In what he called a life-or-death decision, a Zimbabwe man who had been living in Pocatello for nearly 17 years fled the United States for Canada after the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals ruled against him last week.

“I literally had to just up and leave 17 years of my life behind with what I could fit into two bags,” Chakanesta Christopher Matimba told the Journal from Ontario, Canada, during a Friday phone interview. “My family, my kid, stepkids, grandbabies and even my two dogs — I had to up and desert them because the alternative was just unthinkable.”

Had he been deported to his native Zimbabwe — a country currently engulfed in deadly politically motivated violence — the alternative for Matimba, who goes by Chris and immigrated to Pocatello to attend Idaho State University in 2002, would be a near instantaneous death the moment his plane landed, Matimba said.

The U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals disagreed.

As evidenced by its March 5 decision, three of the 21 BIA members — Ellen Liebowitz, Garry Malphrus and Hugh Mullane — ruled against Matimba, choosing to dismiss an appeal to reopen Matimba’s deportation order, to deny a motion to remand the case back to an immigration judge and to vacate an emergency stay request, which was the only measure in place preventing Matimba’s removal to Zimbabwe.

Filed in August 2018, Matimba’s appeal involved asking the BIA to reconsider an immigration judge’s decision in July 2018 to deny reopening a 2007 order to remove Matimba from the U.S. after he was convicted of misdemeanor domestic battery.

Matimba was originally charged with felony attempted strangulation in Bannock County in July 2006. However, as part of a plea arrangement with county prosecutors, the charge was reduced to misdemeanor domestic battery and he pleaded guilty in 2007. Ultimately, the charge was dismissed altogether in 2011 after Matimba completed his sentence of three years of probation and satisfied the terms of a withheld judgement request. Matimba also graduated from ISU with a bachelor’s degree in business in 2011.

But for over a decade, Matimba was unaware he was technically living in the U.S. illegally. That changed during a routine visit with immigration officials on June 5, 2018, in Idaho Falls, which resulted in Matimba’s arrest and subsequent detainment at the Jefferson County Jail in Rigby.

Following his incarceration, Matimba hired Boise-based immigration attorney Chris Christensen, who submitted a motion to the court to revisit the original ruling in 2007 ordering Matimba’s deportation.

Christensen argued the extreme violence in Zimbabwe should allow Matimba to apply for asylum in the U.S.

The judge denied his motion.

The subsequent appeal claimed that the immigration judge erred on his decision and that conditions in Zimbabwe have deteriorated significantly, both since 2007 and even more so since the first motion to reopen was filed last year. Specifically, the appeal stated that during the July 2018 presidential election in Zimbabwe, members of Matimba’s political party, the Movement for Democratic Change, were subject to increasing mistreatment from the recently re-elected Zimbabwe African National Union — Patriotic Front.

The BIA found that Matimba failed to demonstrate enough evidence for them to believe that the allegations of violence and mistreatment in Zimbabwe were occurring at a higher frequency than they were in 2007.

“The evidence presented … does not indicate that the violent conditions faced by MDC supports is qualitatively different, or substantially worse, than that which existed at the time of the 2007 proceedings,” the BIA said in its decision. “While we recognize that the evidence describes a spike in political tension and violence in the lead-up to the July 2018 elections, the evidence during the prior proceedings reflected a similar spike during the recent elections at that time.”

The BIA also said that the evidence provided in the appeal, which included a multitude of news articles chronicling the turbulent lives of many Zimbabwe residents, “documented violence that is, and has been, a consistent feature of the political process in Zimbabwe.”

This reasoning from the BIA left both Matimba and his attorney flabbergasted.

“So because the possibility of being killed has always been a part of living in Zimbabwe it’s fine for them to send me back there? What?” Matimba said. “People are getting beat down and soldiers are getting shot in the street. Zimbabwe became the most expensive place in the world to buy fuel. The internet was shut down because of so many protests and my sister who lives there doesn’t even think I would of made it out of the airport if they sent me home. But because it’s always been that way I can’t seek asylum here — I think that’s a crock, really.”

Christensen added, “I am definitely extremely disappointed. They don’t accept that country conditions in Zimbabwe have deteriorated worse than they were in 2007. It’s almost a defeatist opinion in that basically in Zimbabwe there has always been political persecution, and so therefore it’s not worse than it is. Just because its always been bad doesn’t mean it’s not more dangerous now.”

The BIA also ruled that the immigration judge first handling Matimba’s case properly executed the right to decline reopening the case because several letters of support on Matimba’s behalf were not filed within 90 days of his order of removal.

The most significant letter came from Jenifer Yanez, Matimba’s former girlfriend who reported the 2007 domestic violence incident. The letter included statements such as “Chris is not a violent man,” and that the domestic incident was her fault because she was jealous and that she “had made a mistake.”

“(Chris) is very kind, he is soft spoken and very well-mannered,” Yanez wrote. “He is very respectful and plays a very important role in my son’s life. He pays child support. The love he gives my son is indescribable.”

Still, the BIA was apparently unmoved by the letter.

“(Matimba) has not demonstrated that the letter from his former girlfriend, the victim of the domestic violence incident, could not have been presented previously,” the BIA said in its decision. “Even assuming otherwise, that the former girlfriend takes responsibility for causing the argument on the date in question, in no way excuses (Matimba’s) conduct in violently attacking his then-pregnant girlfriend.”

Matimba thinks the BIA should have been more understanding of the nature of his circumstances.

“For them to say her letter was 11 years too late, I mean she wrote it after she matured in life and was able to self-reflect,” Matimba said. “Most of us don’t make great decisions when we are young or realize the extent of these decisions until we are older.”

Three days after the BIA issued its decision, Christensen informed Matimba of the ruling and advised him to consider taking the case to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Matimba’s experience in ICE custody has cost his family almost $20,000, has involved Matimba spending six months and 10 days behind bars in two Idaho jails and a plane trip in handcuffs from Idaho to Denver to Washington, D.C., with Matimba expecting to land in Zimbabwe, only to spend another night in a jail in Virginia after the BIA granted an emergency mid-flight stay in October.

Then, Matimba was released from ICE custody two weeks before Christmas, had applied for a work visa and was sorting out the details of reapplying for a marriage license to ultimately find out he can no longer stay in the place he’s lived for almost two decades. Considering the road he had traveled thus far, Matimba chose to flee the country through the state of Washington and seek asylum in Canada — a country his mother fled to from Zimbabwe as well.

“Imagine working in a country for as long as I have, paying taxes, being a good citizen, and then just having to leave all that behind,” Matimba said. “It’s the hardest decision I had to make, but I knew I would get no sympathy from ICE.”

Deon Matimba, who married Chris Matimba in 2012, was beside herself with emotions since Chris Matimba left about a week ago. She said she mostly feels upset and diminished as a citizen.

“It really pisses me off to be honest,” Deon Matimba said. “They’ve just left a boy without a father. I feel like my rights have been stomped on as a citizen. I have the right to have my husband be at home, to be married to him and to have a life with him.”

Chris Matimba is staying at a homeless shelter in Ontario to speed up his initial asylum application process. It could take up to three years for him to get a hearing to apply for Canadian citizenship. If and when that happens, Deon Matimba has plans to relocate to wherever he is living at the time.

And while the saga of Chris Matimba’s battle with the U.S. government has seemingly come to an end, his fight to reunite with his family will remain strong and steadfast, he said, with or without a permanent home.

“All I wanted was to be able to be with my family and to be somewhere stable,” Matimba said. “I was asking for stability in a permanent residence. I am now a man without a country.”