Those Criminal Elements...

"A criminal element amongst the [refugee] claimants is present.  They are known to engage in petty theft, break and enter, possession of property obtained by crime, fraud and forgery, and assault ... many engage in similar activities in Canada."
From redacted CBSA report

It's a good idea for Canada to know whom we're admitting into the country.  To share the Canadian way of life, our values and our social benefits, with the expectation that those privileged to arrive at these shores recognize that privilege and anticipate that it is incumbent upon them to earn the privileges, not merely to accept the invitation to share in them.

On the other hand, there's a risk involved.  Although hopeful immigrants undergo a face-to-face interview process as part of their application for admittance into Canada and eventual landed immigrant status, where an immigration officer evaluates the qualities of those attempting ingress, inclusive of potential adaptability, it's quite possible that among those who legitimately qualify many will simply want to manipulate the system to their advantage.

Roma have had a very long history in Europe.  There is most often some substance to rumours that persist, though much of it exists as a result of the human proclivity to discriminate against others.  The Roma community have earned the reputation of being cleverly resourceful, of being able to maximize their penchant for illicit use of society.  But it's also hard not to notice that the entire community is brushed with that broad stroke of suspicion.

And more broadly again, all Roma are held to be nuisance parasites on society, so that they are not given opportunities open to others, and continue to be thought of as degraded, unreliable and opportunistic.  Institutionalized discrimination against Roma is prevalent throughout Europe.  It has been that way for hundreds of years and continues to be so to this very day.

In employment, housing, education, health services, Roma are and continued to be discriminated against.  It is simply not plausible that every member of a community can be charged with criminal intent.  The Canadian Border Services Agency believes on the data it has compiled that Roma from Hungary constitute a possible threat to Canada; Hungary believes they constitute a threat to Hungary.

They are eager to leave a country - one of many in Europe - which gives them no opportunities to become a responsible and responsive part of society, where they live in poverty, are attacked both verbally and physically, and their lives are miserable.  There are people coming to Canada as refugees and immigrants who are of Irish, Caribbean, Somali, Bosnian, Lebanese origins who also collect social assistance benefits, indulge in criminal behaviour, constitute a threat to society.

Rather than blacklist an entire ethnic community it would make far more sense to be alert to those who manipulate the system, and who cause societal problems, and become a burden to Canada and a threat to civil society, and invite them to leave.  It seems obvious enough that Europe has a problem that owes as much to its attitude toward a community as to that community's reputation, earned and unearned.

Canada cannot solve the problems of the world.  It does happen to shine a candle of hope in a dark maelstrom that can imperil peoples' futures.  The country just has to do things a little more carefully in its legislation and in scrutinizing applicants before and post-entry to Canadian society.