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A Edmonton-born man who lived most of his life in the United States is back in Canada, after losing a legal fight to remain south of the border to be with his two young sons.
Curtis Wright, 40, said he endured terrible conditions at different U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities in Texas after he was taken into custody just under 10 months ago.
Rather than self-deport to Canada, Wright said he fought to remain in the United States to raise the children he shares from a previous marriage.
“Can it be done from a different country? Sure, but that’s going to be holidays and summers,” Wright said in an interview from Kelowna, B.C.
“It drastically reduces my time and my ability to, you know, connect and be their father.”
Wright said he was returned to Canada from the South Texas ICE Processing Centre a little more than two weeks ago. His sons, ages eight and 11, remain in Texas.
Wright moved to Houston in his youth. He later got work in the oil and gas industry, and has held a green card for decades as a permanent resident of the U.S.
In November, while coming back from a work trip in Mexico speaking with oil companies and distributors, he was interviewed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and an old conviction resurfaced.
When he was 17, he said, he was convicted of drug possession and ordered to do community service and serve probation. Xanax, an anti-anxiety medication, had been found in his truck, he added.
Wright said when he returned from Mexico, immigration agents shackled and hauled him away in the back of a van.
He blames U.S. President Donald Trump’s heightened focus on deportation for why his life in the country hadn’t been an issue for nearly 30 years.
The whirlwind shift from unfettered freedom to being in federal custody was unbelievable, he said.
In the blaze of the Texas heat, he said, he ended up in freezing cold intake processing cells at the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall.
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“The concrete that you’re sitting on and laying on is colder than the air itself,” he said.
Detainees were addressed by their dorm and bunk numbers rather than their names, he said.
The food was poor and the showers dirty and grimy.
“Some people would say that, ‘Well, look where you are, maybe that’s what you should expect.’ And I say, well, we’re still humans.”
A spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it rejects the claim that people housed at the South Texas ICE Processing Centre “are being subjected to inhumane conditions or that the facility is operating under unsafe or overcrowded conditions.”
“Individuals in ICE custody are provided appropriate meals and access to drinking water, hygiene facilities and recreation,” Sarah Loicano said in an emailed statement.
She said ICE has no tolerance for abuse, discrimination or misconduct against people in custody.
Wright said he was ordered to be sent back to Canada in February on a removal order, but he appealed. He later learned from his lawyer that his appeal might take months more.
He said he decided to give up the fight in July and his removal order finalized.
“I’d already been there for nine months and it was kind of time to just get out and go to Canada and kind of end this journey for everyone involved in my family,” he said.
Wright said he considers himself lucky to be sent back to Canada rather than another country.
Some people he befriended in detention told him stories of fleeing oppressive governments. One said he had been detained days after his daughter was born and hadn’t met her yet.
Immigration arrests in the United States dropped from January to May, but Trump’s administration still plans to remove one million people this fiscal year, compared with roughly 442,000 people last year.
“I’ve been removed for a mistake I made 22 years ago, when I was a 17-year-old kid in high school. And now two American children are going to be left without their father,” Wright said.
“I’m just one of thousands of others with similar stories.”
“So when people talk about how this just affects immigrants, it’s wrong. It affects many American families and children as well.”
For now, Wright is staying at his parents’ house in Kelowna with his fiancée, Kayla Thomsen, and their two-year-old daughter.
They plan to head to Edmonton so he can try to pick up a job with the same energy company he worked for in Texas.
Thomsen and the toddler travelled to B.C. to be with Wright when he arrived in Canada, first in Edmonton before moving west.
The first thing he did when he saw them was hug them, said Wright.
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