“As a country, we need to look beyond the hateful sentiments of some of our politicians and see the \u2018crisis\u2019 for what it is: ephemeral. Far from being a permanent phenomenon, the tide of asylum seekers is similar to a natural disaster \u2014 an acute circumstance that is as disruptive as it is short-lived.”<\/p>\n
The march of asylum seekers across the Canadian border continues apace.<\/p>\n
In 2017, the Canadian Border Security Agency processed 11,400 asylum claimants at the country\u2019s land ports of entry, a more than 170-per-cent increase over 2011,\u00a0according to statistics from the federal government. The largest percentage of claimants hail from\u00a0Haiti, with Nigerians a distant second.\u00a0 Surprisingly, 2,550 American citizens\u00a0also sought refugee status in this country in 2017\u2014a 545-per-cent increase over 2016. Taken together, these numbers speak to the politicization of race and immigration, as practiced by Donald Trump\u2019s toxic mouth.<\/p>\n
And many of our politicians are more than willing to play along. Lisa MacLeod, the Ontario government\u2019s newly-ensconced Minister of Children, Community and Social Services, has spent much of her first two weeks in office triangulating her nativist anger against the \u201cillegal border crossers\u201d and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the supposed enabler of all this illegal activity. \u201cIllegal border crossers are not following [the] rules, and the federal government is not enforcing them,\u201d MacLeod bellowed recently.<\/p>\n
Not to explain her job to her, but surely MacLeod is aware of Canada\u2019s commitment to the\u00a0U.N. Refugee Convention, in effect for 67 years, recognizing that anyone can make a refugee claim should they have a \u201cwell-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.\u201d Further, the Minister must be aware that making such claims \u201ccan require refugees to breach immigration rules,\u201d as the Convention states.<\/p>\n
Finally, the Minister realizes that the vast majority of those crossing the border illegally to make a legal refugee claim are compelled to do so because of the Safe Third Country Agreement, a Harper-era Conservative measure designed to prevent asylum seekers from applying for refugee status in both countries. Attempting to cross into Canada at a regular border crossing would see the modern-day refugee claimant deported back to the States\u2014from where he or she is attempting to flee in the first place.<\/p>\n
In fairness to the minister, it takes two paragraphs and 164 words to explain the details and conundrums of Canada\u2019s immigration and refugee policy. It also requires a modicum of good faith, something that is in short supply when one is politicking on the backs of asylum seekers.<\/p>\n
Besides, she isn\u2019t alone. Doug Ford, her boss, is just as outraged (and as clueless) as MacLeod as to the asylum seekers in Ontario. Ditto Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois leader Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Lis\u00e9e, who suggested the federal government build a wall across Roxham Road, where a large number of asylum seekers have crossed.<\/p>\n
Cynical and wrong-headed, this sort of rhetoric is also utilitarian. It exploits for political gain voters\u2019 understandable fears surrounding asylum. In not mentioning the reason behind the diabetic spike in refugee claimants, MacLeod et al. perpetuate the idea that largescale migration over the border is somehow a permanent burden\u2014a direct result of our multiculturalist overindulgences as a country.<\/p>\n
You need look only at Europe to see the folly in this argument. 2015 was the year of the \u2018migrant crisis\u2019, in which Greece, Italy and Germany alone took in as many as 1.75 million migrants by land and sea, according to the UN High Commission for Refugees. This vast movement of humanity stoked nativist pangs in these countries along with Hungary, Spain, Poland and elsewhere. It was arguably one of the driving forces behind the Brexit vote ruling the day.<\/p>\n
And yet three years later, the flow of migrants has largely returned to pre-2015 normality. The reason is simple enough: people have less a reason to flee their homes. Stripped of the politics, it\u2019s a reminder how people don\u2019t generally uproot their lives unless they are fleeing bombs or persecution.<\/p>\n
As a country, we need to look beyond the hateful sentiments of some of our politicians and see the \u2018crisis\u2019 for what it is: ephemeral. Far from being a permanent phenomenon, the tide of asylum seekers is similar to a natural disaster\u2014an acute circumstance that is as disruptive as it is short-lived. People will cease fleeing America when the threat of persecution abates. How long that threat exists depends entirely on the will of American voters.<\/p>\n
……………………………………………….<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n “As a country, we need to look beyond the hateful sentiments of some of our politicians and see the \u2018crisis\u2019 for what it is: ephemeral. Far from being a permanent phenomenon, the tide of asylum seekers is similar to a natural disaster \u2014 an acute circumstance that is as disruptive as it is short-lived.” The …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-articles"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1583"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1945,"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1583\/revisions\/1945"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}This article was originally published on<\/em>\u00a0iPOLITICS<\/span><\/strong><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"