Emerson, Manitoba border crossings

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

That guestimation is a bit off, considering that in the EU, over 60% of them were found to be refugees in 2016.

Consider the source then consider it to be wrong.

[ssiguy]

These crooks should be given a 5 minute refugee hearing to satisfy the law and unceremoniously kick them out immediately.

This makes my blood boil. These people are under no definition refugees. Imagine being a refugee agent with Immigration Canada and having to tell someone who is fleeing for their lives and have been tortured and suffered horrid persecution that their application has been denied because the yeaarly quota is full because we had to accept refugees from the US.

[1overcosc]

Everyone should have the right to a fair hearing. However, the current system, where claimants remain here in a state of limbo for years waiting for the decision is ridiculous. It harms both us (by giving them social assistance for that time) and them (by preventing them from putting down roots and putting their entire futures in limbo for years).

IMO, the federal government should streamline the system and expand processing capabilities with the goal of allowing every asylum seeker to get a definitive answer to their claim within 6 weeks of making it.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

These crooks should be given a 5 minute refugee hearing to satisfy the law and unceremoniously kick them out immediately.

This makes my blood boil. These people are under no definition refugees. Imagine being a refugee agent with Immigration Canada and having to tell someone who is fleeing for their lives and have been tortured and suffered horrid persecution that their application has been denied because the yeaarly quota is full because we had to accept refugees from the US.

Canada doesn't have overall quotas (yearly or otherwise) for refugees, and we don't *have to* accept refugees from the U.S. or from any other provenance.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by JM5

[...]

The language of the UN charter of refugees is pretty clear, but 67% of applicants don't meet those requirements. Each country has different criteria for allowing some of the others to stay, I for one would want to carefully examine what these criteria are if I were a citizen of one of these countries.

Well I stand corrected on that point. That said, the criteria for someone granted subsidiary protection seem to be fundamentally - although not legally - identical to those defining refugees as per the Geneva Convention.

Subsidiary Protection is a complementary form of protection, which may apply to those who would be at risk of serious harm if returned to their home country, but who do not fit the strict definition of a refugee. It is provided by European Directive 2004/83, the “qualification directive”.

In Canada, these people would qualify as refugees since the Charter would prevent the government from returning someone to a situation which presents a credible risk of harm or persecution. European law seems to take a similar stance, but instead of broadening the Geneva Convention definition as we do, they've decided to create a new administrative category.

It's six one way, half a dozen the other.

[JM5]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

It's six one way, half a dozen the other.

I agree to a point, but looking at Figure 8 demonstrates that national laws vary by a lot and that the EU rules and even the UN convention are greatly open to interpretation. Countries with a clear populist agenda are able to interpret said regulations narrowly, while others on the opposite side of the spectrum far more broadly.

Ultimately, your society is what you make it. I think people's fears are based on being told that they HAVE to accept migrants because laws and international treaties demand it. Yes this is true to point but the scale is largely up to your government. You DO have the power to change the interpretation of laws and the stance of your government. DON'T buy into the stories of those with a vested interest of wanting things to stay the way they are.

[Aylmer]

I don't think that there's a powerful refugee lobby ("Big Refugee"?). I don't think that anyone has some huge vested interest in taking in people desperately running for their lives. On the contrary, an entire political cottage industry has sprung up to fan the underlying fear of 'the other' which we all have in order to win votes and gain power.

Ultimately, we don't have to do anything. We can fold in on ourselves and our narrow, short-term self-interests. But nobody wants to live in a society of narrow, short-term self-interest.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

I don't think that there's a powerful refugee lobby ("Big Refugee"?). I don't think that anyone has some huge vested interest in taking in people desperately running for their lives. On the contrary, an entire political cottage industry has sprung up to fan the underlying fear of 'the other' which we all have in order to win votes and gain power.

.

As I mentioned in this post on another topic...

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...&postcount=869

...it's probably a mistake to view the refugee issue in isolation.

The openness to taking in refugees is simply part of a broader philosophy related to what kind of country some Canadians (and the people they vote for) want Canada to be, and what image they want the country to project.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

Ultimately, we don't have to do anything. We can fold in on ourselves and our narrow, short-term self-interests. But nobody wants to live in a society of narrow, short-term self-interest.

