Ottawa pledges more border staff, but not more cash for groups assisting asylum seekers

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This article was published 13/02/2017 (2829 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Canada’s national police force and its border agency have redeployed staff to Emerson to address the influx of asylum seekers sneaking across the border in order to make a refugee claim in Canada.

But additional resources for the border, the RCMP or Winnipeg community groups aiding the refugee claimants are up in the air.

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said he met with both RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson and Canada Border Services Agency President John Ossowski Tuesday Morning in Ottawa for a briefing on the latest situation in Emerson.

“Both the RCMP and CBSA are keeping a very active watch on the situation,” said Goodale, prior to question period Tuesday. “They are the professionals. They deal with 400,000 people going back and forth across that border every day. So they are used to dealing with large and sometimes extraordinary situations. They’re redeploying resources to make sure that they’ve got the right people at the right place to be able to, to cope with these matters.”

Goodale insists the number of asylum seekers crossing the border to make a refugee claim is much lower than it was a decade ago, although he acknowledges it has increased in the last five years. The numbers in Manitoba have more than quadrupled since 2013.

In all of 2013-14, CBSA reported 68 people illegally crossed the Canadian border into Manitoba and made a refugee claim. RCMP said this week they have already picked up 69 asylum claimants who hopped over the border since January 1. There have been at least 479 since April 1, 2016.

Premier Brian Pallister is seeking assistance from the prime ministers’ office to address the influx of claimants. Spokespeople from Trudeau’s office did not respond Tuesday to questions from the Free Press about Pallister’s requests.

Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said Tuesday his department already provides funding to settlement groups such as the Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council, which is aiding the asylum seekers but wouldn’t say if any additional help would be forthcoming.

“We continue to monitor the situation closely and we’ll respond appropriately,” he said.

The council however receives federal funding to aid government-assisted refugees who have already had their refugee claims approved before arriving in Canada. It has been offering assistance to refugee claimants within Canada with help from private donors and the Winnipeg Foundation. The foundation provided an emergency contribution of $33,000 Monday to assist but more help is needed.

NDP Immigration Critic Jenny Kwan said the government is trying to pretend this sudden increase in people fleeing the United States has nothing to do with President Donald Trump’s executive order issued last month. The order, which has been suspended by the federal court in the U.S., barred entry to the U.S. for people from seven Muslim-majority nations, including Somalia. Most of the refugee claimants coming across into Emerson are Somali.

Kwan said since Trump’s election and since the order was signed, the number of asylum seekers risking their lives to get into Canada has gone up. Local lawyers who represent many of these claimants say they have not seen people crossing the border to make an asylum claim in the dead of winter before.

“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to put two and two together,” said Kwan.

Kwan said Ottawa has to immediately acknowledge the U.S. cannot be considered a safe nation for all refugees any longer and suspend the Safe Third Country Agreement it signed with the Americans, which requires each country to turn back any asylum seekers coming to a land border crossing.

The refugee claimants sneaking across the border are avoiding going to the border crossing because if they did they would be sent back to the U.S. If they make their claim from within Canada, they remain in Canada during the refugee processing.

Hussen said Trump’s order has no affect on that agreement.

“The compliance with that agreement is done by the judiciary in the United States, not by the executive,” he said. “So it’s really important that we get this right and therefore, as far as we’re concerned, the indications that we have is that the local American asylum system is in place. So if someone has an asylum claim to make in the United States, they get the same system that existed prior to the executive order.”

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca