The Unstoppable Tide of Migrants Masquerading as Refugees
"It's unacceptable. It's impossible because we don't have the capacity."
"We
cannot afford to give services. [Should the current pace continue
Quebec will not be able to provide adequate housing for 36,000 new
arrivals."
"You have to understand, the problem is that many of these people are not really refugees."
"A
refugee is someone who is physically at risk in their country. But the
majority are not refugees; eventually, when the file is analyzed, they
are refused, returned back home."
Quebec Premier Francois Legault
"What is Quebec's capacity for compassion? or justice? It's maybe not unlimited, but the capacity is there."
Paul Clarke, interim executive director, Action Refugies Montreal
"We not only have the capacity, but we also have the need, in fact, for more people."
"The
federal government could alleviate things tremendously simply by giving
work permits shortly after people arrive, so that they can get to work,
and there are many jobs that they could very usefully fill."
Jane Dench, executive director, Canadian Council for Refugees
Europe
and North America have become sieves for the world's migrants from
Africa, the Middle East, Central America, to pass through claiming to be
refugees. They arrive in droves of tens of thousands through land
crossings and across the seas, facing danger and privation, yet
determined to make a new life for themselves anywhere but their places
of origin. Among them are unaccompanied children whose families send
them off in hopes that a better future awaits them. Sometimes it is
death that awaits them.
The
world has ample refugees; conflict creates them, desperate people
trying to escape the chaos and threat inherent in conflict when it is
primarily civilians whose lives are disrupted through dislocation,
danger and often death. Internal and external conflict, tribal and
religious antipathies turned violent, drug trafficking and crime mob
wars prey on the poor and the unprotected. Societal breakdowns and
desperation make for both refugees and migrants.
The
refugees flee from danger to save their lives. The migrants flee from
poverty and lack of opportunity to save their futures. In Europe, the
gateways of Italy, Greece, France and Britain have been inundated with
migrants determined to reach a promised land. And some countries like
Austria and Germany did accept hundreds of thousands of migrants, while
others like Hungary and Romania would not. It's not that countries are
necessarily insular and xenophobic; they simply want to exercise their
right to exclude those who they feel will not integrate successfully
into their culture, accept their values and social mores, respect their
laws and religion.
In
Canada there are refugees aplenty; latterly from Afghanistan, civilians
who chose to work alongside Canadian diplomats, military and
humanitarian groups in Afghanistan, who required rescue from the
now-governing Taliban for whom these people are nothing less than
traitors slated for death. In Europe, the invasion by Russia into
Ukraine, resulting in conflict and millions of displaced civilians,
millions more fleeing to neighbouring countries as refugees have also
provided refugees that Canada has taken in.
These
are people needing to be housed, given medical attention, provided with
the means whereby they can leave social assistance and begin to recover
their human dignity through self-supporting employment, all of which
come at great cost to the welcoming country. A country like many others
who do not really need the additional burden of taking in migrants and
providing the humanitarian assistance people who travel a long way
facing danger require.
Over
100 refugee claimants enter Quebec daily through the rural path named
Roxham Road, coming through the United States. It takes 14 months for
the Canadian government to study asylum claims to either accept or
reject them; in the interim Quebec is left to house and care for such
'refugees' and school their children, complains the premier of the
province. The irregular Roxham Road border crossing was closed during
the pandemic, but has since been re-opened.
The RCMP intercepted
7,013 asylum seekers crossing irregularly from the U.S. into Quebec
since the beginning of the year, up from 4, 246 the year before. Over
15,000 asylum seekers were intercepted in 2019 after crossing into
Quebec. Ultimately, points out Premier Legault, many of those who take
to crossing illegally in the end have their claims turned down as not
qualifying for refugee status, and must then return from whence they
came. If they have not melted into the woodwork and Refugee and
Immigration have lost sight of where they have settled themselves
underground in Canad
This represents a general opinion site for its author. It also offers a space for the author to record her experiences and perceptions,both personal and public. This is rendered obvious by the content contained in the blog, but the space is here inviting me to write. And so I do.
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