trying to do here is to seek a de facto grant of citizenship,” Grant told Federal Court Justice Ann Marie McDonald, who later reserved her decision in the case.
Abdi, who was born in Saudi Arabia in 1993, lost his mother in a refugee camp when he was four and came to Canada with his sister and aunts two years later. He was taken into provincial care shortly after arriving in Nova Scotia.
He was moved 31 times between foster homes, but he was never granted citizenship while he was growing up in the province.
Abdi developed behavioural problems that advocates say were not adequately treated. Those issues led to problems with the justice system.
The border agency detained Abdi and referred him to a deportation hearing after he served about five years in prison for multiple offences including aggravated assault.