I'd say you might be surprised as to how your mileage might vary on that one.

[esquire]

^ I'm not surprised that there is some backlash directed toward the asylum-seekers entering Canada from the US. I am, however, a bit taken aback by the sheer nastiness of what I've been hearing, and the rush to demonize and in some cases, to dehumanize the people attempting to come to Canada. Apparently it doesn't take much to expose a "me first" mentality.

Some would have you believe that the people entering Canada are all either jihadis or intent on sponging off welfare for the rest of their lives, or some combination of both. That characterization is totally at odds with my experiences and encounters with refugees, and that's why this situation simply doesn't bother me.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I'd say you might be surprised as to how your mileage might vary on that one.

I think that there are a lot of people who may like the idea, but the end result of a place where everyone just looks out for themselves and their own and no one has any obligations to anyone else looks a lot like Somalia.

Societies are based on trust and good faith. If we assume that everyone else is out to get us and that life is a zero-sum game where we have to either cheat or be cheated, then everything falls apart.

[wg_flamip]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

IMO, the federal government should streamline the system and expand processing capabilities with the goal of allowing every asylum seeker to get a definitive answer to their claim within 6 weeks of making it.

That timeline seems incredibly unrealistic. To illustrate why, here's a story based on the real experiences of several people I know:

John is approaching thirty years old. He's lived his entire life in the same neighbourhood in the same city. His country is poor, but his family is affluent enough that he got a good education and has decent enough financial resources. Now that he's been finished school for a few years, the fact that he hasn't married yet--hasn't even come close--is starting to raise a few eyebrows, but nothing serious. Not yet.

John is gay. He's as active in the local, exceedingly clandestine gay community as anyone, but it's not an easy life. His country is exceptionally homophobic. He goes to the parties and attends some of the meetings. He wishes something could be done about it. But the activists, the ones--his friends--who publicly come out to fight for change, wind up dead, jailed or de facto banished. And it seems to be getting worse.

But so far things have been all right. Until one day John gets a call from a worried friend. John's name has appeared along with three others in a local newsletter. He's been outed. And now he has to hurry: When your name gets thrown out like that, you don't have much time.

John packs a suitcase. He doesn't want to arouse any suspicions, so he packs light. On the pretext of visiting his cousin in Mississauga, he boards a flight to Pearson and claims asylum on landing. He doesn't know much about Canada. He doesn't know where he'll live or how he'll survive. There wasn't time for that.

John has a rough time with Canadian immigration officials. They're having a difficult enough time just accepting that he is who he says he is, and now they want him to prove that he's gay (after covering his tracks for so long) and to prove that his life was in danger in his home country (all based on a list in a neighbourhood newsletter he has no access to). And find a place to live. And figure out how to earn a living. And absorb how quickly it all happened. And mourn the losses, big and small. And find a lawyer. And maybe find a friend. And, oh God, just something to make this pounding headache go away.

The point being, I guess, that it doesn't really matter how streamlined the system gets after a certain point: A fair hearing requires proper evidence--and that evidence just can't be gathered that quickly, especially with irregular arrivals. Gathering documentation in a developed country with a generally supportive government can be a challenge; collecting documentation from a poorer country with an ambivalent or even hostile government can prove impossible.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Everyone should have the right to a fair hearing. However, the current system, where claimants remain here in a state of limbo for years waiting for the decision is ridiculous. It harms both us (by giving them social assistance for that time) and them (by preventing them from putting down roots and putting their entire futures in limbo for years).

IMO, the federal government should streamline the system and expand processing capabilities with the goal of allowing every asylum seeker to get a definitive answer to their claim within 6 weeks of making it.

As a practical matter, even spending hundreds of millions of dollars, hiring hundreds if not thousands of new public servants, and establishing a network of processing facilities operating 24/7, you could not achieve your suggested 6 week deadline. The most I could see happening in six weeks might be a system that could signal to an applicant that they are unlikely to succeed in their claim, but what would be the point (i.e. how likely is it that an applicant would leave at that point)? As I understand it, it can take months to establish even the nationality of an applicant, in some cases, and many months more to assemble the information that could support a claim.

