Canada's Surging Illegal Migrant Population

"I'm not going to sugar-coat it, we believe there's 500,000 illegal immigrants currently spread across Canada and these individuals are benefiting from taxpayer-funded services."

"The federal government is choosing to disregard this number and that's a real problem."

"These illegal migrants must be taken into account, as every province is feeling the pressure of Ottawa's mismanagement of the immigration system."

Alberta Immigration Minister Joseph Schow 

Illegal migrants claiming refugee status   True North

 

Illegal immigration in Canada is not taken seriously by the federal government and Alberta's Immigration Minister urges the imperative that Ottawa stop ignoring the problem that has wide repercussions across the country in drawing social support resources from the Canadian taxpaying public to those present in Canada illegally in numbers large enough to have a truly disturbing effect in finite services. From medical care to social housing and the growing  use of food banks, to growing unemployment among young Canadians, the presence of too many new immigrants, refugees and illegal migrants is producing a deleterious economic and human resources impact.

 

Infrastructure and public services, points out MPP Schow, are under great strain across the country. Federal officials, he urges, must account for the estimated number of undocumented migrants in Canada in view of the need to set immigration targets for the coming year. Recently, federal officials themselves acknowledged a need to mitigate problems associated with too many people arriving in too short time-spans, drawing on the country's social systems and creating shortages in housing while over-burdening an already-strained medical/health system. Millions of new arrivals were welcomed in the past several years. 

 

Ottawa projects a 19 percent reduction in temporary arrivals, and eight percent drop in permanent resident admissions in the next three years, through a bolstered immigration level plan. The government has moved to cap non-permanent resident numbers in Canada below five percent of the population. A skeptical Schow feels such efforts are likely to fall short of a sufficient adjustment to make a difference. "If they're leaving out this huge chunk of data (the issue of illegal immigration) how can they set real targets?"

A screengrab from an RCMP video shows people crossing the Manitoba border into Canada. Photograph: Jason Franson/AP

 

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada disclosed in a briefing note a year ago that the number of undocumented migrants could be as high as 500,000, while at the same time admitting that the exact number is unknown. About 114,373 irregular border crossers petitioned to remain in Canada, according o the federal government, between February 2017 and June of 2025. Lack of reliably hard figures on illegal immigration all the more reason for Ottawa to diminish its intake of migrants.

 

58 percent of Canadians, according to a recent poll, feel that mass deportations have become a necessity to curb the number of people now living illegally in Canada. The province of Alberta has led the country in inter-provincial migration and overall population growth in recent years, Immigration Minister Schow pointed out, with the province's population having swelled by some 200,000 last year and continuing on through 2025. A situation that has gone well beyond hampering individuals in Alberta achieving upward mobility. 

 

"The fact that [the federal government is unaware of the precise number of undocumented migrants] they don't have an exact, or close to exact, number just shows again how badly they've lost control of the system." 

"People around the world rightly see us as a beacon of hope and opportunity ... and for that exact reason, we have to be mindful that we're growing our population in a way that's strategic." 

Alberta Minister of Immigration and Jobs, Economy and Trade   

 

The European Union's Changed Migrant Attitude

The European Commission is set to propose new rules on deporting migrants entering the bloc illegally, according to three European Union diplomats.

The Commission is currently consulting EU capitals to determine the specifics of the directive, one diplomat said. Migration regulations are notoriously complex, involving overlapping national, EU and international law.

A few principles are likely to feature in the new directive, including defining rights and obligations for migrants who have exhausted legal options to stay in the EU and clarifying rules for deporting them to third countries — which could either be their country of origin or a place where they have spent a significant amount of time.

Since the EU adopted its Return Directive in 2008, the push for more and quicker deportations has grown. Europe has shifted markedly right on migration in recent years at both the national and EU levels, with far-right parties making major gains on an anti-immigrant platform and right-wing forces increasingly influential in Brussels.

Politico 

A draft directive on returns could be circulated to member countries' permanent representations as early as February. | Jussi Nukari/Lehtikuva/AFP via Getty Images

Europe, over the past decade,  has found itself pushed too hard by swarms of illegal migrants entering by overland routes or crowded into dinghies through sea passages where tens of thousands of people from Africa and the Middle East risk their lives and their futures determined to make passage to Europe to settle in wealthy states like Germany which in the past obligingly took in altogether a million migrants. Austria found space for many, and the European Union at first expected its members to accept an equal share of the never-ending streams of people -- mostly young men -- intent on finding refuge for whatever reason -- escaping poverty, or discrimination, or war, but not excluding others with a nefarious purpose.

