Asylum numbers: will they rest or rise?

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This article was published 20/06/2017 (2500 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — The federal Liberals say there’s no guarantee that irregular asylum claims will rise at Emerson this summer, while their opponents claim the situation is getting out of hand.

“Our numbers actually indicate that the number of irregular crossers through Emerson is down, much down,” Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said Wednesday. “These fluctuations happen from year to year.”

RCMP data show the number of irregular claims in Manitoba dropped from March to May.

But Canadian Border Services Agency data show that the number of people claiming asylum at Quebec’s border with the United States has increased alongside the temperature for the past three years. The annual number of claims in January have doubled by September in that province. The Free Press could not immediately obtain monthly data for Manitoba.

In any case, Hussen said his government has helped move people up from Emerson to Winnipeg, where they’ve funded groups that welcome refugee claimants.

“We have mechanisms in place to make sure that we respond as appropriate, and move resources around to where they’re needed the most.”

The Conservatives insist that’s not enough. On May 5, two Tory MPs visited Emerson and asked the government to “close the loophole” of the Safe Third Country Agreement. That agreement forbids most people from making an asylum claim at the Canada-United States land border.

According to a 1951 United Nations agreement, Canada can’t prosecute people who cross irregularly and then make an asylum claim. Media and advocacy groups interpreted the Conservatives’ “loophole” remarks to mean either jailing people who cross irregularly, or somehow expanding the agreement to send back claimants to the U.S.

But Tuesday, the Conservatives changed their tone, instead asking the Liberals to “strongly condemn this practice as unsafe” and develop a plan to reverse the “procedural, legislative and resourcing issues” that encourage people to cross.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said Wednesday his party doesn’t yet have its own plan on how they’d address the issue. “The situation, I believe, is untenable,” he said, noting years-long delays in resettling people from refugee camps abroad and processing asylum claims made in Canada. Scheer said the government should produce “a fast-track system to deal with people who aren’t facing persecution, who are not legitimate refugees.”

Scores of people who have crossed from the U.S. at Emerson in recent years have secured refugee status in Canada. Still, Scheer said those crossing on foot are “using resources in a system that has limited capacity” because of encouraging messages from the government.

“The Prime Minister’s tweets has given the impression to many people that they can just walk over the border.”

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca