After fleeing to Montreal from Long Island, Marlise Beauville felt, she said, as if she had reached the Promised Land.
She entered the country last summer without immigration papers, yet received a work permit, a monthly stipend of 600 Canadian dollars, or $480, free health care and free French lessons. The weather has become bone-cold chilly but her Canadian neighbors are warm.
Though it is not clear that she will be able to stay, she is hunkering down, adamant that limbo in Canada is better than returning to Haiti, where she fears that the family of her dead husband will kill her. I wont I cant go back to Haiti, said Ms. Beauville, a caregiver from Anse--Veau, Haiti, who was visiting a Haitian community center here the other day.
Ms. Beauville was one of a surge of thousands of Haitian migrants who crossed over the border from the United States to Quebec last summer, spurred by a May announcement by the Trump administration that Haitians could lose their temporary protected status in the United States, granted after the 2010 earthquake that devastated their country.
But Canadian officials are warning that even liberal Canada has its limits amid concerns, fairly or not, that illegal migration is stretching the immigration system to a breaking point and risks stoking a potential backlash.
Canadas minister of immigration, Ahmed Hussen, himself a former refugee who moved to the country from Somalia when he was 16, said Canada was proud to be a welcoming country but could not welcome everyone. Only about 8 percent of Haitian migrants had received asylum here since the summer, he said, while there is a backlog of about 40,700 cases, according to Canadas Immigration and Refugee Board.
We dont want people to illegally enter our border, and doing so is not a free ticket to Canada, Mr. Hussen said in an interview. We are saying, You will be apprehended, screened, detained, fingerprinted, and if you cant establish a genuine claim, you will be denied refugee protection and removed.
Canadian immigration officials are once again bracing for a possible influx of migrants heading north. On Monday, the Trump administration announced that it would not be renewing temporary protected status for nearly 200,000 Salvadorans, a humanitarian measure that had allowed them to live and work legally in the United States.
Seems their tone changed a bit now that they actually have to deal with the problem. ---