Once the phenomenon of waves of thousands of illegal migrants risking all to make their journey a success became a routine and Europe was groaning at its cultural/social/empathetic seams the uniqueness of the situation became stale and the burden of finding place for foreign nationals whose cultures, heritage, values and tribal sectarianism grated on public sensibilities to the point of final rejection. While Western Europe grudgingly did its part in accepting the foreign waves of migrants, Eastern Europe had a tendency to hunker down in rejection.

That rejection has hardened to envelope the entire European Union. And much as occurred when Turkey demanded funding from the EU to keep its humanitarian haven of millions of Syrian refugees who had escaped the brutality of the Syrian civil war, intact within its own borders rather than maliciously aiding their sea passage to Italy's shores and then on to the greater European target, the EU has turned to making financial deals with African countries to avoid having to accommodate any further non-legal entries. And from there to engage in wholesale deportations.

 

 Nigerians and third country migrants  Jerome Delay/The Associated Press

Anti-migrant sentiments throughout Europe have matured to the point where, from France and Germany stretching over to Hungary, sub-Saharan Africans intent on reaching the continent are now  facing push-back. North African governments that signed on to bilateral agreements with the E.U. include Tunisia, Morocco, Libya and Mauritania, for whom financial incentives have led to curbing of migrant flows. Illegal border crossings dropped substantially in 2024. 

 

Predictably, rights groups deplore this new rejection of illegal migrants from Europe, claiming methods used to ensure sub-Sahara migrants cannot travel unopposed have led to human rights violations. Migrants are being dumped and abandoned without food or water in the Sahara; alternately placed in North African prisons where they face torture, sexual violence and starvation. 

 

Mass deportation from Libya reflects like movements from Algeria where last year over 31,000 people were deported to Niger. Algerian authorities leave migrants at the border with Niger, where migrants are then left with no option but to walk for  hours through the desert before reaching the closest town. Migrants become victim to beatings and other physical violence in Algerian prisons. Deported migrants in Africa are returned to their home countries by the United Nations' International Organization for Migration. 

Many migrants deported from Algeria are still stuck in Agadez, in Northern Niger. Photo : Mehdi Chebil / InfoMigrants

Mass Deportations Underway from the U.S. of Illegal Migrants

"We're going to take the handcuffs off ICE [U.S. Immigration an Customs and Enforcement] and let them go arrest criminal aliens, that's what's going to happen."

"What we're telling ICE, you're going to go enforce the immigration law without apology."

"You're going to concentrate on the worst first, public safety threats first, but no one is off the table."

"If they're in the country illegally, they got a problem."

Tom Homan, Trump administration border czar

"It'll begin very early, very quickly. I can't say which cities because things are evolving. And I don't think we want to say what city. You'll see it first-hand."

"We have to get the criminals out of our country. And I think you would agree with that. I don't know how anyone could not agree."

U.S. President Donald J. Trump

Deportation officer making an arrest on December 17, 2024, in New York   AP

 

For the most part, Americans do agree. After all, it was an outstanding to-do item on Mr. Trump's election platform. And he did win the presidential election in November. Which led to his presidential inauguration today. His was a landslide election victory. And when the returning President of the U.S. cautioned that this particular initiative was set to begin very soon, he was right. Try the day following his inauguration, Tuesday.

Either deliberately, or through an unauthorized revelation, the first city to see deportation arrests appears to be Chicago. The Windy City, the city known for hosting the most crime in America. Which has also become a proud -- aside from the third largest city in the United States -- sanctuary city. Which explains in part why it is that Florida has bused large numbers of illegal migrants to Chicago; a gift from a state  that has no wish to accommodate legions of migrants to one that bills itself as a city that will take them.

 

AP Photo

 

Now, federal immigration officers are set to target over 300 individuals who have amassed histories of violent crimes ... on the way to working toward fulfilling the president's promise of large-scale deportations. In Chicago the expectation is that arrests will be ongoing for the week to come. Under President Biden the focus was picking up those who strayed from the border, focusing on those with serious criminal histories, posing national security threats. President Trump is geared to go well beyond that point.

