The Internal Picture of Immigration/Refugee Process Inadequacy

"Without changes to improve efficiency and productivity of the asylum process, wait times and backlogs will only continue to grow."
"This situation is not sustainable, nor is it fair to the people who need Canada's protection."
"While the department has carefully analyzed the findings and recommendations of the report, [recommending a major overhaul of the Immigration and Refugee Board], it would be premature to speculate on any future changes to the asylum system."
Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, August 14

"[Hussen's letter to the Canadian Bar Association represents] an admission of failure ... by the Liberal government."
"I honestly do not understand how it is that the federal government can look the people of Canada in the eye and say that the system works. Because the system has collapsed."
Sergio Karas, immigration lawyer and analyst

A Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer informs a migrant couple of the location of a legal border station, shortly before they illegally crossed from Champlain, N.Y., to Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Que., using Roxham Road on Aug. 7, 2017. (AP / Charles Krupa)

This from a letter addressed to Barbara Jo Caruso, chair of the immigration law section of the Canadian Bar Association, belying the language that Immigration Minister Hussen usually employs when it is pointed out to him by the premiers of Quebec and Ontario that the number of illegal refugee claimants pouring over the border into Quebec from New York State is straining the capacity of the provinces to serve their needs while awaiting processing of their refugee claims and status, when his response usually is praise for the "strict and efficient immigration and border control system".

Not only is the border control and immigration system not to be questioned for its streamlined efficiency and adherence to Canada's rule of law respecting immigration, but the fact that tens of thousands of economic migrants deliberately flouting the law bypassing legal points of entry to portray themselves on apprehension as 'refugees' is unassailable, sacrosanct as a ploy to take advantage of this government's laxity in defending Canadian values and laws. Any protest of the government's accommodation of illegal entrants is identified as 'racist', unbecoming Canada.

The prime minister's snarling reaction to a Quebec woman's insistence that it is the federal government's responsibility to repay her province for the outlay of millions in sustaining Justin Trudeau's cloying narcissism as the defender of desperate 'refugees' seeking haven, being denied by heartless racists like her, concerned with her tax dollars' disposition. Sneeringly claiming that the racist bigotry of the Conservatives against refugees and immigrants is similarly un-Canadian.

Under all Canadian governments of the past 40 to 50 years the numbers of immigrants that Canada has welcomed for the purpose of adding to the economic well-being of a country whose population is not reproducing itself in needed numbers while at the same time offering opportunity to those who qualify and whose presence is clearly in both the interests of the individual and the country they are joining, has been in the neighbourhood of a quarter-million immigrants and refugees.

Trudeau is so engrossed in his personal vendetta against Stephen Harper, his predecessor as prime minister, he attributes mean-mindedness to the latter while he himself is a textbook case in nasty slander. The Conservatives were careful stewards of Canada's needs, not the least bit the mendacious xenophobic racist bigots, wholesale insults Trudeau likes to attribute to them.

In his zeal to 'prove' he is so much more generous to the needy of the world, regardless of what it can cost Canada in dollars and security, he has increased the intake of immigrants to 340,000 annually by 2020. With good fortune, Canada will be rid of him and his style of governance by then. A sizeable 49 percent of ordinary Canadians polled feel there should be a decrease, not an increase.

"We inherited a massive backlog of asylum claims after a decade of short-sighted and damaging policies under the Harper Conservatives", claims a spokesman for Hussen, Mathieu Genest. "This situation has only been exacerbated by the increase in asylum seekers, which has been growing sine 2013", but it has only been under the Liberal Trudeau government that we can overlook as an irritating trifle the entrance to Canada last year of an unauthorized (read illegal) over 20,000 "irregular" asylum seekers, and an additional 12,000 so far this year.

Immigration and Refugee Board data indicate over 55,000 refugee claims pending as of 30 June. The review of the IRB recommended a number of reforms, creation of a new refugee protection agency among them, to report directly to the immigration minister. That would be compellingly interesting, since at the current rate Minister Hussen who was instructed in his mandate of 2017 to 'improve' Canada's asylum system, has so far proven inadequate to the task.

Of course, he is rather constrained by Justin Trudeau's insistence that no illegals be turned away, as they should be, with instructions to proceed, if they wish, using legal channels.

Tough in Toronto? 

