A 21-year-old Jamaican student athlete in Ontario says his family could be in grave danger if Canadian authorities proceed with deportation.
Tamarri Lindo, a top-ranked hurdler at York University and Canada’s number one indoor hurdler in the under-23 category, told CTV News that being forced back to Jamaica could have deadly consequences.
“Honestly, I think it will be death,” Lindo said. “It sucks that I have to say it goes to that extreme, but I definitely think it would potentially be death. Because if they ever find out that we are there, it will be a lot of consequences.”
Lindo arrived in Canada in April 2019 with his father, George Lindo, stepmother Jilandre, and younger sisters Tameah and Tamarli. George Lindo sought refugee status, claiming the family was targeted by gangs in Jamaica because of his political ties to the opposition People’s National Party (PNP). He said he survived three assassination attempts and repeated threats.
“It got so bad that at times they would come out to the house looking for us,” Tamarri recalled. “The most traumatic experience I’ve ever had was when I was in the car with all my siblings, going to school, and they were threatening us to stay home or they were going to shoot up the car with all of us in it.”
Last year, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) denied the family’s asylum claim, ruling there was not enough evidence that the threats were politically motivated. A senior immigration officer noted that violent crime is widespread in Jamaica and argued that “any risk they face is not personalised.”
The family’s lawyer, Aidan Simardone, strongly disagrees. “We’re not talking about generalised violence,” he said. “We’re talking about someone who is being specifically targeted because of their political work. George was a member of the opposition. He was helping out the opposition. He was targeted for that reason.”
After public pressure, the government granted the family a one-year extension, but removal proceedings have now resumed. The Canada Border Services Agency scheduled an interview for earlier this week. There’s no word yet to whether or not the family was deported.
Simardone noted that a humanitarian and compassionate grounds application has been pending for more than two years, but it does not stop deportation.
For Tamarri, the looming uncertainty threatens not only his Olympic dreams but also the safety he has felt in Canada.
“When I came up here, I felt the first bit of safety I’ve ever felt in a very long time,” he said. “Honestly, I don’t know what I would do. I don’t even know where I’d start. I would just be completely broken.”
