“Canada is presented as the best way out of this complicated situation”
Abdullah Kiatamba, executive director of African Immigrant Services (MN)
This story is more along the lines of what we reported here two days ago.
I was delighted to learn that the Trump Administration is seriously considering letting Temporary Protected Status lapse for countries other than Haiti.
Readers should know that TPS is a farce.
Once granted, the US simply continues to extend it and extend it—Salvadorans, for example, have had the right to live and work here for decades as TPS would be renewed every couple of years (no matter who was in the White House!).
But, things have changed and those “temporary” legal (and some illegal) migrants are now eyeing Canada!
And there, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made ‘welcoming the stranger’ a primary hallmark of his leadership.
So, here they come!
From the Winnepeg Free Press (emphasis is mine):
OTTAWA — Manitoba could face hundreds more African asylum seekers crossing from the United States as that country winds down a temporary-stay program. It’s unclear whether Ottawa is doing anything to stem the flow.
“Canada is presented as the best way out of this complicated situation,” Abdullah Kiatamba, executive director of African Immigrant Services — a Minnesota-based non-profit organization — said.
Since 1990, the U.S. has granted temporary protected status (TPS) to citizens of countries people can’t return to due to war, pandemic or natural disasters. In recent years, the U.S. has offered citizens of 13 countries short-term work permits and shielded them — unless they have criminal convictions — from deportation due to problems in their home countries.
But the U.S. seems to be winding that program down.
Meanwhile, thousands of people are crossing irregularly into Canada. They avoid border stations that can send them back to the U.S. and instead wander into Canada through fields — something that would be normally be illegal, but is allowed under international law for people claiming asylum.
[….]
“A good number of people have said that Canada is one option, perhaps the best option,” Kiatamba said, adding he knows about 10 people who have crossed into Manitoba.
[….]
Earlier this week, Reuters news service reported unnamed government sources said the Liberals are worried about an onslaught of Central Americans claiming asylum next fall if the U.S. drops them off the TPS list.
The report did not say which provinces the government would expect people to enter and claim asylum.
It claimed Ottawa is particularly worried about an uptick in arrivals a year before the 2019 federal election.
I bet it is! Hey, we could call it Trump’s revenge!
Continue reading here. There is a good discussion about various temporary ‘refugees’ from TPS-designated countries and when we (the US) might cut them loose.
See my Canada category here.
I’ve written about TPS over the years, go here to learn more. One time when George W. Bush extended TPS for Salvadorans I found an article about why he did that—it was about remittances and how Salvadorans in the US send money “home” and thus prop up the economy there with dollars lost to the US economy.