Chidi Nwagbo says he made a “stupid” decision paying human smugglers to bring him to Canada who left him permanently and in the hands of the American immigration authorities, he was trying to flee.
The 57-year-old man says he paid $ 2,000 in cash to a human smuggling organization in New Jersey to escape the immigration raids that swept the United States, he says that smugglers lied to him on the dangers of travel that almost killed him along the border land between New York State and Quebec in February this year.
“If I had known that it would have been the result, I don’t think I would have done,” Nwagbo said in a telephone interview with CBC News from the American Immigration and Customs Detention Center (ICE) in Batavia, NY
The Canada -US Border Rights Clinic, an organization that provides legal advice to migrants, works on its case, but it faces an imminent deportation to Nigeria – a country it left 37 years ago.
He now warns others not to follow his traces.
The choice to leave the United States
Nwagbo, moved to the United States of Nigeria in the late 1980s, where he built a life. He has five children born in the United States of two marriages.
He received a bravery in 2014 from the Columbus fire service, Ohio, after saving a 10 -year -old girl from drowning. However, he failed to obtain American citizenship and faced a referral order in 2021 after missing an appearance during an immigration hearing, that his lawyer blamed a “planning error”, according to the files.
Nwagbo said he thought he had no choice but to flee to Canada after the US President Donald Trump’s electoral victory last November. A friend gave him a telephone number linked to a WhatsApp account managed by human smugglers from New Jersey.
He flew from Atlanta, Georgia, Newark, NJ, at the beginning of February 1, then took a Uber to a McDonald’s in Paterson, NJ, where the smugglers told him that he would be picked up.
NWAGBO, carrying $ 2,000 in American liquidity in his pocket, said he waited for several hours.
“I was afraid. I became nervous,” he said. “I said to myself:” And if it was police, ice or something? “”
Finally, he received a text telling him to go out where a van waited. He was taken to a Dunkin Donuts and transferred to the rear seat of a SUV with plates in Florida. They went to the Canadian border in the early afternoon. He says the trip took about seven hours.
About 15 minutes before the deposit point somewhere along a rural road near the New York State border with Quebec, Nwagbo said that the smugglers told the group to prepare to get out of the vehicle and run in the bush. He was told to download a compass app on his phone and keep the arrow pointing north.
They were assured that someone would wait to recover them on the other side.
“As soon as I took a few steps, I knew I had made a mistake,” he said.
Front burner27:41What exactly is ice?
The frozen path to Canada
Nwagbo remembers having thought that he was going to freeze to death as he rushes into the deep snow in the forest for hours under a wax crescent by this cold night in February.
A woman from Guinea who walked with him did not stop losing her shoes in the snow until she finally left them and continued in her socks. Two women from Haiti fought behind them, one wearing an 11 month old boy.
While Nwagbo pushed his way through snow and brush, he lost his gloves and everything feeling in his fingers, which makes it difficult to answer the calls of smugglers trying to direct their movements.
“These people will call me and say:” Continue, you only have 10 minutes “,” he said. “It was supposed to be 30, 40 minutes on foot.”
Exhausted and numbed by the temperatures that dropped to -28 C during the night, they called 911 to get help. Nwagbo did not know where he was along the border and feared apprehension by the agents of the American border patrols.
“When I discovered that it was Canadian [police]So it was a great relief, “he said.
There has been a significant change in the number of asylum complaints since US President Donald Trump took office, in particular in regular border crossing in Lacolle, Quebec, according to data from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) obtained by Radio-Canada and CBC News. The data show that there had already been 557 asylum claims in Lacolle in the first six days of April – only three less than in January.
The price of the travel
The trip required a price on the body of Nwagbo. Frostbite forced the amputation of her little finger, his ring and his middle finger with the top of his thumb on his left hand. He lost the top of his fingers in the middle and his ring on his right hand.
The RRC of Quebec said that the police had received a call on the evening of February 1 that a woman and her children were lost in a wooded border area about 30 kilometers south of Salaberry-de-Valleyfiel, Qué.
The RCMP told CBC News that the police had found a group of three women, a man and a child who “illegally crossed the United States in Canada”.
The group was transported to the hospital and treated for “various claws”, according to the RCMP. They were then transferred to the custody of Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) at the Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle entrance port, about 64 kilometers south of Montreal.
NWAGBO was one of the 99 people intercepted by the RCMP in February irregularly crossing the Quebec-American border, according to immigration data, refugees and citizenship Canada (IRCC).
The latest data indicates that the RCMP intercepted 329 people crossing Quebec in the United States between January and April. This number is slightly higher compared to the levels of 2024.
‘They could eliminate it’
Nwagbo said he had chosen to use human smugglers because he wrongly believed that he had to go through American customs to reach a Canadian port of entrance.
“I didn’t have all the information I needed to make the right decision,” he said.
NWAGBO made an asylum complaint at the Port of Entrance in Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, saying that he had a Canadian citizen brother. This is one of the exemptions under the secure third party agreement (STCA) between the United States and Canada.
Under the agreement, complaints of refugees must be submitted in the country where people arrive for the first time. For this reason, Canada diverts most asylum seekers who try to enter the United States from terrestrial level passages, but there are exceptions to this rule.
His asylum application was rejected after an ACBSA officer determined that he could not prove the relationship with his older brother Jolly Nwagbo, 74.
“He had no copy of his birth certificate to confirm the relationship,” read the determination of the ACBS obtained by CBC News.
The ACBSA officer wrote that they could not reach Nwagbo’s brother by phone despite three attempts. NWAGBO was transferred to police custody at the Port of Entrance de Champlain, NY, later in the day, according to the files.
Jolly Nwagbo, who lives in St. Catharines, Ontario, says that he has never received an ACBS call.
“The situation right now is deplorable,” he said.
The writer and academic says that his family faces a danger to Nigeria following his book, Nigeria for saleon corruption in the country. Jolly says her brother could be killed if he was expelled to Nigeria.
“They could eliminate him because he is my brother,” he said, noting that other family members hide.
The family is also part of the IGBO tribe which has always been faced with persecution in Nigeria.
Gauri Sreenivasan, co-executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees, said he received information that ACBA has taken a more difficult line on asylum claims made by exceptions to the secure agreement of the third county.
“We have seen a major change in the way the border rules are applied, with serious consequences,” said Sreenivasan.
Between January 1 and July 7, ACBSA ordered the abolition of 620 people who crossed irregularly between the entrance ports and were found ineligible as part of the STCA, according to the latest ACBS data. The agency ordered the withdrawal of 645 people between January 1 and July 31 in the same circumstances in 2024.
Nwagbo, who is still waiting for a word on the moment when he is expelled, says he regrets his decision to use the smugglers to come to Canada and now warn others.
“Don’t do it. It’s risky.”
He says smugglers “only care about money. They don’t care about your safety.”
