Immigrant of the Day: Kaillie Humphries (Canada)

By Sandro Halank, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

Kaillie Humphries, née Simundson, won gold for the United States at the Beijing 2022 winter Olympics. Her sport: monosled. (Are you unfamiliar with monosled? It’s bobsledding where one person does all the work — pusher, pilot, brakeman.)

Humphries was born and raised in Canada. And she competed as part of Canada’s bobsled team for years. She won gold for Canada in the two-woman bobsled competition at both the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and the 2014 Sochi Olympics. She won bonze for Canada at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics.

After Pyeongchang, Humphries went public with her story of mental and verbal abuse at the hands of her Canadian bobsled coach. She also went public with how higher-ups within the Canadian bobsled machinery refused to address the abuse, even when made aware of it.

Humphries needed a change. She saw the United States as a fresh start and sought to change her citizenship and bobsled program.

Don’t think that there weren’t other countries looking to lure Humphries away! China and Russia both wanted her. But as Humphries told the New York Times:

“If I’m going to change nationalities, I have to want to represent that country,” Humphries said. “It’s not just about what’s easy. It’s about what’s right, what’s fair, what’s just. And where do I fit in and where do I belong? And what can I, in my heart of hearts, adequately represent?”

What followed was several years of legal battles — Canada did not want to let Humphries go. But, in December 2021, she finally became a naturalized U.S. citizen — just in time to compete on behalf of our country in the 2022 Olympics.

-KitJ