"It's so tough trying to find an apartment in Toronto. There are so many people looking. For each apartment, you have twenty applicants competing."
"Some people think that we come here to take money from your government. That's just not the case. We don't want to take up the shelter space. We don't want to be on assistance."
"We would like to be on our own as soon as possible."
"We felt settled in Toronto right away except that we are still waiting for our refugee hearing."
Adenike, 38, Nigerian, illegal Canada-U.S. border crosser

"We didn't want to leave our home, but we have three girls and their well-being is more important than anything else." 
Afolabi, 46, Nigerian, illegal border crosser

"Two years ago, we could help clients find a one-bedroom apartment between $900 and $1,050."
Mario Calla, executive director, COSTI Immigrant Services

"Honestly, many people on the ground don't even know the difference between refugees and immigrants."
"This language of illegality and criminality is concerning."
Debbie Douglas, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants

Thousands of migrants have crossed into Canada at Roxham Road, which straddles the Quebec-New York border, in recent months. (Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)

Simple enough; immigrants are those people who decide to emigrate from their countries of origin for whatever reason, and from outside the country they wish to access, they make application to immigrate to the chosen country. And they wait for the bureaucracy involved to review their application, interview them, check security issues, and reach the critical decision. This represents the universally legal avenue to immigration.

Refugees are those people who are displaced outside their country of origin for reasons linked usually to persecution, threats of violence, internal and/or external conflict situations. The United Nations confers the status of refugee upon them and generally acts as brokers on their behalf, urging member-nations with no issues of their own to disrupt law and order and security to consider absorbing refugees into their population. And Canada has been alert to the global situation of increasing refugee numbers and responded accordingly.

Those people, like the Nigerian family with four young children who crossed from the U.S. into Canada in January to declare themselves refugees, are illegal entrants to Canada; they deliberately entered Canada at a unrecognized crossing, bypassing notice that this is illegal, having planned to steer clear of appearing before a legal Canadian entry point to declare one's status because they are aware that by so doing, having accessed a country of safe haven (the U.S.) first, Canada would refuse.

The entry to Canada of tens of thousands of economic migrants and haven seekers from countries that do not normally produce refugees and who have deliberately bypassed legal entry is costly and strains the country's immigration and refugee systems along with social welfare systems whose purpose is to support the welfare of Canadians in distress. Deciding to bypass normal entry regulations ties up Canada's workforce tasked with dealing with the lengthy application process and review.

This family claims they had no option but to take their children out of Nigeria for fear that their daughters would be forced to undergo genital circumcision. Since February they have been living in temporary shelters in Toronto, but plan to find employment while their four children attend school as they await the outcome of their application for refugee status. Nigeria is the largest of the African countries, and the wealthiest. It is divided by Christian and Muslim populations. If they lived in the Muslim half they could have moved to the Christian half where female genital mutilation is moot.

They applied instead, for a visa to visit the U.S. with the direct purpose of transiting the U.S. into Canada, walking over the border at Lacolle, Quebec in late January, remaining for a month in a Montreal shelter before moving to Toronto. Why Toronto? Why not some town or village in Ontario or anywhere else in the country? Why Canada to begin with? Why not stay in their country of birth and if change is needed, be a part of it. To declare themselves refugees is bogus; they are illegal entrants, opportunists who have no respect for another country's laws.

The Angus Reid poll that came out this week with its finding that 67 percent of Canadians feel the current situation of people walking across the border from the U.S. into Canada is untenable tells the story of a population feeling defrauded. Canada is capable of making its own decisions over who it will welcome to live in the country based on its own criteria of adding value to Canada's future. So far, the first six months of this year the RCMP has intercepted 10,744 asylum seekers, illegal migrants outside of official ports of entry.

If Nigerian illegal entrants find it tough to secure affordable living arrangements in Toronto, how about Torontonians looking for shelter and finding the going tough with added competition? There are more than enough Canadians living hand-to-mouth in miserable conditions for whom the welfare system is meant to provide a measure of relief, those same people who long for a decent place to live for themselves and their families. There comes a point when enough is enough...

