Border crossings up slightly in July

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This article was published 16/08/2017 (2436 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Federal data suggest the number of asylum claimants from the U.S. who are crossing into Canada near Emerson slightly jumped in July, though the spike was nowhere near as significant as in Quebec.

RCMP data released Thursday show 88 interceptions in Manitoba, bucking a three-month trend that saw a gradual decline from the peak of 170 crossings in March.

Yet Quebec saw an almost-fourfold jump in July, compared with the previous month. The RCMP intercepted some 2,996 people claiming asylum, after just 781 in June.

At a news conference in Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Que. on Thursday, officials said the area will see an even more dramatic rise in claims this month, with more than 3,800 irregular entries logged between Aug. 1 and 15.

The officials stressed that they don’t think Canadians are at risk, but provided few details on how they process cases in Manitoba or Quebec.

The news conference came a day after a media report claimed “four or five” people who crossed at the Quebec border had been arrested for possessing child pornography. The government confirmed that two people were charged with importing child porn.

Yet the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) refused Thursday to confirm how many people were charged with those offences, “for operational purposes.”

The CBSA said it detains those who fail security or health checks and those who have an identity that can’t be verified, but would only claim that accounted for less than one per cent of those making irregular crossings.

Patrick Lefort, CBSA’s Quebec director, said only those deemed a low security risk are transferred to the holding centre at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium or to other provinces.

“Most of these asylum-seekers are families with young children,” he said.

Officials said only a small number of those crossing in Quebec are sent to other provinces, but again refused to say how many, citing “operational reasons.”

In recent years, people have crossed outside of the border station at places such as Emerson, Man., to claim asylum through a legal loophole.

The number of these claimants rose during former U.S. president Barack Obama’s increased deportations and further intensified under current President Donald Trump.

Since 2004, the Safe Third Country Agreement has forbidden most people from making an asylum claim at the Canada-United States land border. But a 1951 United Nations agreement prohibits countries, including Canada, from prosecuting or deporting people who cross illegally in order to make an asylum claim.

Critics say that provides an incentive for people to cross along remote, unpatrolled parts of the border, before reporting themselves to Canadian police.

At least one woman died of hypothermia in May while attempting the crossing near Minnesota.

Most of the people arriving at Emerson end up at Welcome Place, a Winnipeg shelter run by the Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council (MIIC).

MIIC reports a continuous drop in people staying at the shelter, from 120 in May down to 96 in June and 78 in July — despire the slight rise in crossings reported that month.

As of Thursday, 56 people were staying at the shelter.

The CBSA said it couldn’t immediately provide data Thursday on how many people crossing into Manitoba have been detained over the past year.

A spokesman for Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said police have only laid three criminal charges while processing irregular claimants since the winter: the two recent child-porn charges in Quebec and a Manitoba claimant charged in April for assaulting an officer.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca