Nov 18
2025
Deportee: “I shouldn’t have lost my fingers”
- Share on
The federal ICE detention center in Batavia. Photo by J. Dale Shoemaker.
Military-style raids by U.S. immigration agents — many of them filmed and glossily produced for television and social media — have become a hallmark of President Donald Trump’s second term.
Early raids involved the capture of nearly 600 migrants in New York, New Jersey and other states. The government released images of migrants in shackles, marching toward a military plane that would deport them.
Chidi Nwagbo, 58, a Nigerian man who’d lived in the United States since 1988, saw those raids unfold in real time from his home in Columbus, Ohio. They terrified him.
“When Trump came into power in January, things just went helter-skelter, like raids everywhere, and I didn’t know what to do,” Nwagbo said.
Nwagbo, in 2023, had missed an immigration hearing due to a scheduling error. His attorney attempted to correct the matter to no avail. He was deemed deportable as a result.
So, with few options, he turned where more and more migrants along the United States-Canada border are turning these days: smugglers. With $2,000 in cash, Nwagbo paid for passage into Quebec so he could live with his brother, a Canadian resident.
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomBut Nwagbo ran headlong into a hardened border between two nations that used to enjoy a friendlier relationship. Canada, for example, has turned back hundreds more migrants this year attempting to flee Trump’s crackdown. That’s allowed an industry of smugglers and counterfeiters to thrive on both sides of the border — a phenomenon both U.S. and Canadian officials have acknowledged.
For Nwagbo, his attempt to travel surreptitiously into Canada ended in disaster.
Unprepared for the February cold in Quebec, Nwagbo and another migrant in his party got caught in the snow and called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to rescue them. He ended up in U.S. immigration custody with frostbitten fingers. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents ignored a doctor’s order that he be taken to a specialist for treatment. He later had parts of six fingers amputated as a result.
Nwagbo has since been deported to Nigeria, where he is slowly acclimating to a country he hasn’t called home in nearly 40 years. In an interview from his home country, he said he doesn’t know what kind of work he’ll be able to find. Typing, he said, a skill he’s used throughout his career, is now incredibly difficult.
Reflecting on the past six months, he said he feels he was abused by the U.S. immigration system.
“I feel like because of the aggressiveness and determination to keep me detained, I didn’t get an opportunity to take care of myself,” he said. “I shouldn’t have lost my fingers.”
An ICE spokesperson has not responded to numerous requests for comment about Nwagbo’s case.
A hardened border
Nwagbo’s journey began February 1 when he caught a flight from Columbus to Newark, New Jersey and then hitched a ride to Patterson. A friend in Ohio had put him in touch with a cousin who connected him with the smuggler. He knew little about the man, but showed up at a McDonald’s nonetheless, $2,000 cash in hand. He and three other migrants piled into a Nissan Xterra and departed for New York’s northern border. At a gas stop along the way, Nwagbo purchased gloves and a hat.
Eventually, after hours of driving, the smuggler dropped them off in a wooded area along the New York-Quebec border. They would have to cross into Canada on foot — a 30- to 40-minute journey, they were told. It was dark by then, and weather archives show the temperature hung around 0 degrees Fahrenheit.
“When he stopped it was just ‘Get up, go, go, go, go,’” Nwagbo said. “So we just got out of the vehicle, jumped in the bush and started walking.”
At first, Nwagbo said, the walk was “tranquil.” It was cold and clear and the moon was out. But the walk proved difficult — through shrubs and snow that was waist-deep in places.
Because he was planning to move to Canada, Nwagbo had a heavy backpack slung over his shoulders, so heavy it tipped him backwards at times. Each step took significant effort, he said. At one point, he attempted to crawl across the snow to see if that would prove faster.
A woman traveling with a baby was also struggling, he said, and began begging him to call 911. His face and fingers had grown frozen, Nwagbo said, so eventually he did. At the time, Nwagbo said he hadn’t even realized they’d crossed into Canada and so when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrived, he was “elated, in a way.”
