After a long five-year battle to stay in Canada, two Roma women from Hungary have finally received first-stage approval in their bid for permanent residency, announced Solidarity Across Borders, a Montreal-based refugee justice network.
Katalin Lakatos and her 17-year-old daughter Gilda were recently granted the approval based on humanitarian grounds, said Mary Foster, who assisted the family’s efforts to fight deportation and stay in Canada as refugees.
“It’s a technical nuance, but they’ve received a Stage 1 acceptance,” Foster said. “So they’re on track to get permanent residency and as soon as that Stage 1 acceptance is given, the deportation order is cancelled entirely.”
Lakatos and her daughter Gilda have remained in Montreal while successfully fighting several deportation orders, Foster said.
“They kept getting these last-minute reprieves,” Foster said. “The second time (they were to be deported) they got a last-minute intervention by the minister of immigration, who accorded them, strangely, a two-month temporary residence permit.
“And when that expired, they had already applied for a renewal. When you apply for a renewal for temporary residence permit, you retain legal status in Canada.”
Foster described the Lakatos family’s ordeal as long and tortuous. The family arrived in Canada in 2011 and applied for refugee status, claiming they faced discrimination in Hungary based on their Roma heritage.
The father and son were deported to Hungary in March, but Foster hopes the family will eventually be reunited in Canada.
“They’ve been running a marathon for a long time. It’s been a very difficult journey to this point,” Foster said.
Although the Lakatos family received public support in their bid to stay in Canada, Foster said the family still faces some financial burdens and bureaucratic hurdles, like obtaining work permits.
