Asylum seekers struggling in Canada

Thousands of people who fled to Canada to escape President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal migrants have become trapped in legal limbo because of an overburdened refugee system, struggling to find work, permanent housing or enroll their children in schools.

Refugee claims are taking longer to be completed than at any time in the past five years, according to previously unpublished Immigration and Refugee Board data provided to Reuters. Those wait times are set to grow longer after the IRB in April allocated “up to half” of its 127 tribunal members to focus on old cases. The number of delayed hearings more than doubled from 2015 to 2016 and is on track to increase again this year.

Hearings are crucial to establishing a claimant's legal status in Canada. Without that status, they struggle to convince employers to hire them or landlords to rent to them. Claimants cannot access loans or student financial aid, or update academic or professional credentials to meet Canadian standards.

Canada’s refugee system was struggling to process thousands of applications even before 3,500 asylum seekers began crossing the US border on foot in January. More than 4,500 hearings scheduled in the first four months of 2017 were cancelled, according to the IRB data.

The government is now focused on clearing a backlog of about 24,000 claimants, including people who filed claims in 2012 or earlier. That means more than 15,000 people who have filed claims so far this year, including the new arrivals from the US, will have to wait even longer for their cases to be heard.

Honduran Raul Contreras, 19, who walked across the Quebec border in March and whose hearing has been postponed indefinitely, is staying in a government-subsidised Toronto hotel with his mother, step-father and uncle. Contreras, who spends his days at a local library or working out in the hotel gym, says he has been repeatedly rejected by landlords.