Asylum in Canada

The Manifest Border, a legal blog focussed on immigration, pointed me to this story in the Washington Times:

Thousands of illegal immigrants from Middle Eastern countries are seeking asylum in Canada, massing in run-down motels and refugee sanctuaries on the U.S. side of the border, where they are sheltered —- and sometimes hidden —- from the immigration service.

Some, like Mustafa, are assisted by U.S. government-funded agencies until their hearing with Canadian officials.

[…]U.S. officials yesterday said they typically support the refugee services and that their benefits outweigh their harboring of illegals.

“It becomes a matter of how these [illegals] are being advised,” said Bill Strassberger, a spokesman for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “If they are being told to avoid the law, then it would be something we would look into.” He added that the aliens who are leaving the country are besieging refugee shelters more than the immigration service. A spokeswoman for Canada’s immigration service declined to comment on the situation.

Since fall, when the registration deadline kicked in, Freedom House, a 35-bed refugee facility at the foot of the Ambassador Bridge, has seen an increase of 275 percent in refugee claims to Canada, from 70 last year at this time to 263 this year.

“We started with Iraqis in the fall and moved on to Pakistanis” who were leaving the United States for Canada, said David Koelsch, a staff lawyer at Freedom House. Until recently, “90 percent of our work has been getting people asylum in the U.S.,” he said. “But now, they know that to go before the INS is to be deported and to be locked up in jail while they wait to be deported.” Freedom House received 63 percent of its $844,691 income last year from U.S. government grants, according to records.

An immigration official in Detroit, speaking on the condition of anonymity, did say that any U.S. agency that assists illegals in eluding registration is “helping them circumvent the law.” “We can take [illegals] in if they are not here for a valid purpose. But is not always easy finding them,” the official said.

Now, being an illegal immigrant is a separate matter, but “eluding” special registration by leaving the US before the deadline is entirely legal according to BCIS (or whichever agency replaced the INS).

CALL-IN GROUP 3 (extended 2/19/03): CITIZENS OR NATIONALS OF Pakistan or Saudi Arabia

Who Must Register (Group 3)?

If you are in this category you must register at a designated Immigration Office on or before March 21, 2003.

If you are a male born on or before January 13, 1987, and

If you were inspected by an immigration officer and last admitted to the U.S. as a nonimmigrant on or before September 30, 2002

If you did not have an application for asylum pending on December 18, 2002, and

If you will be in the U.S. at least until March 21, 2003.