The Justin Trudeau-helmed Canadian government admitted Monday that it is not having much success sending illegal refugees back where they came as over 99 percent of those arriving since January 2017 are still in Canada. As CBC News reports, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale told reporters at a Montreal news conference that assessing “irregular” border crossers takes time.
“The numbers have to reflect the stage in the process that you are at, and you can’t deal with a removal until you’ve got the decision taken that a person is inadmissible,” Goodale said. “So it’s a whole sequence of events that needs to be accelerated.”
Since Trudeau tweeted his controversial “welcome to Canada” invitation to the world’s refugees in January 2017, over 28,ooo asylum seekers have entered Canada at unofficial ports of entry — the vast majority crossing over on a country road that straddles New York State and the province of Quebec.
Although Goodale estimates that “about 90 percent” of these illegal refugees will eventually be declared inadmissible, it can take up to two years to process applicants who are entitled to taxpayer-funded accommodation, health care and even legal aid. Asylum seekers have also been known to simply blend into the population.
At the same news confernce, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen suggested the Liberal government’s 2018 budget was offering a solution to speed up the processing of refugees.
“To further strengthen our border security operations and our ability to process asylum cases, budget 2018 invested $173.2 million towards managing irregular migration,” Hussen said.
“As part of this allocation, budget 2018 allocated $74 million towards the Immigration Refugee Board, and this will be used to hire 50 new decision makers in the refugee protection division of the Immigration Refugee Board, and 14 new staff in the refugee appeal division.”
The Conservative opposition has called on the Liberal government to stop the flow of illegal refugees by mid-May.
“This is the second summer that we’re going into a potential immigration crisis without a plan,” Immigration critic Michelle Rempel told reporters last week.
