'It's a privilege:' Former asylum-seeker reflects on 10-year journey to Canadian citizenship

A quote making the rounds on social media perfectly captures the story of East Vancouver's Amir Taghinia.

It says: Canadians are born all over the world. It just takes some a bit of time to get here.

For the Iranian-born 28-year-old, the "bit of time" was about 10 years, including four and a half years incarcerated in a notorious refugee detention camp on the other side of the globe. 

The latest and happiest chapter in his remarkable story happened Oct. 15 when he became a Canadian in a virtual swearing-in ceremony.

The certitude of citizenship is still sinking in.

"For some, it's a birthright. For me, it's a privilege after well over a decade of battle," he said. "I have a lot of my rights back compared to five years ago ... when I was treated as less than an animal because of politics."

Taghinia left Iran on his own at age 16, living in Malaysia for five years before his visa ran out.

As a Christian and persecuted minority in Iran, returning home was not an option. So, he eventually found his way to Indonesia and a boat to Australia, where he hoped to seek asylum. 

But Australian officials had other ideas.

Rescued from the sinking boat alongside dozens of other asylum seekers, Taghinia was forced onto a plane and delivered to the hopeless limbo of the refugee detention centre on Manus Island, in Papua New Guinea.

"We were told you will never get to Australia. And on top of that, we were told you will never get out of here," said Taghinia. "They said you'll rot in this detention centre unless you go back home."

His story has been well documented in Canadian and international media: how he survived the filthy camp conditions deprived of food and water, how he came to be labelled an agitator for speaking out on behalf of 700 Manus Island detainees, and how a chance meeting with a nurse from Coquitlam set him on a path for his eventual release.  

But now he's ready to tell his own story. Taghinia has just completed a book and has started searching for a publisher.

"I believe this story needs to get out. I believe people need to be made aware of what is happening on the other side of the planet in the name of protecting borders and how many lives are being ruined by Australia [for] so-called border protection," he said. 

Taghinia became a beacon of hope for fellow asylum seekers but also attracted no end of tragic stories from desperate families. He said after arriving in Canada, it was almost too much to bear. 

"It was a tough couple of years that I used to receive messages about missing people — people who [were] deceased, had drowned or been captured ... or tortured. Their family members ... were begging me for the rescue of their kids, from Indonesia, from Malaysia, from the ocean."

Taghinia continues to follow the story of other Manus Island refugees who are arriving in Canada thanks to the work of Mosaic, one of the largest settlement non-profit organizations in Canada.

In fact, just this week, he says, he couldn't help being flooded with conflicting emotions of happiness and sorrow while welcoming a fellow survivor to Canada at Vancouver Airport.

"It was very, very strange and sad to greet someone who has been incarcerated for nearly a decade," he said."He's starting his first day in Canada and I'm greeting him as a Canadian citizen."