‘We are the endpoint’
Cabinet set to map out scenarios for dealing with illegal border-crossers
Federal cabinet ministers are set for an in-depth discussion this week of the practical and political pressures being placed on the Liberal government by a rising number of asylum seekers in Canada.
Border security, RCMP and immigration officials have been running scenarios to prepare for the possibility that a relative winter trickle of illegal immigration into Canada could turn into a spring flood.
The results of their table-top exercises will help form options being put before cabinet Tuesday, The Canadian Press has learned.
Officials are also studying links between distinct groups of border-crossers that might belie the common notion they’re all being pushed into Canada by the volatile U.S. political climate.
Two government officials confirmed to The Canadian Press that many of the people coming into Quebec hold American visas issued at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Interviews revealed the visas were obtained to use the U.S. as a transit point get to Canada and claim asylum – plans set in motion long before the U.S. election in November, the officials
said, neither of whom were authorized to publicly discuss the issue.
But it is the pictures of RCMP officers hoisting small children above snow-covered fields along the Canada-U.S. frontier that have drawn global attention and placed political pressure on the Trudeau government from all sides.
The Opposition Conservatives are demanding a crackdown, and want those crossing illegally charged with crimes, something the government notes cannot
happen until asylum claims are heard. The fact those claims are being fed into a clogged system has others urging the Liberals to put more resources into the refugee-determination process and the agencies that support newcomers.
“We are the endpoint,” said Chris Friesen, director of settlement services for the Immigrant Services Society of British Columbia.
The Immigration and Refugee Board reported in its last quarterly financial document that in the first nine months of 2016-17, there was a 40 per cent increase in new claims compared to the same period the previous year.
Statistics provided to The Canadian Press show claim levels generally began rising in Canada before U.S. President Donald Trump took office.
In fact, the increase seems to have begun just as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took power.
In October 2015, the month of the last federal election, 1,519 claims were lodged in Canada. The next month, when the Trudeau Liberals took office, there were 1,647 and – with the exception of two months in 2016 – they have been rising since.
Trump is pushing people into Canada, but the Trudeau government’s repeated messaging on welcoming diversity and immigration is a pretty strong pull factor, Friesen said. “We are now the beacon of hope for desperate refugees.”
In B.C., there has been a 60 per cent increase in the number of refugee claimants in the last 12 months compared to the previous one-year period. Most are Iraqi Kurds and Afghans, and there were also 18 undocumented Latin Americans from Guatemala, Honduras and Venezuela who recently crossed the Canada-U.S. border, immigration agencies said.