From Brazil to the Big O: Tales of migrants’ journey
Thousands cross into Canada spurred by its welcoming message
Milling about outside the Olympic Stadium, the latest newcomers to Montreal from the United States tell varied and desperate tales of making their way to Quebec and the cavernous Big O — what they hope will be their second to last stop on a long journey north.
Haitian national Catia Jean travelled from Florida, where she’s been living for a year, and in her broken English and French said she left because of President Donald Trump. He doesn’t want to let them live and work in the United States, she said.
“Trump says no, no, no. He will deport everyone, even those working.”
Mack Louis has been a longdistance truck driver in New York state for 10 years, but his visa expired in July, and it won’t be renewed, he said.
In May, Trump announced that Haitians’ temporary protected status in the United States, a policy instituted after the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, would expire in January 2018. Canada’s special status for Haitians was rescinded last summer, putting Haitians at risk of deportation like other nationalities. However, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made public statements welcoming those in fear of deportation from the United States.
Louis felt he could count himself among them.
“The U.S. government wants to deport all the people back to Haiti, but our country is not ready for us,” Louis said, on his way to look for an apartment with his wife and two sons. “Canadians are welcoming. I feel good here. I think after two or three months of integration, things will go well.”
But as families, most from Haiti, continue to stream across the border at Roxham Rd. pushing strollers and pulling suitcases, some are feeling lost and helpless, relegated to an army cot in a massive concrete stadium better suited for football games and trade shows than a makeshift migrant camp.
On Monday, a new shelter with 300 beds was opened in Ahuntsic-Cartierville inside a disused convent, and the English Montreal School Board announced it would allow St. Raphael School in Villeray to be used for temporary housing for up to a year.
They are among several other places scattered across the city that have become temporary shelters to deal with the massive influx of migrants and refugees over the past six months.
Since January, more than 6,500 asylum-seekers have come to Quebec from the United States at an increasing pace.
According to Immigration Minister Kathleen Weil, some 50 people per day were being met at the border near Hemmingford between July 1 and July 19. But the daily arrivals have since tripled to 150 a day, Weil said last week.
According to PRAIDA, the agency tasked with helping the new arrivals, some 1,674 new refugee claimants arrived in July alone. Neither PRAIDA nor the RCMP returned calls Monday.
At the Olympic Stadium, about 450 of the 900 narrow cots are now filled, and the stadium continues to offer three meals a day to its new tenants, housed in the open spaces of the West Hall while the Alouettes football team practises next door.
“There are showers, there’s WiFi, electricity and three meals a day,” said Cédric Essiminy, a spokesperson for the stadium. When asked, the stadium management put together a special team to play their part in the collective effort, he added.
“People say the stadium is useless,” Essiminy said. “But it’s here when you need it.”
Yet while some took the increasingly crowded conditions in stride, other migrants staying at the stadium said the situation has become intolerable.
Muhsin Yanik was one of three Turkish nationals pulling their suitcases down a cement ramp Monday — away from the stadium. He said, upon arriving in Quebec, he was initially taken to a Holiday Inn, but was then transferred to the Olympic Stadium to wait for his interview on Sept. 22 with federal immigration authorities.
But after five days, he said he couldn’t stand the conditions anymore, especially the communal showers, and had found Turkish friends in Montreal who could take him in.
A member of the Gülen movement in Istanbul, Yanik said he was lucky to be able to leave Turkey after an attempted coup was blamed on the founder of the movement, who lives in the United States.
Yanik arrived in New York on a visitor’s visa, and watched Trump’s campaign become increasingly anti-immigration before he was eventually elected.
“We realized it would get very difficult for us, and Canada was welcoming, so we came here,” Yanik said.
A taxi driver in New York City took him all the way to the border, and told him not to be deterred by RCMP officers telling him to turn back.
Around the same time, Iftikhar Ahmed arrived in Montreal, having travelled with his wife and four children by land from Brazil, through eight countries, jungles, rivers and blocked borders, only to end up in the stadium last week.
“It’s really difficult. I don’t know what to do,” said Ahmed, a Pakistani from Kashmir whose refugee claim will be heard Oct. 2. “Someone said I should get a welfare cheque, but I don’t know how.”
The people helping are doing a very good job, he said, but there aren’t enough of them. He was given a métro pass, but it expired after a week.
“Honestly, people told me, ‘You’ll be safe and secure in Canada,’ ” said Ahmed, who was detained after crossing into the United States from Mexico, but then settled in New York where he worked at a restaurant. “I think I made a big mistake. I had a picture in my mind of arriving in paradise, but this is more like living in a cell.”
I think I made a big mistake. I had a picture in my mind of arriving in paradise, but this is more like living in a cell.