South Okanagan family avoids deportation with ‘indefinite’ delay
Global News
After getting a one-week delay on a June 13 deportation order, the Penticton family was informed on Tuesday that their deportation order delay is now “indefinite.”
For an immigrant family from Penticton, what began as a week of fear and uncertainty has turned into a new lease on life in their adopted homeland.
After getting a one-week delay on a June 13 deportation order, Hardeep Singh Chahal, his wife Kamaldeep Kaur and three-year-old daughter Keerat Kaur were informed by the government on Tuesday that the delay is now “indefinite.”
In addition, they have been invited to reapply for their cancelled work visas.
“I just feel so good now. For the last few days there was just so much going through our minds, just so little hope and now this,” said Kamaldeep through her tears of joy in a telephone interview from the Surrey motel where they’ve been staying while waiting for the flight out.
“We were talking in the morning and if they had not called us, we would have been on an airplane now and leaving our home.
“For our future, I have so many positive things to think about. I now have this hope that we will be able to stay. That this will be our home and our children’s home forever.”
Keerat was born in Canada and Kamaldeep is expecting their second child.
Especially overwhelming for the family was the community’s response to their situation after the story first appeared.