February 18, 2017•Update: February 18, 2017
By Barry Ellsworth
TRENTON, Ont.
Relatively warm temperatures this weekend are expected to attract a groundswell of refugees fleeing the United States into Canada through basically unguarded border wilderness, Canadian media reported Saturday.
Spurred by fear of U.S. President Donald Trump’s get-tough policies on refugees and undocumented immigrants, and also by his attempts at a travel ban on those from seven Muslim-majority countries, the newcomers would join hundreds of others who have crossed the border by foot in the provinces of Manitoba, Quebec and British Columbia, sometimes braving temperatures as low as 5 Fahrenheit (-15 C).
Some refugees have lost fingers and toes to frostbite but that has not stopped the swell of asylum seekers.
At least 90 have crossed into Manitoba since Jan. 1, while in Quebec 452 refugee claimants were reported in the same month, according to CTV television news.
Nine asylum seekers, including four children, barley made it across the Canadian border from Champlain, N.Y., Global television news reported.
A U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officer caught a taxi at the border Friday and seized the passports of the passengers.
As he questioned an adult male in the front passenger seat, four adults and four children fled the cab and made a break for Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) standing on the Canadian side of a small snow-filled gully.
RCMP officers helped the refugees up from the gully.
The man who was being questioned then grabbed the passports from the U.S. border guard and took off for the safety of Canada. The guard yelled and chased but he stopped at the gully border as Canadian police helped him up, Global reported.
Luggage lay strewn in the snow where it had been thrown out of the taxi.
The American guard and the RCMP eyed the luggage, then the U.S. agent took the luggage to the border line where the Canadian officers picked it up.
The RCMP took the baggage and the refugees in vehicles, heading to the nearest border office so the asylum seekers could be interviewed and make a refugee claim.
Once inside Canada, migrants have the right to claim as refugees, providing they pass security checks, reported the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Many of the refugees are from the seven Muslim-majority countries Trump named in his infamous travel ban.
Although the ban has been blocked by a U.S. court, refugees are not taking chances and are fleeing into Canada in growing numbers.
Refugee claims made at the border have doubled over the past two years, surging to 7,023 in 2016, while in 2015 it was 4,316. In 2014 it was of 3,747, the CBC reported.
“My gut feeling is we are going to have 40 to 50 people coming here just tonight or tomorrow morning,” Greg Janzen said Friday. Janzen is the reeve of the municipality of Emerson-Franklin, Manitoba, where many refugees end up. He spoke to CTV.
