Deadline looms for hundreds of asylum seekers

On a summer afternoon, the sounds of children babbling behind closed doors spills into the otherwise deserted halls of an east Toronto student residence.

Fifty four-bedroom dormitories at Centennial College now serve as temporary homes for 344 asylum seekers, including 96 families. Hundreds more are currently being housed in another student residence.

But with less than a month before students return ahead of the school year, time is running out for refugee claimants who have yet to find a more permanent home.

The Aug. 9 deadline has been the focus of political discussions in recent weeks, with the Ontario government saying the province will face a “crisis” without federal support.

For some of the asylum seekers staying at the Centennial building, that date ushers in a new wave of uncertainty. But they say anything is better than what they left behind.

A Nigerian couple, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, said they fled their home in March after receiving threats from the militant group Boko Haram.

They sold their belongings and took their two-year-old daughter to Orlando, Fla., they said. But anti-immigrant rhetoric there made them feel unwelcome and pushed them to head north into Canada, they said.

“We realized that (U.S. President Donald) Trump does not want immigrants,” the woman said.

“We saw on the internet that Canada accepts asylum seekers,” her husband added.

From Florida, the couple went to New York state where they got on a bus to Montreal.

It’s a common journey for many of the asylum seekers who arrived in Toronto this year, many of whom end up in the city’s shelter system.

There were 3,304 refugee claimants in the shelter system as of late June, accounting for 47 per cent of its users, according to city data. More than half of them are part of a program for refugees in hotels and college residences.