Chidi Nwagbo said he made a “stupid” decision to pay human smugglers and bring him into Canada, which left him permanently scarred and in the hands of the U.S. immigration authorities he was trying to escape.
The 57-year-old said he paid $2,000 in cash to a human smuggling organization in New Jersey to escape immigration raids that swept the United States, saying smugglers lied about his journey and almost killed him in the border area between New York and Quebec in February.
“If I knew it would be the result, I don’t think I would do it,” Nwagbo said in an interview with CBC News at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Detention Center.
Canada – The U.S. Border Rights Clinic, an organization that provides legal advice to immigrants, is studying his case but is facing an impending deportation from Nigeria, a country he left 37 years ago.
He now warns others not to follow in his footsteps.
The choice to leave the United States
Nwagbo moved to the United States from Nigeria in the late 1980s, where he established his life. He has five children from our birth from two marriages.
He won the 2014 Fire Department Heroic Award from Columbus, Ohio after saving a 10-year-old girl from drowning. However, according to records, he failed to obtain our citizenship and faced a dismissal order in 2021 after appearing at a missing immigration hearing, which his attorney blamed on “arrangement errors.”
Nwagbo said he thought he had no choice but to flee to Canada after his election victory last November. A friend gave him a phone number that was linked to a WhatsApp account run by a human smuggler in New Jersey.
He flew from Atlanta, Georgia to Newark, New Jersey earlier on February 1 and then took Uber to McDonald’s in Patterson, New Jersey, where smugglers told him he would be picked up.
Nwagbo, carrying $2,000 in cash, filled his pockets and said he had waited for hours.
“I’m scared. I’m nervous,” he said. “I thought, ‘What if they were policemen, ice or something?”
Eventually, he received a text message telling him to walk out where a pickup truck was waiting. He was taken to Duncan Donuts and transferred to the back seat of the SUV with Florida plates. They head to the Canadian border in the afternoon. He said the journey would take about seven hours.
Nwagbo said the smugglers told the group that they were ready to exit the vehicle and run into the bush, about 15 minutes before the descent somewhere on the rural road near the New York State-Quebec border. He was told to download a compass app on his phone and pointed the arrow north.
They promise someone will wait to pick them up on the other side.
“Once I took a few steps, I knew I had made a mistake,” he said.
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Freezing road to Canada
Nwagbo recalls that when he roamed the forest for hours on a cold February night, he would trek through the deep snow in the forest for hours, and he would freeze to death.
A woman from Guinea traveled with him and lost her shoes in the snow until at the end, she left her shoes and continued to wear her socks. Two women in Haiti struggled behind them, one with an 11-month-old boy.
As Nwagbo pushes his way through the snow and brushes, he loses all the sensations of his gloves and fingers, which makes it difficult to answer calls from smugglers trying to guide the action.
“These people would call me and say, ‘Keep going, you’re only 10 minutes.” “That should be a 30-minute 40-minute walk. ”
They were exhausted and numb from the temperature of immersion in -28 c overnight and they called 911 for help. Nwagbo is not sure where he is at the border and is concerned about the US Border Patrol agents.
“When I found out I was Canadian [police]that was a great relief,” he said.
The number of asylum claims has changed significantly since U.S. President Donald Trump took office, especially with the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) data. Data shows that LaColle has proposed 557 shelters in the first six days of April, only three fewer than in January.
Price of the trip
This journey came at a price for Nwagbo’s body. Frostbite forced amputations on his little finger, ring and middle finger and the top of his thumb on his left hand. He lost the middle top and the fingers of the ring on his right hand.
The RCMP said officials received a call on the evening of February 1 that a woman and her child died in a forest border area about 30 kilometers south of Que Salaberry-De-Valleyfiel.
The RCMP told CBC News that officials found a group of three women, a man and a child who had “illegal crossed Canada from the United States.”
According to the RCMP, the team was taken to the hospital and treated for “various frostbite”. They were then transferred to custody of the Canadian Border Services (CBSA) at the entrance of St. Bernard Day-Lecler about 64 kilometers south of Montreal.
According to Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship (IRCC), Nwagbo was one of 99 people who irregularly crossed the province of Quebec in February on the Quebec-US border.
The latest data shows that 329 people broke into Quebec from the United States between January and April. This number is slightly higher at the 2024 level.
“They might eliminate him”
Nwagbo said he chose to use human smugglers because he mistakenly believed that he needed to go through American customs to reach Canadian entry.
“I didn’t have all the information I needed to make the right decision,” he said.
Nwagbo proposed a shelter at the port of entry in Saint-Bernard-De-Lacolle, saying he had a brother who was a Canadian citizen. This is one of the safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) exemptions between the United States and Canada.
Under the agreement, refugee claims must be filed in the country where people arrive first. Therefore, Canada rejects most asylum seekers who try to enter the United States from the intersection of the United States, with exceptions to this rule.
His shelter refused after CBSA officials determined that he could not prove his relationship with his older brother, Jolly Nwagbo, 74.
“He has no copy of his birth certificate to confirm the relationship,” CBC News’ decision said.
CBSA officials wrote that despite three attempts, they were unable to reach Nwagbo’s brothers by phone. According to records, Nwagbo was transferred to a U.S. detention center in Champlain, NY.
Jolly Nwagbo, who lives in St. Catherines, Ontario, said he never received a call from the CBSA.
“The situation is sad now,” he said.
Writers and scholars say his family is in danger in Nigeria due to his book For Sale in Nigeriaabout corruption in the country. Joley said his brother could be killed if he was deported to Nigeria.
“They probably eliminated him because he was my brother,” he said, noting that other family members were hiding.
This family is also part of the Ibo tribe, and has been historically persecuted in Nigeria.
Gauri Sreenivasan, co-executive director of the Canadian Refugee Council, said they received reports that the CBSA made asylum claims against asylums with exceptions to the Security Third County Agreement.
“We have seen a significant shift in the way border rules are implemented with serious consequences,” Sreenivasan said.
According to the latest CBSA data, between January 1 and July 7, the CBSA ordered the evacuation of 620 people who were crossing irregularly between entry ports and was deemed ineligible under the STCA. The agency ordered the evacuation of 645 people between January 1 and July 31 under the same circumstances in 2024.
Nwagbo is still waiting for news of when he will be deported, saying he regrets the decision to use smugglers to come to Canada and is now warning others.
“Don’t do this. There is risk.”
He said smugglers “are only concerned about money. They don’t care about your safety.”
