Three times as many illegals crossed the Canadian border from the United States in March as did in January.
According to numbers released Wednesday by the Canadian immigration department, 887 asylum seekers illegally entered Canada last month, bringing the total number recorded by border and police authorities to 1,860.
The spike in numbers began in the dead of winter with stories of illegals enduring sub-zero temperatures and blizzards as they landed at obscure border crossings in Quebec, Manitoba and B.C. Immigration authorities predicted that the numbers would increase even more as the spring weather facilitated less severe travel conditions.
If the numbers stay the same, the number of refugees entering Canada will be the highest in six years. If the exodus north continues to accelerate, 2017 could set a record for illegal refugees entering the country.
Controversy continues to swirl around the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement, which mandates returning refugees to the U.S. if they try to enter Canada at established border crossings. To avoid that stipulation, illegals are opting to cross just about anywhere else.
Illegals now comprise 20 percent of all asylum claims filed in Canada, with the Liberal government looking increasingly powerless to address the problem. Polls indicate an increasing anger from Canadians who appear to be deserting a liberal immigration and refugee policy as half of Canadians are now demanding the deportation of illegals.
Canadian Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale attempted to minimize the impact of the latest illegal refugee figures, releasing a statement suggesting that the asylum seekers have already been subject to a security assessment because “the majority of irregular migrants are holders of visas for the United States.”
Goodale insisted that “Canadian authorities are managing the increase in asylum seekers in a sound and measured way. … To be clear – trying to slip across the border in an irregular manner is not a ‘free’ ticket to Canada.”
Although the tiny hamlet of Emerson, Manitoba has received more global publicity for the numbers of Somalis that are illegally entering through a refugee route that begins in Minneapolis and ends in the North Dakota border, almost 75 percent of the illegals are entering in the province of Quebec, according to the federal government records.
The favorite entry point is located on Roxham Road, a rural highway that connects Champlain, New York with Hemmingford, Quebec. Journalists routinely congregate there to take pictures of arriving illegal refugees.
The remainder of the would-be refugees have crossed at Manitoba and British Columbia.
