Irregular migrants to cost $340M: watchdog

Asylum seekers who entered Canada irregularly last year will cost federal organizations $340 million — an amount projected to balloon to almost $400 million by the end of 2019, the federal budget watchdog says.

A report Thursday from the parliamentary budget officer calculates the average cost of each irregular migrant who arrived in Canada between April 2017 and March 2018 at $14,321.

The PBO projects that costs will rise to $16,666 in the fiscal year ending March 2020 because of extensive wait times for migrants waiting to complete the entire asylum claim process, “leading to greater expenses for federal health insurance costs.”

The actual amounts can vary depending on how long asylum seekers wait for their refugee claims to be finalized, budget officer Yves Giroux wrote in his report. For instance, claimants accepted at their first hearing will cost the country less, those who exhaust all legal avenues and are eventually removed from Canada will cost more.

But Giroux warned that $340 million could become an annual cost if Canada doesn’t seen any decrease in the number of irregular asylum seekers.

Canada has experienced an influx of irregular migrants along the border with the United States since early 2017, shortly after the Trump administration took steps to end temporary protected status for tens of thousands of migrants living in the U.S.

Since then, almost 35,000 asylum seekers have filed refugee claims at the Immigration and Refugee Board — Canada’s arms length agency that deals with refugee claims and appeals. Many claimants have avoided official border checkpoints where they would have been turned back to the U.S. under the Safe Third Country agreement between the two countries.

The PBO says this influx has placed “significant pressure” on federal resources, leading to major delays in processing times for refugee claims.

Last year, the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) had the capacity to hear 24,000 claims per year, but received more than 52,000 total new asylum claims — half of which were from irregular migrants.

The federal government promised $173 million over two years to address rising costs, but Giroux said the growing backlog of claims shows it is not enough money.

“It’s a bit like shooting yourself in the foot to underfund the IRB and other government agencies, because these kinds of savings end up increasing federal costs.”