HALIFAX — A 33-year-old mother of four who was facing deportation will be allowed to stay in Canada, her lawyer says.
Fliss Cramman was due to be deported to her native Britain as early as Dec. 16 after a drug conviction. She has lived in Canada since she was eight years old, but her parents and other guardians failed to obtain her citizenship.
In a press release Friday, the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund said Immigration Minister John McCallum had intervened, and ordered her released from border services custody and her deportation stayed. The group said he ordered her permanent residency status "reinstated in principle."
Her lawyer, John O'Neill, confirmed federal authorities have told him Cramman can stay in Canada.
"I am overwhelmed," Cramman said in the release. "I am thankful I was able to get my story out and that the right people heard it. I am happy and relieved. I want to say thanks to the government for caring about me."
Cramman will move from Dartmouth General Hospital, where she has been recovering from colon surgery, to an Elizabeth Fry Society halfway house in Cape Breton.
"We want to thank government for doing the right thing; for taking a stand for vulnerable women," Emma Halpern, a lawyer with the Elizabeth Fry Society of Cape Breton, said in the release.
Cramman was convicted in 2014 of offering to traffic heroin, sentenced to 27 months in prison and detained again when the Canada Border Services Agency looked into her citizenship.
A hearing had been scheduled for noon Friday in Dartmouth, with advocates expecting to present a plan to provide health care for her.
