Number of asylum seekers jumped 30 per cent

MONTREAL — Last month saw a sizeable increase in the number of asylum seekers crossing the border illegally into Canada from the United States, according to federal statistics released Monday.

The federal government said the number of people intercepted by the RCMP while crossing the border in April jumped 30 per cent to 2,560. A month earlier, in March, 1,970 asylum seekers entered Canada in between official border crossings. In previous months, the number of people crossing illegally into Canada from the United States has been steady at around 1,500 each month. The vast majority of those entering the country in April — 2,479 people — arrived in the province of Quebec.

Nigeria is currently one of the largest source countries for refugee claimants entering Canada. For this reason, last month, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said he intended to travel to Nigeria in an attempt to spread the message that people who arrive in Canada must meet the threshold required for obtaining political asylum. Those who do not meet that threshold will be returned to their countries. Ottawa has previously dispatched ministers to spread similar messages in the Haitian and Central American diaspora communities in the United States.

The Quebec government said last month that some projections indicate there could be as many as 400 people a day crossing into Canada this summer in search of asylum. It has sought additional help and financing from the federal government to handle the increased migration, which coincided with the November 2016 election of U.S. president Donald Trump. One of the cornerstones of Trump’s presidency campaign was his promise to tighten American immigration policies.

Quebec has said that large numbers of refugee claimants are now indicating they want to settle in Toronto. As a result, it has asked that federal immigration officials help arrange transport out of Quebec and emergency shelters in Ontario to ease the burden on resources in the Montreal area. A spokesperson for Minister Hussen said Monday that the three governments — Ottawa, Ontario and Quebec — are working together on a plan.