U.S. agency released detained boys at Canadian border after months of separation

FORT ERIE — A Guinean family was partially reunited at the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie, Ont., last month after the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement released two detained boys at the Canadian border in the middle of the night.

Mariama, a 32-year-old asylum seeker, crossed the bridge from Buffalo, N.Y., on June 12 with her two-year-old daughter and eight-month-old son, an American citizen, to join her husband Mamadou, who had already filed a refugee claim in Canada.

Moments later, Canada Border Services Agency officers escorted Mamadou and his five-year-old son into the Peace Bridge Newcomer Centre.

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My client turned, saw him, and fell into his arms: it was her husband Mamadou, the children’s father, and her 5-year-old stepson.

Mariama had not seen her husband in eight months, and he was meeting his baby for the first time, according to reporting notes from the New York Daily News.

Mamadou’s two other sons, aged 11 and eight, were not present. They had been detained in a Bronx congregate care facility by the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement for months.

The family’s journey began when Mariama arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York in October 2025, very pregnant, with her young daughter and her stepsons, fleeing persecution in Guinea.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers cancelled her visitor’s visa and placed her in expedited removal, holding the visibly pregnant woman and the children in airport secondary detention for a week.

Officials then deemed her stepsons unaccompanied children and placed them in ORR custody, despite a signed, notarized guardianship agreement.

Mariama underwent a credible fear interview without an attorney, and her fear spurred preterm labour, according to the notes. She delivered her son early at a New York hospital.

A judge later ordered Mariama’s release, and she moved with her babies into a family shelter. Mamadou’s U.S. visa had been cancelled, leaving him no legal way to join them.

Mariama immediately applied to sponsor her stepsons, but ORR officials rejected her application, acknowledging she was the boys’ stepmother but saying she lacked the correct documents.

In May, ORR solicited a new sponsorship application from Mariama. The timing was notable: Mamadou had just reached Canada and filed a refugee application.

Under the family exception to Canada’s safe third country rule, relatives can join a refugee applicant’s claim. Mamadou’s Canadian attorney scheduled a June 12 border interview for all five family members in the U.S.

The boys’ attorney and a member of Congress appealed to ORR leadership for their release to attend the interview in Canada.

ORR leadership exuded grave concern, calling it irresponsible to “suddenly” release the boys to their DNA-confirmed biological father, according to the notes.

On June 12, the interview in Fort Erie proceeded without the two older boys. Later that weekend, Mamadou reported that at 3 a.m. the morning after the interview, ORR staff shook the boys awake, drove them to Canada, and left them at the CBSA office, without alerting their attorney or parents.

The agency that purported to care about unaccompanied children fought an orderly and humane reunion, then essentially dumped an 8-year-old and an 11-year-old, without a caregiver, at another country’s doorstep.

The notes, written by the family's attorney, state that family separation causes documented, lasting psychological harm to children.

Mariama’s story is not isolated, the attorney wrote, adding that “turbocharged detentions and deportations separate parents from children every day.”

The family is now together in Canada.

With files from New York Daily News