Asylum seekers steps away from Canada listen as the RCMP tells them they will be arrested as they cross over from New York state, north of Plattsburgh. (Susan Ormiston/CBC)

A 'Fluid and Dynamic' Situation of Illegal Entry

"This means that these family members can present themselves at a port of entry and not be considered as irregular migrants."
"Also, they can't be refused entry under the Safe Third Country Agreement."
Canada Border Services Agency

"The data does not support the claim that there is a trend of increased 'anchor relatives' being used to get around the Safe Third Country Agreement."
"In fact, it shows that there are fewer asylum claimants using these exemptions to enter Canada."
Scott Bardsley, spokesman, Public Safety Ministry

In this Aug. 7, 2017 file photo, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer informs a migrant couple of the location of a legal border station, shortly before they illegally crossed from Champlain, N.Y., to Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec, using Roxham Road. Authorities say more than 80 percent of the 4,000 migrants who crossed into Quebec recently are from Haiti, and the rest include people from India, Mexico, Colombia and Turkey.AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File

Canadians are, generally speaking, not too impressed by their government's handling of an ongoing situation where people living in the United States fearing that their temporary permits to live there are soon to be lifted, and others that live as undocumented therefore illegal migrants, and others still who receive U.S. visitors' visas for the express purpose of transiting the United States to enter Canada illegally are not being turned back at the border. There is a deliberate, planned infiltration of the Canadian border to cross into Canada at unrecognized points of entry, bypassing the legal entry stations.

Canada has a longstanding agreement with its neighbour, an agreement that has its genesis in the theory that countries considered to be stable and secure have the sovereign choice to consider requests made to them through applications for immigration or safe haven. The country that first receives such requests is the country designated to deal with them. Anyone seeking safe haven as a refugee or an economic migrant planning to move on to a second country is refused entry on the basis that they have already accessed a country of safe haven.

Such applications are not routinely accepted, but go through an assessment to verify their legitimacy. If those applying have arrived from a country of origin deemed to be safe and secure their application will be refused. But this hasn't stopped people from illegally crossing the border, and declaring themselves refugees. In theory, the majority of those people will be turned down. In reality, the process of checking background and the details of the application is a lengthy one, often taking several years to conclude.

In the interim Canada makes itself obligated to provide shelter and humanitarian aid, including all types of social welfare available to Canadian citizens, along with medical attention, language training, temporary employment permits in many instances and education for children. It is costly and it is unwarranted, given the illegal nature of the entry procedure undertaken and the fact that most applicants are not in fact legitimate refugees but rather economic migrants.

A new survey asking Canadians how they feel about the influx of illegal border crossers and the government's reaction in handling the situation, highlights that two thirds of respondents to the Angus Reid Institute survey feel Canada has already absorbed too many 'irregular' asylum claimants in view of the fact that the assigned authorities whose work it is to process claims and to provide the services to the applicants have been flooded past the point of efficiently working through the claims.

Knowing that this is a costly situation, drawing hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars to defray costs, makes the situation no more palatable to the Canadian public.

And now, the news that the parliamentary budget office in analyzing costs associated with handling irregular (illegal) asylum claimants, another source of concern has arisen, that once having established a presence in Canada, the initial claimant is considered an "anchor" within Canada through which relatives -- spouses, children, siblings, legal guardians, grandparents, aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews may undertake to enter the country using the official ports of entry the "anchor" spurned, because the Safe Third Country Agreement is no longer, in those circumstances, an option to refuse entry.

From January first to July 18, 2018, 11,420 asylum seekers entered Canada illegally, while the year before 20,953 crossings took advantage of Canada's limp entry laws. The greater majority of those tens of thousands entered at unofficial Quebec crossings, although there have also been illegal crossings into and through Ontario and Manitoba from the U.S. People don't feel an obligation to be particularly scrupulous in obeying the laws of a foreign country they hope to make their own for the economic gains they foresee realizing.

So, aside from the tens of thousands of legitimate refugees fleeing deadly conflict and fear of death Canada has brought into its borders with all their attendant costs, it is little wonder Canadians across political party lines are fed up and angry not only with the arrogant entitlement and underhanded tactics taken by Haitians and Nigerians, the primary groups taking these routes, but by their limp-wristed federal government for acquiescing so readily to being manipulated in support of their 'progressive' agenda.

Another offshoot anchor is that those awaiting decisions on their applications for refugee status are able, if refused, to invoke the Canadian legal system to appeal, thus buying themselves more time to remain in the country. Their welfare needs throughout the period of years taken to determine their status drain the systems available to counter the needs of Canadian citizens who find themselves in need of social assistance in an ever-lengthening line-up of need.

