There is no anger laced in Gerald Lizano's words.
Instead, there's just a palpable sense of brokenness as he speaks about how his two eldest children were taken out of school mid-morning Thursday by immigration officials and held in a detention centre.
"I was going crazy," Lizano told the Saturday Sun in an exclusive interview yesterday. "How could (immigration officials) go to school and take them away in front of other students like they're criminals? ... If someone made a mistake it was me. I made the decision to stay. To me, (immigration shouldn't be able) to go to school."
Lizano, a framing carpentry foreman, is in hiding after his wife Franssella Sossa, 38, three children and parents-in-law were found and taken to the Toronto Immigration Holding Centre at Rexdale Blvd. and Hwy. 27 Thursday.
The family is being held for failing to appear at the airport Feb. 16 for a deportation order back to Costa Rica after a failed refugee application in 2001. They can't eat or sleep and relatives are concerned about the grandparents who suffer from diabetes and high blood pressure.Lizano's oldest child Kimberly, a popular, honour roll student was in art class when she was called to the principal's office Thursday at Dante Alighieri Academy.
"The principal said she had bad news for me," Kimberly, 15, said in phone interview from inside the detention centre.
"She said a lady from immigration was here and I started crying."
Kimberly knew right away.
Just as her younger brother Gerald, 14, knew immediately what was about to transpire when he was taken to an immigration officer during lunch and escorted to a van where his family waited.
"When the woman identified herself, he started crying," said the vice-principal outside the detention centre where dozens of students and teachers held a prayer vigil for the family.
Principal Angela Piscitelli said though the experience was wrenching, "schools aren't above the law ... it was our duty to hand over the child."
The children knew of the risks because the father had braced the family for the consequences of his decision to keep the family in Canada.
But his children were doing so well in school Lizano wanted to let them finish the school year.
"I want my kids to grow up in a country where they can do better, and give them the right direction," Lizano said, seated at a kitchen table, his hands occupied with a paper clip.
"We were afraid all the time."
Lizano is no stranger to fear. The family came to Canada in 2001 because they feared they were on a hit list from drug lords.
Lizano's brother-in-law was an undercover drug cop in Costa Rica where vengeful drug dealers have been after his family, Lizano said.
"I fear for the kids. If I go back to Costa Rica and something happens to my kids, who's going to be responsible?" he asked.
A pile of reference letters from employers attesting to his hard work and citizenship remain unheard, he said, adding he spent $10,000 on legal fees that amounted to nothing.
'SHOULDN'T SUFFER'
"I'm trying my best to stay strong because of my family," Kimberly said. "I feel I have to be a role model for them."
Anna Pape, spokesman for Canada Border Services Agency, meanwhile, stressed illegal immigrants shouldn't fear keeping their children in school, saying officials removed the children to keep them with their families.
"Children shouldn't suffer for their parents' decisions," she said.
The children are scheduled to be released into the care of a family member today after a flurry of phone calls were made late last night.
Yesterday morning, two more students from Costa Rica were removed from their classrooms after immigration officials gave the mom 30 minutes to get to the school -- a move Pape said was a "breach of protocol." The family has since been released.
"We do not enter schools or use children as a measure of apprehending people in contravention of the Immigration and Refugee Act.
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