Katherine Zuniga and her husband Eliel Villegas had tried every possible avenue to stay in Whitehorse with their children, four-year-old Gressley and two-year-old Dereck.
- FROM DEC. 8, 2004: Tears of relief fall when deportation order stayed
Citizenship and Immigration officials suspended a deportation order issued in December, based on the couple's argument that they faced physical harm from organized crime in Costa Rica.
However, a review later reversed that decision, and the couple was told they had to leave Canada.
Shortly before getting on an Air Canada flight Friday, Zuniga told reporters that Villegas was determined to stay, so the couple had separated the night before.
"He's gone. He left me," she said, as a crowd of supporters looked on.
Zuniga was to travel with her two children to Vancouver and then Toronto, before flying back to Costa Rica, where she says she will have to change her name and live in hiding.
"I begin my life [again], but it is not safe," she said.
The way federal officials handled the affair was "disgusting," said Rick Karp, a businessman in Whitehorse who has supported Zuniga, Villegas and about four dozen other would-be refugees, mostly from Latin America, who arrived in the city by bus in the summer of 2004.
Karp was particularly upset that no federal officials were at the airport on Friday to provide the woman with her passport or tickets.
"They've torn this family apart, and no one was here to advise this poor mother, with her two children, on any procedures," he said.
"It's absolutely unforgivable."
There is no word on where Villegas is or whether a warrant will be issued for his arrest.
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