Curtis Wright packed up his life in Texas and returned to Canadian soil last month, but the homecoming felt nothing like victory. The 40-year-old Edmonton-born man had spent nearly a decade behind bars in American immigration detention facilities, fighting to remain in the United States where his two young sons still live. Now, after losing that battle, Wright finds himself thousands of kilometres from his children, wondering how he’ll maintain the father-son bond he fears may never recover.
The separation stems from a single conviction from when Wright was 17 years old. A charge of drug possession—Xanax found in his truck—had apparently escaped attention for decades. That changed last November when, returning from a work trip to Mexico where he’d been meeting with oil companies, Wright was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the border. Within hours, he says, he was shackled and transported in the back of a van.
Wright had built an entire life in Houston. He moved there as a young man, established himself in the oil and gas sector, married, and had two sons. The conviction from his teenage years had never posed a problem. He believes that changed because of the Trump administration’s intensified deportation agenda.
“It was a whirlwind,” Wright told The Update Desk from Kelowna, British Columbia, where he is currently staying with his parents. “One moment I was free, the next I was in federal custody. It was unbelievable.”
‘Colder Than the Air Itself’
Wright describes his time at the South Texas ICE Processing Centre in stark terms. He says detainees were identified not by names but by dorm and bunk numbers. The facilities, he says, offered little comfort.
“The concrete you’re sitting on and lying on is colder than the air itself,” he said. “The food was poor and the showers were dirty and grimy.”
The Texas heat made the cold cells even more jarring, Wright added. He was held at multiple facilities across the state during his 10-month detention.
“And some people would say, ‘Well, look where you are, maybe that’s what you should expect.’ And I say, well, we’re still humans.”
ICE rejected such characterisations. Spokesperson Sarah Loicano said in an emailed statement that the agency “rejects the claim that people housed at the South Texas ICE Processing Centre are being subjected to inhumane conditions or that the facility is operating under unsafe or overcrowded conditions.”
“Individuals in ICE custody are provided appropriate meals and access to drinking water, hygiene facilities and recreation,” Loicano said. She added that ICE has no tolerance for abuse, discrimination, or misconduct against people in custody.
Wright said he received a removal order in February and immediately appealed. His lawyer later told him the process could drag on for months. After nine months behind bars, he made the difficult decision to end his fight.
“I decided to give up the fight in July,” Wright said. “It was kind of time to just get out and go to Canada and end this journey for everyone involved in my family.”
A Father’s Impossible Choice
Wright’s sons—aged eight and 11—remain in Texas with their mother. The prospect of raising them from a different country weighs heavily on his mind.
“Can it be done from a different country? Sure, but that’s going to be holidays and summers,” Wright said. “It drastically reduces my time and my ability to connect and be their father.”
He sees himself as fortunate compared to some of the people he met during detention. One man told him he had been detained days after his daughter was born and still hadn’t met her. Others had fled oppressive governments, only to find themselves trapped in a different kind of limbo.
“I’ve been removed for a mistake I made 22 years ago, when I was a 17-year-old kid in high school,” Wright said. “And now two American children are going to be left without their father.”
His message extends beyond his own situation. Wright is careful to note that he is a Canadian citizen, not someone who crossed a border without documentation. He argues his case illustrates a broader problem with current enforcement priorities.
“When people talk about how this just affects immigrants, it’s wrong. It affects many American families and children as well. I’m just one of thousands of others with similar stories.”
Rebuilding Life in Canada
For now, Wright is rebuilding in British Columbia. His fiancée, Kayla Thomsen, travelled west with their two-year-old daughter to be with him after his return. The family first landed in Edmonton before moving to Kelowna.
The reunion was simple but profound. “The first thing I did when I saw them was hug them,” Wright said. “That was number one.”
His next steps involve returning to Edmonton, where he hopes to resume work with the same oil and gas company he was employed with in Texas. Thomsen and their daughter will likely accompany him.
Despite the uncertainty ahead, Wright considers himself lucky. He was sent back to Canada—a country of which he holds citizenship—rather than somewhere entirely foreign. Many of his fellow detainees faced far less certain futures.
Immigration enforcement statistics reveal the scale of the current administration’s ambitions. While arrests dropped from January to May, the Trump administration has indicated plans to remove one million people this fiscal year, compared with roughly 442,000 people the previous year.
Why It Matters
Wright’s story exposes a painful paradox at the heart of contemporary immigration enforcement: a system increasingly indifferent to the collateral damage it inflicts on citizens and permanent residents alike. His sons are American. His fiancée and daughter are Canadian. His crime was committed as a teenager more than two decades ago. Yet the machinery of deportation has no regard for such distinctions when it decides who stays and who goes. As the United States pursues its most aggressive removal agenda in modern history, families like Wright’s serve as a stark reminder that the consequences extend far beyond those who lack documentation—they reverberate through the lives of children who will grow up knowing their father was taken away for something he did before he ever became a father at all.
