Order to deport caregiver cancelled

Order to deport caregiver cancelled

Lilia Ordinario Joaquin (Photo Courtesy Of Nicholas Keung, Toronto Star)

By Maria Assaf

Lilia Ordinario Joaquin, the live-in caregiver who was going to get deported back to the Philippines on Aug. 22, has been allowed to stay in Canada.

After an admissibility hearing today (Aug. 21), the order to deport Ms. Joaquin was cancelled. The government will now continue to process her Permanent Residence application for her and her family.

“God has delivered miracle in my life,” Ms. Joaquin told the Toronto Star.

Ms. Joaquin came to Canada in 2007 under the Live-In Caregiver Program. After working for the two years the program requires, she applied for PR and for an open-work permit.

But due to an immigration backlog that delayed her application for about five months, the mother of five had no other choice but to work as a caregiver under the table while she waited for her papers to process.

“She didn’t try to hide it from immigration. That’s when the misrepresentation took place, because her forms did not disclose the work,” says her lawyer, Jennifer Stone.

Ms. Joaquin, who has an architecture degree, was then deemed inadmissible for misrepresenting her situation and working without a permit.

Ms. Stone filed an emergency application on Tuesday (Aug. 19) asking for Canada Border Services Agency to reconsider its decision to deport her. The lawyer claimed humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

At today’s hearing, her inadmissibility to Canada was cleared and with this, her deportation order was cancelled.

If her husband and two dependent children pass the medical examination and criminal background checks needed for their PR to be approved, they are likely to be joining Ms. Joaquin in Canada.