He's Been In Canada For 27 Years. Now A Former Refugee Faces Deportation Over Trips Back Home

(MENAFN- The Conversation) Roman Slepcsik has lived in Canada for almost three decades. Federal Court records show he arrived from the Czech Republic in 1997 after fleeing persecution as a Roma man, was recognized as a refugee the following year and became a permanent resident in 1999.

He built a life in Canada. Slepcsik worked in Ontario's construction industry for more than two decades. His wife and two daughters joined him in Canada, his daughters are Canadian citizens and he has grandchildren in Canada.

Slepcsik has said⁠ that, as a refugee claimant, he was ineligible for English classes and later struggled to find time to study while working long hours. He planned to apply for citizenship at 55, when applicants are no longer required to prove their language skills or take the citizenship test⁠, but by then proceedings to end his refugee protection had already begun.

So now, at 58, he is facing removal from the country in which he has spent most of his adult life.

His case asks what we mean when we call immigration status“permanent,” and whether the passage of time should change how we understand belonging.

When the past remains legally present

After becoming a permanent resident, Slepcsik travelled repeatedly to the Czech Republic and obtained or renewed Czech passports. According to recent reporting by the Toronto Star, some trips were connected to family obligations, including helping his wife and daughters come to Canada, caring for an injured brother, attending family funerals and later visiting a brother with cancer.

Canadian immigration authorities concluded that his passport use and travel amounted to voluntarily“reavailing” himself of Czech protection. Under Section 108 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, refugee protection can cease when a person voluntarily reavails themselves of the protection of their country of nationality.

Reavailment is not the same as a finding that someone fraudulently obtained refugee protection. It concerns later conduct and whether the person has again sought the protection of their country of nationality.

In 2012, Parliament updated Canadian immigration law so that refugees who lose their protected status - often by re-establishing ties with their home country - automatically lose their permanent residency, too. Slepcsik had already been a permanent resident for more than a decade when those provisions were introduced.

In 2025, the Federal Court upheld the decisions in his case and rejected constitutional challenges to the new legislative rules. The case is now before the Federal Court of Appeal.

There are important legal questions here about refugee protection, permanent residence and legislation introduced years after Slepcsik became a permanent resident. But there is another question law does not answer so easily: what should nearly 30 years of living somewhere mean?

Immigration law and lived time

Much of my research considers how migration systems govern over time. We tend to notice this most clearly when status is temporary: visas expire, permits have end dates and people wait for decisions that shape what they can do next.

Slepcsik's case points to something different. It shows how a person's original immigration history can remain legally significant even after their status becomes permanent and decades of life accumulate around it.

While his protected-person status remained legally significant, Slepcsik's life moved forward. His children grew up, grandchildren were born, family members became ill and died and more than two decades of employment passed.

Immigration law records statuses, decisions and events. People experience time through relationships, routines and attachments. Research on the emotional dimensions of migration governance similarly considers how immigration systems shape not only mobility, but people's sense of security, uncertainty and their ability to imagine a future.

Does time change belonging?

An obvious response is that permanent residence is not citizenship. Legally, that distinction matters. Permanent residence can be lost on statutory grounds that generally do not apply to Canadian citizenship.

Yet that does not make time irrelevant. One year of residence compared to 27 years of residence may be connected to the same immigration status, but they're not socially or emotionally equivalent. Over decades, people become embedded in families, communities and workplaces in ways immigration categories alone cannot capture.

Slepcsik's case is also striking because some of the conduct considered in the reavailment analysis involved family obligations. A journey undertaken to care for an injured sibling or attend a funeral can become part of the evidence considered under refugee law, while the person making that journey may understand it primarily as an obligation to someone they love.

Migration does not require people to stop caring about where they came from in order to become attached to somewhere new. People can sustain relationships and responsibilities across borders.

Read more: The shameful attempt to deport a man who's been in Canada since childhood

None of this means permanent residence should be treated as citizenship, or that the conditions attached to refugee protection should cease to matter with time. But when legal rules point one way and nearly 30 years of work, family and attachment point another, what weight should each carry?

Slepcsik's case does not provide an easy answer. It asks something more basic: when immigration law decides whether someone may remain after decades of residence, how much should time count?

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