You’ve heard the news, we’ve reported it for months, that fearing the Trumpster, migrants are flooding to the Canadian border into Prime Minister Trudeau’s waiting and welcoming arms.
Here we have PBS interviewing a couple of Africans who feared if they stayed in the US, Trump would be rounding them up to return them to Africa. Their tales of woe are transparently and obviously fishy!
The Somali woman, we are first introduced to, risked a winter trek across the US/Canada border with a small child even though we are told she was in the US LEGALLY. There are only a few possibilities: She was NOT in the US legally; she is shopping for a better welfare deal in Canada; or she is a nut. In any case, Canada can have her!
PBS:
LISA DESAI: Much of the four thousand mile American border with Canada is wide open and unsecured. In the first three months of this year, a steady stream of immigrants from all over the world braved the bitter cold to reach a country where they believe there’s less risk of detention and deportation. [Lisa doesn’t report that the upward trend of border crossers began while Obama was still President and the expectation was that Hillary would be the next one, so this isn’t a new phenomenon—ed]
Just north of Minnesota and North Dakota lies the Canadian province of Manitoba. The town of Emerson is a main entry point. An hour’s drive north is the provincial capital, Winnipeg, a city of 700-thousand. That’s where I met this woman from Somalia.
For her safety, we agreed to shield her face and call her “Nasra.” She settled in Minneapolis on a U.S. medical visa to get treatment for her six-year-old autistic son. Her family is part of a minority clan persecuted in Somalia’s civil war. [So, if she would be persecuted, why didn’t Nasra apply for asylum in US?—ed]
NASRA: I faced a lot of problems in Somalia. During the war, my father and my brother were attacked, and my mother and I endured so much pain — we left and never went back.
LISA DESAI: After President Trump listed Somalia as one of the countries whose citizens would be blocked from entering the U.S. Nasra decided that although she was legal, it wasn’t safe to stay.
NASRA: I heard that they were going to arrest people and take them back to Somalia and that they were going into people’s homes and they were going to separate families, mothers from children.
LISA DESAI: What would happen if you were deported back to Somalia?
NASRA: If I go back to Somalia I won’t stand a chance there, I would be killed.
LISA DESAI: In February, she left Minneapolis and became one of nearly 1,000 migrants, according to the Canadian Government, to cross from the U.S. into Canada this year. She paid a driver to take her and her son most of the way.
NASRA: We walked for hours, the snow was falling, we couldn’t see. It was cold, it was dark and if it wasn’t for God we would have died.
LISA DESAI: Under Canadian law, people like Nasra, who cross the border illegally, are arrested and taken in for a background check. If they don’t have a criminal record, they are often released within 24 hours. They’re appointed a government lawyer to represent them in their asylum hearing which usually takes place in two months. They are also connected with nonprofits that provide food and housing.
Go to the report, here, and don’t miss the story of the FAILED asylum seeker from Ghana. He failed to be granted asylum in Ecuador and in the US, so he took a trip to Canada to shop for a better deal. How convenient that PBS can blame Trump for scaring him to Canada?
Then it appears that the ‘welcoming’ Canadians are getting sick of it!
LISA DESAI: A poll last month found Canadian support for welcoming refugees is slipping. 48 percent said Canada should send these migrants back to the U.S. 36 percent said Canada should accept them.
See our previous posts on Trump and the Canada border by clicking here.