He was detained for six months as legal battle over his proposed deportation raged on.
Save by group known for championing the cause of LGBTQ.
Decision to set up shelter for asylum seeker was inspired by his own struggle and torrid experience.
Edafe Okporo, a Nigerian gay man who was forced to leave the country for America in 2016 after being subjected to unfair and dehumanising treatment because of his sexual inclination, has now established New York’s first full-time asylum shelter.
The 10-bed shelter which currently provides accommodation to 80 migrants, will be home to asylum seekers who have accommodation challenges in America.
Okporo, 30, was inspired by his own struggle and experience as a homeless migrant in America and is determined to change the situation for LGBTQ-asylum seekers and others fleeing war-ravaged countries.
When he arrived America in 2016 and told an immigration official at the airport that he was seeking asylum, he was arrested, detained and scheduled for deportation.
“The officer came and put handcuffs of me and drove me to a detention center in New Jersey,” the Warri-born Okporo told an American publication.
He spent five months in detention, where Immigration Equality, a group that advocates for LGBTQ and HIV-positive migrants, helped him fight his scheduled deportation in court. He won the case and was released but had nowhere to go.
Also Read: Pastor Dan Yomi: Being Gay Is Not A Sin And Prayers Can’t Change It
But serendipity smiled at him and an event that would later turn out to be the much needed breakthrough and turning point in his American sojourn occurred, when he called a phone number he found on a flyer at the detention facility for help—the number belonged to another migrant-support group called First Friends of New Jersey.
The group picked him up and kept him in a shelter in Newark, New Jersey, where he used available computer to connect to a lady he knew at the International Center for Advocacy on Right to Health. The lady let Okporo stay at her apartment in Queens, New York, from where he later picked up a job at an HIV clinic.
Because he wanted to do something for others like him, Okporo spoke to the leaders of RDJ Refugee Shelter in Harlem, New York and convinced them to convert the home into a fulltime refuge for migrants fleeing violence and persecution abroad. His wish was granted.
The new shelter, where Okporo now serves as executive director, also provides legal support, counseling and job assistance to asylum seekers in the city, especially as a global pandemic worsens the situation of migrants all over the world.
“The pandemic has given the government an opportunity to close the door on a lot of refugees who expect America to be that place of safety,” he said.
The graduate of Food Science is also seeking the David Prize grant, which is given to New Yorkers making a difference. If he wins the grant, he hopes to use the fund to expand the shelter and train faith leaders to enable them provide help to refugees.
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