By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

Brent Figg and Alice Krips Figg were on their way home from a family visit to Detroit late last month when they handed their passports over to a Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) agent in Windsor, Ont. for what they believed would be a routine inspection. Instead, the Bromont couple, who have spent the last 14 years as legal temporary residents in Canada, were told they had two weeks to settle their affairs and leave the country with their six children – four of whom are Canadian-born and two of whom were babies when their parents left the United States. Now, their neighbours are petitioning federal Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab to grant the family a last-minute reprieve.

The family’s work permits expired in July, but they believed, based on past experiences at the border, that the CBSA agent would grant them a grace period. Instead, the agent gave them two weeks to leave, which ended Sept. 8. They are remaining in the country to wait for the outcome of a new application. In the interim, the couple have pulled their two eldest children out of school to respect the conditions of their visitor visas, which state that they aren’t allowed to study – even though provincial regulations in Quebec allow children of parents in irregular migratory situations to attend school. Krips Figg explained that the family “wanted to do everything by the book” to avoid putting their four younger children’s Canadian citizenship at risk.

The family’s love affair with Canada began in 2010 when Brent Figg, a computer engineer and rowing instructor, accepted a job with Manitoba’s elite rowing program. “That

was our pathway towards a dream and a desire for stability for our family. The US had gone through a housing crisis not long before, in 2008. We felt like things were not really certain in that regard on that side of the border of how we would be able to afford a home,” Krips Figg remembered. “That was the beginning of our Canadian dream.”

The Figgs lived in Winnipeg for four years and sprinkle their speech with Manitoban cultural references, referring to provincial elected officials as MLAs and mentioning Louis Riel’s story as something that inspires them in tough situations. Figg’s career as a rowing coach led the family from Winnipeg to London, Ont., where he trained members of the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic teams, and then to Knowlton, where he worked with Aviron Québec. Stringing together temporary work permits, the family settled in Bromont and sent their children to French school; the parents brushed up on their own limited French by looking over their children’s homework and chatting with other parents at the hockey rink.

Krips Figg explained that she started working on the family’s permanent residence applications in 2021, but that they ran into delays, caused by the pandemic and by the short-term nature of her husband’s contracts.

“We were in this strange, nebulous, one day to the next space… where we kept thinking we’d be able to ask our employer to support our application,” Figg remembered. “We also see this separation into the gig economy in the cultural sphere, it’s the same thing, right?”

The couple have applied for permanent residence for themselves and their two American-born children four times through the federal Express Entry system. The first application, Krips Figg said, was rejected due to a problem with how Figg’s coaching certification was put in the system. The others expired before a decision was made, apparently due to pandemic-related backlogs. Over the years, the couple has been unable to consult their own immigration file and only rarely able to speak with an immigration agent on the phone. Navigating what Brent Figg calls the “faceless bureaucracy” has been a demoralizing challenge.

“We were not prudent in not applying sooner – no question about that – but it also gives us a great deal of empathy [with other foreign workers],” he said. “We have a level of training, education and stability that others may not have, and we’ve been able to hire a lawyer at different points in this process. We can imagine the situations of leverage and exploitation that others can be placed in because of this, and it’s not funny. The temporary work cycle is something that is very difficult to break out of.”

In the interim, Bromont mayoral candidate Michelle Champagne has launched a petition on the family’s behalf, arguing that their deportation would rip apart an “exemplary, well-integrated, law-abiding family.” Krips Figg said the support the family has received from their neighbours has been “amazing.” The petition has received more than 900 signatures.

The couple are awaiting a decision on an extension to their visitor visas. They have contacted Brome-Missisquoi MP Louis Villeneuve and MPs in ridings they’ve previously lived in to help navigate their file and request ministerial intervention; they’re also in touch with Conservative shadow minister Pierre Paul-Hus through a mutual acquaintance. As of this writing, they’re waiting to hear back.

The online petition in support of the Figg family can be signed at petitionenligne.net/non_a_lexpulsion_famille_figg_bromont.