Children of migrants living in U.S. boosting asylum-seeker numbers

OTTAWA — As Canada grapples with an influx of irregular asylum seekers, statistics show a growing number of people seeking refugee protection in Canada are Americans.

In 2017, people whose country of origin was identified as the United States made up the third largest cohort of asylum seekers. A total of 2,550 asylum claims were made by United States citizens in 2017.

Partial statistics for this year show this trend continued at border and inland entry points, where 1,215 Americans sought asylum between January and August, according to government statistics.

And when it comes to “irregular” migrants who have arrived in Canada between official border crossings, the U.S. was No. 2 in the top five countries of citizenship between January and June, after Nigeria.

Nearly all the Americans claiming asylum in Canada are children of immigrants who don’t have permanent status, the Immigration Department says.

“The majority of U.S. citizens claiming asylum are minor asylum claimants who were born in the U.S. whose parents are citizens of another country,” said Mathieu Genest, press secretary for Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen. “In these instances, the claims of persecution are made against the parents’ country of origin, not the United States. However, given their citizenship, the minor children appear as U.S. citizens in these tables.”