And finally, having a child while living in Canada means having a final anchor -- with the child declared a citizen of Canada whose rights will be violated if removed from the country, and whose need of parents to raise them can ensure that compassionate grounds exist for them to remain in Canada. Who says that illegally forcing your way into someone else's home doesn't guarantee untold benefits?

Canada: Overrun by Illegal 'Refugees'

"We believe it will send a very strong message to those who assume that coming to Canada through irregular means will result in them waiting for a long period of time, for years, in Canada and then forming an attachment here."
"That's not going to happen."
Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen

Ahmed Hussen weaves his way through a crowd with Zubair Patel, his director of outreach and communication

How typically 'progressively' touchy-feely of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to appoint a 40-year-old Somali-Canadian who entered Canada as a refugee at age 16, in 1993. Mr. Hussen, as a former refugee who arrived in Canada with his family, did not enter illegally -- or as the Liberal government in Ottawa prefers -- irregularly -- but entered through legally approved means by applying while abroad and receiving the acknowledgement through Canadian Immigration that they qualified to enter Canada as refugees and to become permanent residents.

As a Minister of the Crown in the Trudeau government he was appointed after being elected as a Member of Parliament, for the optics of a 'progressive' government whose leader has stated baldly and in high profile measure through social media that under his rule, Canada 'welcomes' all and sundry with open arms. Failing to add that this entry must be under approved, legal measures, to protect the country from infiltration from potentially trouble-prone entrants. Refugee claimants must undergo due process and scrutiny to verify their qualifications.

It is a slow and long process which typically takes up to a year under normal circumstances, but now that the system has been encumbered by far more illegal entrants than those who go through official channels, the process takes infinitely longer. Which means that those welcomed into Canada who enter through unofficial corridors which are actually forest paths in the boundary between the United States and Canada, could have their files awaiting scrutiny for years.

During that waiting period, Canada offers to these illegals all the benefits of its universal social programs, from medical/hospital, and then some, since it is assumed they arrive without their own financial independence, additional legal services, as well as access to social housing and welfare.



Nigerians enter the United States first acquiring U.S. visitor visas, as a pretext for entering the U.S., but with the intention of expediting their illegal dash toward the border from New York State to Quebec, to end up in temporary refugee camps briefly before moving on to Montreal and Toronto, in the process vacuuming up social services, crowding emergency shelters and forcing municipalities to expend vast sums of treasury on supporting their material needs, including psychiatric counselling, housing, education and dentistry for the young.

Haitians and Nigerians comprise the vast bulk of the thousands of illegals crossing into Canada, from Manitoba to Quebec. Canada has dispatched the RCMP to helpfully guide these illegals toward intake points where their immediate needs will be met, and where Immigration officers will be present to accept refugee applications from the illegal influx who represent mostly economic migrants anxious to find a source of aspirational futures full of opportunities they feel await them in North America.

"The U.S.A. is not an attractive place to most Nigerians right now. It used to be the most attractive place, but with the Trump factor – the old-style immigration climate in the U.S. compared to Canada – most people are going to find their way to Canada", explained Kehinde Olalere, a Canadian immigration lawyer who grew up in Nigeria and regularly travels to the country.

Fleeing insecurity in their home country of Nigeria, they find it easier to obtain travel visas from the U.S. compared to Canada, while viewing the U.S. as a transit point on their way to Canada, noted Mr. Olarere.

A Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer informs a migrant couple of the location of a legal border station, shortly before they illegally crossing from Champlain, N.Y., to Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec, Monday, Aug. 7, 2017. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

The new initiative announced by Minister Hussen that more Immigration and Refugee Board staff meant to be dedicated to processing illegal claims exclusively will solve much of the immense back-log of cases awaiting determination is a pathetic measure of a response to the illegal migrants crossing at non-official ports of entry. In 2017 a response team was set up to manage the increased workload and long wait times, which only seemed to encourage greater numbers of migrants to cross the border.They were soon swamped by the increases in people flooding over.

The solution? Because these people knowingly and deliberately cross illegally into Canada, they should be turned around directly and denied entry altogether, with the advice that once outside Canada, they have the complete freedom to apply for refugee status at official border points, or alternately from their countries of origin at Canadian visa offices operating within embassies and consulates abroad.