RCMP officers transported Nwagbo and the woman to the emergency department of Hospital du Suroit in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Quebec, where they spent the night. He spent the following two days at the Canada Border Services Agency’s La Colle station where he submitted a refugee claim and received medical care for his frostbitten fingers. He also spoke with a detective, he said, who opened a case into his smuggler.
Canadian immigration officials attempted to contact his brother, a Canadian resident, to prove he had an eligible claim. The Safe Third Country Agreement between Mexico, the United States and Canada restricts asylum and refugee claims, in part, to those with family ties in the country. Officials couldn’t reach his brother, however, and rejected his bid.
Canadian Border Services Agency spokesperson Karine Martel declined to comment on the specifics of Nwagbo’s case, citing Canada’s Privacy Act. However, she noted that if agents cannot establish a family tie for a refugee or asylum seeker, their claim is deemed ineligible and the person is returned to the United States.
For Nwagbo, that happened February 3. The following day, he was admitted to Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital in New York where a doctor treated his frostbitten fingers. He spent the next week there. Upon discharge Feb. 10, he was ordered to take Motrin for the pain and to see a specialist within a week’s time.
That was the last time he received consistent medical care for his injuries.
First, Nwagbo said, he was denied his prescribed Motrin while in transit to the ICE detention center in Batavia.
“I was not given any medication and was told that even if I had any they would not let me take it,” he later wrote in a letter recounting his treatment.
Once booked into the facility, he was provided with medication that caused a severe allergic reaction. He was rushed to a Buffalo hospital suffering a swollen face.
ICE then ignored his doctor’s order that he see a specialist to treat his frostbite. Instead, 16 days after his discharge, agents took him to see a hand surgeon who later amputated parts of six fingers. The surgeon recommended he complete physical and occupational therapy to recover from the surgery. It took three months until ICE took him to such an appointment.
Nwagbo said he takes responsibility for his injury. But he blames ICE for preventing him from getting medical treatment — what he now calls abuse.
“ICE failed to meet its legal obligation to provide me with critical and necessary medical care,” he wrote in the letter. “The direct impact of ICE/CBP negligence has caused me amputation … a permanent physical disability that I have to live with for the rest of my life.”
Back in Nigeria
Nwagbo is now back in Nigeria, adjusting to life post-amputation. Showering is difficult, he said, as is buttoning a shirt.
“It was tough,” he said, “and it’s still tough. I kept looking at my fingers. I don’t have any way to function with my left hand. I don’t even know what type of job I’m gonna be able to get with my physical condition.”
He’s living with his sister, and reflecting on his nearly 40 years in America.
“One of my daughters asked if I wanted to come back. I tell them, no, I do not want to be part of what’s going on there in the U.S.,” he said.
His children are still adjusting. He didn’t tell them his plans before his attempted relocation to Canada, and he didn’t tell them right away about his detention. Some of them found out when a CBC reporter wrote about his treatment by ICE. He missed a daughter’s high school graduation while incarcerated. She was upset at first, he said, but now understands.
Nnenna Nwagbo, his eldest daughter, described the stress and worry she’s experienced in recent months as her father has suffered and returned to Nigeria. She’s had to reconcile one image of her father — a proud man who didn’t want his children to worry about him — with another: a man forced to beg for pain medication and other treatment while locked up in ICE detention. Her youngest siblings, she said, didn’t learn any of their father’s strife until he was back in Nigeria.
She’s since spoken to him, but at the time of the interview, she hadn’t seen his scars.
“I don’t know what my dad looks like right now,” she said during a September interview. “He didn’t want us to know what he looked like.”
She also misses her father, who encouraged her to pursue her passion for music. She now manages a club in Atlanta, much like her father promoted concerts in Columbus.
As he’s navigated detention and deportation, Nwagbo has turned to music for relief. Upon his return, the first song he listened to was “Destiny” by the reggae artist Buji Banton. The song, he said, is about “being able to rule your destiny, to control your life.”
“I love my freedom,” he said. “I don’t have to look behind my back anymore. I don’t have to live like a second citizen anymore. I’m in a better place mentally.”
