Katie's Journey: Seeking Safety for Her Family

Hi, my name is Katie. My husband and I just came to Canada on the 4th of March. We have claimed asylum and currently have refugee papers. We are waiting to go in front of the IRB. We have 5 of our 7 kids with us. We are protecting our other two kids' identities, and due to having shared custody, we couldn’t legally bring them with us. My husband has been in the medical field for 18 years. I was first a firefighter/EMT, then I got my Paramedic License in 2015 and haven’t looked back. I am a stay-at-home mom taking care of the kids. I am also an army veteran, and my husband is a marine veteran.

Our story starts in 2023. My husband and I got married. We found out we were expecting, and I gave birth to our youngest in September of 2023. Things were going well; my husband was at his job, which he had been at for over 5 years. Due to postpartum and some health issues, he took FMLA. In America, you are able to take FMLA if you work for a bigger company and have worked so many hours in a year. He took that intermittently and got a lot of pushback. Unfortunately, I also experienced 4 miscarriages in 2024. He was fired from his job in December. He legally can’t talk about much right now due to having a lawyer and ongoing talks. We had just moved into our dream home; it was a rent-to-own and a fixer-upper. It was somewhere we were going to raise our kids and our grandkids. Unfortunately, with my husband being fired right as we moved in and then being denied unemployment (we were in the process of fighting that also when we left), and not having gas money to get to a new job he did get, we were in a rough spot.

We were already scared about what was going to happen when Trump took office. On January 21st, we pulled our kids out of school. We have a 13-year-old who is transgender, and our 12-year-old is gender fluid. Donald Trump declaring that there are only males and females was a big wake-up call. My husband and I realized things were going to change fast. We had already been waiting for our taxes to get our passports. We were researching our ancestry to see if we could apply for citizenship in any other country based on that, but unfortunately, we couldn’t. With top officials in the United States saying the government was going to collapse, etc., we knew our time to leave was near. I had also suffered another miscarriage in January 2025, and the way I was treated was horrible. The laws and everything changing about women and miscarriages/abortions are scary. My biggest priority is my kids' safety. I can’t keep them safe if something were to happen to me. We couldn’t afford to up and move to another state. We moved to Illinois, a blue state. We thought our kids would be safe. They aren’t safe. My 13 and 12-year-old can’t be who they are. Their mental health will suffer and all that. They deserve the chance to be safe and be who they want to be.

My husband is working on getting everything up and going so I can start working as a paramedic in Canada. We just did our medical exams, so within 6 weeks, we have been told we can get work permits. We just want to live a peaceful life and let our kids be who they are.

We have been asked by people to create a GoFundMe. If you feel inclined to donate, we do appreciate it. There are other ways to donate also. You can do gift cards at giftcards.ca and contact on TikTok katie_katie2113 to get the email address to send to. We also just got approved for an apartment and move in on the 15th. Luckily, we found an apartment quickly and close to where the kids have been staying. We are starting completely over, only having some stuff we were able to fit into our van. We need to get everything, like beds, etc.