Canada is being played for a sucker and Trudeau is allowing it

February 2017

Canada is seeing a growing number of refugee asylum seekers crossing illegally at remote land crossings in Quebec, British Columbia and Manitoba, instead of at proper customs entry points.

These refugee claimants, some traveling with children, feel they must flee the U.S. by “the fear of what may happen to them under a Donald Trump presidency.”

In reality, the refugees, who either have failed in their refugee claims or illegally entered the United States in the first place, are exploiting a loophole that allows them to bypass the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement that allows them to stay and make a refugee claim if they cross illegally into Canada.  If these refugees crossed at a Customs points of entry, they would immediately be turned back.

Because of the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement, an agreement signed on 5 December 2002 under Jean Chrétien’s government, no one can legally claim refugee status coming from the U.S. into Canada or the reverse.

By allowing these refugees into Canada, we are not only violating our own law, but we are creating a big problem by encouraging more and more claimants to make the attempt.  Besides overwhelming our border and social services, the claimants are risking their lives by crossing at remote border points, which are even more dangerous this time of the year with the freezing temperatures, dropping into the -20 to -30 degree range, with some being inadequately dressed for the conditions.

We are also encouraging the human smuggling industry.  This loophole is well known by human smugglers, who are dropping these refugee claimants off in remote areas near the border with instructions on what to do to avoid immediate deportation back to the U.S.

Human smugglers are not only exploiting the desperation of these refugee claimants, they are often putting them at terrible risk.  Some are literally losing limbs in the attempt to get into Canada.

McLeans magazine reported on a refugees Seidu Mohammed, a gay Muslim who along with friend Razak Iyal, fled across the border into Manitoba after his asylum request in the U.S. had been declined.  The two men were found inadequately dressed, climbing through waist-high snow in Manitoba by a trucker, disoriented and with severe frostbite,

“Mohammed had to have all of his fingers amputated, while Iyal lost all of his fingers except for his thumbs to frostbite,” McLeans reported.

Would the pair have made such a risky journey if they knew Canadian police would immediately arrest them and return them to the custody of the U.S Customs and Border Protection Service?

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said another 22 people had walked across the border and into Canada over the weekend of February 4 and 5.

America is a safe country, despite the hyperbolic rhetoric the anti-Trump crowd spouts.  Refugees have nothing to fear in the United States itself, which is a country of laws and human rights.  If you are a legitimate refugee claimant and obey the law, you have very little to fear in the U.S.

Of course, if you have illegally entered the United States in the first place, or your refugee claim has or will likely be rejected, you certainly would have a fear of being deported back to your home country.  People can do pretty desperate things under such conditions.

If your refugee claim has or would likely be rejected in the United States, should we even be entertaining their claims in Canada?  Would they likely face deportation from Canada too?

Sure it’s heartbreaking to see families with young children desperately trying to get into Canada.  The right thing to do is to help people facing persecution and death in their home countries, but we are a country of laws and by entertaining claims by those who can’t or won’t even follow proper rules for making refugee claims, it puts our already over-stretched social and immigration services under even more strain.

Compounding the problem is our virtue-signalling Prime Minister Justin “Little Potato” Trudeau, failing to address the problems this surge of refugees are causing.  What his inaction is doing is saying that our immigration laws are not important, that they are optional, and that’s the wrong thing to do.  Why should we have immigration laws if they’re only going to be selectively enforced, if at all?

How long is it going to be before someone really dangerous is able to claim refugee status illegally this way, only to disappear as they await their refugee hearing?

Even humanitarianism has to follow some rules.

Toronto Sun columnist Candice Malcolm puts it well in her 23 February column by saying, “Photos of smiling Mounties may make for a heart-warming news story, but they also create what economists call a moral hazard, one that provides incentives for people to make bad decisions based on misleading information.”

Would you just let someone literally break into your house uninvited and demand that they feed, cloth and house you at your expense for months or even years?  No, you wouldn’t.  Sure you might voluntarily help out a needy friend for a while or even invite a stranger into your home for a meal or a night’s sleep, but that would be your choice to do so.

I don’t have any problem with people making refugee claims.  What I object to are people trying to game the system and play us for fools.