Risking life and limb to cross the border

Desperate immigrants risk perilous winter trek to flee the US for Canada

After he was denied asylum in the US, Seidu Mohammad’s fear of being deported to his native Ghana, where he believes he’d be killed or jailed, became so great that he set out in brutal winter conditions to cross illegally into Canada.

Mohammad and his friend lost all their fingers to frostbite after a 10-hour trek across fields of waist-high snow in sub-zero temperatures. Despite their injuries, the two men say they now feel safe. They’re part of a small but growing number of immigrants risking the northern border crossing.

“God blessed Canada with good people,” said Mohammad, 24. “I see the difference between Canada and the United States.”

In Manitoba, which borders Minnesota and North Dakota, groups that specialise in helping refugees say the pace of arrivals has quickened since Donald Trump became president and banned travel from seven majority-Muslim countries. Refugees cited Trump’s order and antiMuslim campaign rhetoric as the main reasons for going north.

Rita Chahal, executive director of Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council, said her group normally sees 50 to 60 refugees from the US each year. But The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said that more than 40 have been picked up at the border near Emerson, Manitoba, in just the last two weekends.

Chahal said most are natives of Somalia, which was in Trump’s travel ban, but also from Ghana, Djibouti, Nigeria and Burundi. They are making the trip at a dangerous time.

“This is one of the coldest seasons in the coldest parts of our country,” said Ghezae Hagos, a counsellor at Welcome Place in Winnipeg, who deals with refugees upon arrival. He said that on February 4, five Somalis said they walked for five hours in the fields in -30 Celsius weather.

The increase at the Manitoba crossing is likely related to Minnesota’s status as the leading US landing spot for Somali immigrants.

There is also fear of deportation. US Customs and Immigration Enforcement said 90 Somalis were deported from across the US on January 25.