Canada can handle refugees: Minister
Ahmed Hussen says resources there for ‘fluctuations’ of people arriving in Canada
As hundreds of asylum seekers continue to slip across the American border into B.C., the federal immigration minister is promising that Canada has the resources to handle all of the new arrivals.
Ahmed Hussen was on hand to watch 30 new Canadians take the oath of citizenship Wednesday at the Immigrant Services Society of B.C.’s Welcome Centre in East Vancouver. The freshly minted citizens hailed from 16 countries and included several former refugee claimants.
“The number of asylum seekers who are coming into our country is a little bit higher than previous years, but it fluctuates from year to year, and we have the capacity to deal with those fluctuations,” Hussen told reporters after the ceremony.
He continued: “The services are there. If there is a need for additional services, we’re also happy to look at that.”
In the first two months of this year, Mounties arrested 291 would-be refugees illicitly crossing the border from the U.S., where Donald Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric and attempts at immigration restrictions have many non-citizens fearing deportation. Across the country, RCMP officers have detained 1,134 people.
In B.C., most seem to be crossing near Peace Arch Park. If they are not arrested and sent to detention with the Canada Border Services Agency, one of their first stops will likely be at the Welcome Centre, where they can find help filing an inland refugee claim. In just the first 24 days of this month, the centre has seen 77 new people claiming refugee status, and an estimated 80 per cent of those people walked across the border. The biggest source countries have been Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Honduras and Mexico.
In response to the surge in new arrivals across the country, including some who have lost fingers and toes to frostbite after crossing during the frigid Prairie winter, many immigration advocates have pleaded with the federal government to suspend the Safe Third Country Agreement. That deal means the vast majority of refugee claimants will be turned away at any land border crossings with the U.S.
But the immigration minister has said repeatedly he has no plans to toss the agreement, a position he reasserted on Wednesday.
“Our analysis continuously shows that the domestic U.S. asylum system is the way it was prior to the incoming administration,” Hussen said. “There’s absolutely no need to tinker with this Safe Third Country Agreement.”
Although she may not have taken the same route to enter Canada, former refugee and new citizen Messia Ditshimba offered some advice for the flood of new asylum seekers. She arrived in Canada with her parents as a 19-year-old fleeing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo a decade ago, and said she initially had trouble learning English and adjusting to the cold climate.
“The best advice I could give new refugees is to actually get out there and try to mingle, to volunteer, to be part of the society . ... When you’re new and you don’t know anybody, you want to stay by yourself or only with your community — but then you just delay your happiness in Canada.”
Ditshimba found happiness by volunteering with African immigrant groups and founding a bilingual Afro-Caribbean magazine. She is now an immigration consultant, and recited her citizenship oath Wednesday with energetic threeyear-old daughter Akira at her side.
with file from Canadian Press