Illegal border crossings into Canada continue to rise

Statistics from the Canada Border Services Agency show nearly half of asylum seekers crossing illegally into the country occurred in March.

Thestar.com
April 19, 2017
By Allan Woods

The number of asylum seekers caught crossing illegally into Canada continues to rise, according to newly released figures.

The Canada Border Services Agency says that nearly half of the 1,860 migrants who have snuck across the Canada-United States border on foot rather than making a claim for refugee status at an official border crossing did so in March.

In total, 887 people were intercepted by the RCMP crossing the border in March, up one-third from the 658 who were arrested in February and more than double the 315 caught crossing in January.

The rise in asylum seekers crossing the border illegally was still the most spectacular in Quebec, which has become Ground Zero for worried migrants fleeing the threat of harsh new immigration policies and an uptick in deportation activities in the United States.

For the month of March, 644 people crossed the border into the province of Quebec-a 50 per cent increase from February, when 432 people crossed illegally into Quebec.

But numbers of asylum seekers crossing into Manitoba-where some have suffered severe injuries and amputations due to the harsh prairie winters-showed signs of leveling off, with only 170 RCMP interceptions, compared to 142 in February.