Unprecedented: The New Reality

"They're unprecedented; we've never seen those numbers [before]."
"Even though our officers are patrolling 24 hours a day, all year long, we've never seen such numbers coming in [over the border from the United States into Canada, illegally]."
Claude Castonguay, Royal Canadian Mounted Police

"It's important Canadians know that this is a situation that, yes, is out of the ordinary, but is very much under control."
"Unless you are being persecuted or are fleeing terror[ism] or war, you would not qualify as a refugee and it's important to combat that misinformation that is out there."
Federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau

"Coming to Canada, asking for asylum in Canada, is not a guarantee for permanent residency in Canada."
"If people in the States, in certain communities, would like to come to Canada and become permanent residents, it's very important they do so through the regular channels."
Louis Dumas, spokesman, Immigration and Citizenship Canada

Asylum seekers remove their belongings from a truck at a processing centre at the Canada-United States border in Lacolle, Que. (Graham Hughes/Canadian Press)

With the investiture of Donald Trump as president of the United States, there is unease among the vast community of illegal migrants in the United States that he will make good on his election promises to tackle the vexing problem of millions of illegal entrants to the country living in a shadowy underworld of existence fearful of being discovered and ultimately expelled, forced to return to their countries of origin. It is a complicated issue, since many migrants without documents have lived in the United States for years, have found employment, married, raised families.

Others, like the expatriate Haitian community, were given temporary status to live in the United States in 2010 at a time when the country was in great upheaval after an earthquake and resulting tsunami took countless lives and destroyed much of the country's infrastructure. The world had focused on offering relief to Haitians at that time. Canada too gave temporary haven to Haitians, but it was revoked a year ago. There is a community of legal, landed immigrants from Haiti established in Quebec. And it is a goal of many Haitians who have been living in the U.S. for years to navigate toward Canada.

The impetus for that decision was the news that the temporary shelter agreement was to be lifted before the new year. The Haitians living in the United States have no intention of returning to Haiti, they view their aspirational challenges better achieved in the U.S. than in Haiti, and with the perception that they will no longer be able to live in the U.S., they've turned to Canada as an alternative. They are aware that if they show up at an official border crossing they will be turned away, since Canada and the U.S. have an agreement that the first country of refuge being a safe one, neither will accept refugee applications from those already living in the other country.

An RCMP officer standing in Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Que., advises migrants that they are about to illegally cross from Champlain, N.Y., and will be arrested, on Aug. 7. (Charles Krupa/Associated Press)

The subterfuge of declaring refugee status after crossing at an illegal border area from New York State into Quebec has gained Haitians who pack up their belongings and their children to be taxied to a known, unofficial border point, bypassing the official border posts has been bedevilling Canada and taxing its resources for months. Up to three thousand people have crossed illegally in the month of July alone, quadrupling the number that took that route in June. And the reason is that it has worked for them.

Once they cross, they're taken into 'custody' by the RCMP, which then arranges to bus them to the nearest shelter operated by the province to ensure the declared refugees are housed, fed and their medical needs looked to, while their applications for asylum are being processed. In normal proceedings where crossings are made legally, only 50 percent of those declaring themselves refugees have their applications accepted. The situation is becoming dire, with the influx of mostly Haitians flooding into Canada, straining the ability of the province to cope, let alone Immigration and Citizenship to process that many applications.

With between 200 and 250 people crossing illegally each and every day, the assurance of Minister Garneau that the matter is well in hand rings hollow. These are, after all, people who chose to enter another country, not Canada, when they had the opportunity. These also represent people who made the choice to enter illegally rather than apply for immigration status through normal, legal channels. As such they do a disservice to the country by spurning the legal avenue, and in the process showing contempt both for the country and for those others who take the legal route.

Canada accepts over a quarter-million new immigration applications annually. It is done in an orderly, albeit necessarily slow measure. But those who apply legally demonstrate their respect for the country in so doing, and in so doing demonstrate as well that they will make better citizens than those who spurn normal, legal channels. The crisis of economic migration as well as people fitting the true definition of refugees has struck worldwide, and Europe is experiencing the brunt of it. Europe has been facing a tsunami of hundreds of thousands of North Africans and those from the Middle East washing up on the continent, literally.

Italy, Greece and Spain, entrance points into Europe for many, are not generally the destination of choice. Rather, France, Britain, Germany and the Nordic countries appear to be, and originally appeared to welcome the countless numbers. But as they were absorbed it gave further impetus to others to  also make the journey both overland and by sea, risking lives for the opportunity to find for themselves a more secure economic future and for some, escaping deadly conflict, civil war or government maltreatment of minorities.

Canada's problems dwindle in comparison to countries like Spain, now recognized as the new primary destination for migrants from North Africa. Thousands of Moroccans have been heading for Spain, and among them are those linked to the Islamic agenda of terrorism through jihad. Germany has been infiltrated by Turks whose millions-strong presence of long duration in Germany originally as 'guest workers', have given Turkey Islamists a bridgehead for interference in the social and political life of Germany.

Algerians and Tunisians living in France and in Belgium have developed their bleak and sinister ghettoes, (banlieus) off-limits to non-Muslims and particularly to police. Aside from being depots of crime and criminal gangs, they are breeding grounds for jihadists and jumping-off spots for planned and executed terrorist attacks in both countries targeting the infidels who die or are injured in atrocities committed against civilians.

Terror returned to the streets of Europe when a van ploughed into a crowd of people in Barcelona, killing at lest 13 and injuring more than 100 others. The Telegram

The damning thing about these situations is that the West feel constrained by humanitarian impulses not to turn away these Muslims among whom lurk future jihadists for fear of being charged with bigotry and racism. Yet by admitting them, their numbers grow to the point where the indigenous culture begins to take second place to the invading one, altering the social contract and diminishing the religious prevalence of Christianity while boosting the presence of Islam and creeping Sharia. And making themselves vulnerable to terrorism.

Credit Luis Gene/AFP Getty Images      In Canbril, police check the area after police killed five terrorists near Tarragnna