I'm also not sure refugee applicants should be considered to be "in limbo". The eventual success of their claim may be uncertain, but they are able, for example, to work and have a family, and send their kids to school while in that "limbo".

[wg_flamip]

Originally Posted by Acajack

As I mentioned in this post on another topic...

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...&postcount=869

...it's probably a mistake to view the refugee issue in isolation.

The openness to taking in refugees is simply part of a broader philosophy related to what kind of country some Canadians (and the people they vote for) want Canada to be, and what image they want the country to project.

Well yes. Politics is about ideology and political decisions, across the board, always have some basis in a broader philosophy. Framing the refugee issue within the context of religious accommodation and cultural diversity, with the subtle hint that things have run amok, also reflects a broader political agenda.

Personally, if I were to assign an origin to my general support for refugee rights, it would come from never again rather than diversity our strength. And I suppose that part of my support for increasingly open borders comes from following real cases of real individuals--some of whom I know personally--navigating Canada's refugee system. We have turned people back, in recent living memory, to torture and death even where there has been overwhelming evidence that this would happen. We have children being held indefinitely without charge in immigration detention centres. We have families cowering in church basements for years on end. There is an ideology that allows--and encourages--this to happen.

[Taeolas]

Originally Posted by esquire

NB on the other hand is fairly close to the big eastern seaboard US cities so you'd think there would be at least a few. Not sure why no one has crossed there, though.

As far as America is concerned, it ends around Bangor Maine. There is no crossborder transit options between NB and Maine at all (other than maybe local charters). And Greyhound doesn't even go to Houlton or Calais or anywhere near the border at all. Basically unless you drive, you aren't getting anywhere close to the border in Maine.

Now, if you actually get to the border of NB and Maine (or Maine and Quebec), it probably isn't all that difficult to get across it; most of the border is woods and in low population areas. But the difficulty is, those woods extend a long way across both sides of the border before you tend to meet anyone. (And honestly, while we may be friendly, someone who doesn't belong here will be noticed pretty quick)

For 'sneaking across', someone might have better luck crossing in the Aroostock county area of the border; between Edmundston and Woodstock basically. There are more fields and traffic in general along that stretch than there is along the Quebec part of the border or the southern part down near St. Stephen/Calais. So a stranger not knowing the region is less likely to get lost (but more likely to get caught so *shrug*)

[esquire]

^ I presume border-crossers want to get "caught" by RCMP as soon as they get over the border so that they can declare their intention to seek asylum. The only thing they're evading is the CBSA customs and immigration post on the highway.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ I presume border-crossers want to get "caught" by RCMP as soon as they get over the border so that they can declare their intention to seek asylum. The only thing they're evading is the CBSA customs and immigration post on the highway.

Unless they are sneaking in for the purpose of living illegally in Canada, in which case we wouldn't know about them, that seems to cover all the recent cases. To me it seems much preferable to know they're here.

It does make one wonder how many "illegal migrants" there are in Canada. One imagines tens of thousands, but it's not something we talk about much.

[Acajack]

Given Canada's relatively generous and humane approach to refugees, I doubt it's really in the interest of anyone in that particular situation to enter Canada totally unbeknownst to authorities and to remain in the country completely under their radar and "clandestine".

[jmt18325]

You'd have a lot of trouble living here undocumented. It's not like the US - no one is going to school and almost no one is getting a job without documentation.

[Proof Sheet]

Originally Posted by Taeolas

For 'sneaking across', someone might have better luck crossing in the Aroostock county area of the border; between Edmundston and Woodstock basically. There are more fields and traffic in general along that stretch than there is along the Quebec part of the border or the southern part down near St. Stephen/Calais. So a stranger not knowing the region is less likely to get lost (but more likely to get caught so *shrug*)

These areas look pretty easy to sneak across from one country to another.

https://goo.gl/maps/KEdygZXWi792 (pedestrian bridge in background takes you from QC left to ME right)

https://goo.gl/maps/mkVqYtoxRxp (ME left QC right)

https://goo.gl/maps/jh2MVMFrhYH2 (foreground NB, background ME..this is a crossing similar to the one near Hemmingford that is getting all the media attention).

https://goo.gl/maps/bc1yvNyBvcs (foreground ME, background NB)