{"id":20765,"date":"2022-04-25T16:15:31","date_gmt":"2022-04-25T16:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=20765"},"modified":"2022-04-25T16:15:31","modified_gmt":"2022-04-25T16:15:31","slug":"canada-increase-in-asylum-seekers-after-covid-restrictions-blocked-border-entry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2022\/04\/25\/canada-increase-in-asylum-seekers-after-covid-restrictions-blocked-border-entry\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada: increase in asylum seekers after Covid restrictions blocked border entry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Snowy northern winters tend to see a drop in asylum seekers crossing from the United States into Canada at Roxham Road in Quebec. Not this past winter.<\/p>\n

In December, the number of asylum seekers entering Canada outside formal land border crossings reached its highest point since August 2017, government statistics show.<\/p>\n

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The growing caseload is lengthening wait times for eligibility hearings, leaving claimants waiting months on social assistance before getting work permits, one attorney said.<\/p>\n

The increase follows the lifting of a pandemic-era order in December. Since March 2020, border police had refused entry to all asylum seekers in order to curb the spread of Covid.<\/p>\n

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US immigrants make sub-zero trek for slim chance at asylum in Canada<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cIt seems to me the ministry has been caught off guard,\u201d said Montreal lawyer Pierre-Luc Bouchard, who has 70 refugee cases after two years with almost zero new clients. \u201cThey are completely confused.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said that the increase was expected and said it is working to speed up applications and shorten eligibility hearing wait times.<\/p>\n

In December, Royal Canadian Mounted Police intercepted 2,811 asylum seekers crossing the border outside formal land ports of entry, the vast majority crossing into Quebec.<\/p>\n

In January and February they intercepted 2,382 and 2,164, respectively \u2013 compared to 888 and 808 in January and February of 2019.<\/p>\n

These asylum seekers can enter Canada because they do not enter at formal border crossings. Under the Safe Third Country Agreement \u2013 which is set to be contested at Canada\u2019s supreme court \u2013 Canada and the United States can turn back asylum seekers in either direction at formal land border crossings.<\/p>\n

Volunteers who come to the border bearing water bottles or mittens and who try to ensure border-crossers\u2019 rights are respected have resumed their weekly trips to Roxham Road after suspending them during the pandemic, said Frances Ravensbergen, a coordinator for migrant advocacy group Bridges Not Borders.<\/p>\n

Some asylum seekers \u201chave kind of waited for the borders to reopen\u201d, Bouchard said.<\/p>\n

Roxham Road, north of Plattsburgh, Vermont, is not a formal border crossing, although so many asylum seekers use it that police officers are often stationed there to intercept migrants.<\/p>\n

Some would-be refugees were waiting in the United States, others in Latin America or in Kenya until they felt they could make the trip to Canada via the United States, Bouchard said. Canadian refugee claimants come from a range of countries, including Mexico, Colombia, India and Iran.<\/p>\n

Many keep abreast of Canada\u2019s shifting regulations, \u201csometimes with some confusion\u201d, Bouchard said.<\/p>\n

But Bouchard thinks there is more than just Canada\u2019s lifted border closure at play. \u201cPeople are desperate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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Immigrants flee US for Canada \u2013 in pictures<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

He said the increase was also an indication that \u201cunder Joe Biden the (US) immigration policies have not really, really changed,\u201d especially regarding gender-based refugee claims, which are seen as less likely to succeed in the United States.<\/p>\n

US apprehensions of migrants crossing from Mexico reached a 20-year high last year, and the Biden administration has been reluctant to roll back all the measures imposed by Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

The US government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

A Nicaraguan asylum seeker described how he flew into the southern United States, where he was reunited with his wife and kids who had traveled separately. They flew to New York, where they boarded a bus to Plattsburgh in upstate New York and then took a taxi to the Canadian border.<\/p>\n

Canadian police were friendly, he said. Now he and his family are living in a Montreal apartment. His kids are in school and he hopes to find work soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a hard trip \u2026 everything is in Nicaragua,\u201d he said. \u201cBut my mind is positive and I expect that we are going to do well here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Snowy northern winters tend to see a drop in asylum seekers crossing from the United States into Canada at Roxham Road in Quebec. Not this past winter. In December, the number of asylum seekers entering Canada outside formal land border crossings reached its highest point since August 2017, government statistics show. The growing caseload is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":20766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[11611,8669,9607,7753,5178,9204,5719,1953,11017,9525,8924,8023,5858,10507,5222,5455,9127,2264,10453,9222,6094,12773,5440,2471,1063,7236,8029,10776,11743,1510,6461,7343,990,11048,7964,11973,5485,12901,421,6134,5524,6736,1825,9262,184,6348,10331,8869,8964,10415,594],"class_list":["post-20765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-applications","tag-asylum","tag-asylum-seeker","tag-asylum-seekers","tag-biden","tag-border","tag-bus","tag-canada","tag-canadian","tag-canadian-border","tag-chance","tag-citizenship","tag-colombia","tag-court","tag-covid","tag-family","tag-february","tag-government","tag-guard","tag-immigrants","tag-immigration","tag-increase","tag-india","tag-joe-biden","tag-kenya","tag-kids","tag-land","tag-lawyer","tag-majority","tag-mexico","tag-migrant","tag-migrants","tag-new-york","tag-nicaragua","tag-north","tag-one","tag-pandemic","tag-permits","tag-police","tag-refugee","tag-refugees","tag-school","tag-supreme-court","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-president-donald-john-trump-jr","tag-us","tag-vermont","tag-water","tag-winter","tag-work","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}