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A 26-year-old man who has lived in Australia since emigrating from Canada at the age of two is begging not to be deported back to a homeland he knows nothing about.

Colin Martin, who lives in Melbourne, has an intellectual disability and a lengthy history of legal trouble, issued a plea for mercy through the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

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“I’m scared because I don’t know anything,” Martin told the broadcaster from a detention facility. “You know it’s another country — I’ve grown up in Australia — I’m Aussie. I’ve grown up here, I’ve done all my school here.”

Martin moved to Australia with his Canadian father and Australian mother in 1994. He has not returned to Canada since.

His connections here remain thin but he did excel at hockey at the age of 11, according to a media profile in Australia last year. His father, Neil Martin, keeps his son’s hockey medal and ribbons, although the boy grew up mostly with his Australian mother after a marital breakdown. (The father is seen wearing a Tragically Hip T-shirt in media photos.)