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A FATHER was physically removed from his family in a Cork Garda station on Wednesday afternoon for deportation to Nigeria.

Lovis Asibor had taken his legal battle to stay in Ireland all the way to the Supreme Court. His test case for leave to stay with his wife Tina and his two Irish-born daughters Omo, 6, and Lianne, 3, was lost in December 2009.

The case revolved around the controversial ruling that fathers of Irish citizen children who had arrived in Ireland after 2005, when children born in Ireland to foreign parents lost an automatic right to Irish citizenship, could be deported.

Mr Asibor’s wife Tina said; "On Wednesday they asked my husband to go and sign at the city centre Garda station. I was at work, Lovis was with the children. Immigration rang me and they told me I should come and collect my children."

"When I got there I saw they had put him and the children in a room. I sat down and started crying and said they should leave my husband alone. I told them I am working and he has needed no social welfare money that I support him and he looks after the children."

Ms Asibor says she was physically removed from the room where her husband was held.

Mr Asibor was then taken to Togher Garda Station before being transferred to Dublin for a flight back to Nigeria.

The family have not heard from Mr Asibor since he arrived back in Nigeria. Ms Asibor said: "I don’t know how he will survive he has no money or anything."

Ms Asibor moved to Ireland in 2003, originally she lived in Limerick before taking up full-time employment in Cork. She gave birth to both her daughters while living here. Her husband joined the family in 2006.

"I appeal to the Government to bring my husband back to his children, I work full time and Lovis looked after the children, I don’t know what I’m going to do now, I want them to bring my husband back they just can’t destroy my marriage like that."

Resident Against Racism spokeswoman Rosanna Flynn said; "Lovis, along with another father, had taken a test case against the unfair law that they can be separated from their Irish citizen children. We believe this contravenes the constitutional right of Irish children to be brought up in their own caring family. We are calling on the government to think again and return Lovis to his children."


Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/kfkfcwgbidey/rss2/#ixzz0g2jCkwfV