Temporary shelter for asylum seekers opens
People hold up signs in support of asylum seekers during a rally outside the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Sunday. The stadium is now being used as a temporary shelter for some of the hundreds of asylum claimants pouring across the New York-Quebec border every day. The city of Montreal has opened a new temporary shelter for asylum seekers in a building that once housed a convent. Mayor Denis Coderre says the shelter, which opened Sunday evening and can accommodate about 300 people, is well-organized and suitably equipped. Coderre also says the city will continue its efforts to find other temporary housing solutions. He pointed out that between 250 and 300 people are arriving daily at the Canadian border, up from 50 a day in the first half of July. Hundreds of them, many from Haiti, are already being housed at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium. In the United States, the Trump administration is considering ending a program that granted Haitians so-called “temporary protected status’’ following the massive earthquake that struck their homeland in 2010.