Accordingly there have been intimations that others are set to be arrested as well, such as spouses of tracked criminals, even roommates who though not representing targets themselves, happen to be in the country illegally. Tom Homan as incoming border czar revealed to Fox News that beginning with Chicago (the city where Barack Obama, prepolitical aspirations on a wider scale, worked as a community organizer), and moving on to other cities across the country, federal authorities will be making arrests. 

 

President Trump emphasized on Saturday on NBC News that mass deportations would remain a top priority, without offering dates or cities where the process will begin. Predictably, immigrants themselves as well as groups advocating for them have anticipated Mr. Trump's focus on mass deportations to fulfill a signature pledge of his campaign and will no doubt launch protests at moving forward with his election pledge.

 

Chicago, a sanctuary city since the 1980s, took to limiting how its police force co-operated with federal immigration agents. It has taken to firming up its policies on a number of occasions since, Mr. Trump's first administration eight years earlier, included.

 

                       Border Czar Tom Homan speaks to border guards and national guardsman, alongside Texas governor Gregg Abbott, at Eagle Pass, Texas, November 2024.  AP

 

The Longest Undefended Border in the World

"Canada works closely with both the United States and Mexico on shared challenges, including border security."

"In collaboration with these partners, Canada has been monitoring migration trends from Mexico and has no plans to reimpose the visa requirement at this time."

Canadian Ministry of Immigration 

"We're seeing an unprecedented level of migration around the world and in our region."

"The challenge of migration is a hemispheric one, and hemispheric challenges require hemispheric solutions."

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas

A train traveling near the US-Mexico border toward Uvalde, Texas, was stopped Friday after a Union Pacific conductor reported stowaways on board   From Kinney County Sheriff's Office/Facebook

 

Mr. Mayorkas has stated that the United States' position is that Canada should reinstate visa requirements for Mexicans seeking to enter Canada. Canada's previous Conservative government led by then Prime Minister Stephen Harper viewed it as a necessary step to impose a visa requirement for Mexican citizens wishing to enter Canada, a step that the government of Mexico was displeased with but which Canada felt to be warranted.

When the new Liberal-led government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau entered the scene, that visa requirement was summarily suspended. It was PM Trudeau's decision to reverse almost every decision taken by the previous government, and the visa requirement was among them. Now the Biden Administration, struggling with an ongoing and increasingly problematic migration flood has asked Canada to reimpose visa requirements on Mexicans entering Canada.

The hope is to enable the prevention of a surge of illegal crossings at the northern border between Canada and the United States. Canada has responded through its minister of immigration that there are no plans in the foreseeable future to accommodate the American request. Visa-free travel by Mexican citizens is to continue. And the United States is left to deal with the chronic illegal immigration problem that has vexed every one of its administrations.

At the present time, Mexican nationals and anyone else who is in Mexico can board a plane to fly to Canada, enter visa-free then surreptitiously make their way into the United States. This loophole accommodates not only Mexican citizens but Asians, Russians, Central and South Americans, Middle Easterners and any others who have a mind to arrive in Mexico for the sole purpose of using Canada as a route to the United States.

Canada's current prime minister, Justin Trudeau, visualizes huge immigration numbers from across the globe entering Canada as a positive for the country's future. To increase the size of its population to relieve a shortage of workers in Canada, both at the present time and into the future. In the process he has exacerbated an acute shortage of medical personnel and stretched the capacity of the universal Canadian health system to breaking point. A housing shortage is another issue a rapid introduction of a half-million emigrants yearly exacerbates.

Yet the Trudeau administration is unmoved by the U.S. request for obvious reasons. Migration "encounters" at the U.S.-Mexico border have reached record heights, with illegal entrants from all over the world; Europe, Asia, Central or South America who transit through Mexico (and Canada) with the aid of human traffickers. Imposing a massive financial burden for the U.S. in policing and asylum financial support, as for children abandoned at the border.

A recent estimate for the cost of the immigration crisis in the U.S. for 2022 revealed the cost at all levels of government to have reached $150.7 billion. A total that is greater than the entire budget of the Canadian government for that same year. Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas met last week with his Canadian counterpart at the 2023 Canada-United States Cross-Border Crime Forum held in Ottawa. The number of Mexican migrants entering the U.S. from Canada has steadily increased since the visa requirement was lifted in 2016.

While the number of apprehended migrants remains relatively small, they have doubled in a year and the concern is that as the U.S. continues to crack down on its illegal immigration problem at the Mexican border, numbers using Canada as a backdoor entry will dramatically increase, without the reimposition of visa requirements.