By Anna Mehler Paperny and Ted Hesson
CHAMPLAIN, NEW YORK and WASHINGTON, March 11 (Reuters) – Bookseller Zulema Díaz fled her native Peru after being kidnapped, beaten and robbed, hoping to find safety in the United States. Instead, she found herself homeless and sexually harassed while working informally as a janitor at a hospital.
So when Diaz, 46, learned that New York City was handing out free bus tickets, he hopped on a bus bound for Plattsburgh, a town near the Canadian border, then took a cab to at the irregular Roxham Road border crossing to enter. Canada and apply for asylum.
The sharp increase in the number of asylum seekers entering Canada through unofficial crossings – many whose bus fares have been paid for by New York City and aid agencies – is intensifying pressure on the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to reach an agreement with President Joe Biden to close the entire land border to most asylum seekers.
Canadian Immigration Minister Sean Fraser discussed irregular immigration this week in Washington with US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Trudeau said he would raise the issue during Biden’s visit to Ottawa on March 23-24.
Many newcomers have abandoned plans to seek asylum in the United States, deterred by long processing times and restrictive definitions of asylum, aid officials and interviews with asylum seekers say .
On a snowy day in late February, some three dozen asylum seekers, some with suitcases and others with backpacks, trekked down a snowy trail from New York state to Quebec.
For Díaz, the city’s payment of about $150 for the ticket to Plattsburgh provided further incentive to make a decision he had been contemplating for months.
“It was presented as a miracle,” he said. After arriving in the US in June last year, he was given a January 2024 date to appear in US immigration court.
“I felt protected in the US, it just takes a long time to process the documents.”
New York City has provided bus and plane tickets to homeless people since 2007, which can demonstrate a source of support in other cities and countries. Refugee aid groups began offering free bus tickets to migrants in August last year, but said they stopped doing so in November for cost reasons.
New York City said it began its efforts in September.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ office did not specify the number of tickets purchased by the city and associated migrant charities. Reuters asked City Hall spokespersons Kate Smart and Fabien Levy to comment; at the Mayor’s Office of Immigration Affairs; the Department of Homeless Services and SLSCO, the ticket distribution contractor.
Smart said immigrants choose their destinations.
“To be clear, New York City hasn’t sent anyone anywhere in Canada,” Smart said. “We want to help asylum seekers stabilize their lives, whether in New York or elsewhere.”
The US Department of Homeland Security declined to comment on processing times in the US asylum system. The Biden administration has asked Congress to review immigration laws.
Nearly 40,000 asylum seekers entered Canada through irregular border crossings from the United States last year, nine times the number in 2021 when pandemic restrictions were still in place, and more than double the few 17,000 who crossed the border in 2019. .
Nearly 5,000 entered in January alone, according to the most recent figures from the Canadian government.
Canada accepted more than 46% of irregular asylum claims in the 12 months to September 30, according to Canadian government data. US immigration courts approved 14% of asylum applications during the same period, according to US government data.
At the end of last year, Canada had more than 70,000 asylum claims pending. The United States had some 788,000 asylum claims pending in US immigration courts.
Nigerian, Haitian and Colombian citizens accounted for almost half of irregular claims in Canada, according to unpublished data from the Immigration and Refugee Board.
PEOPLE ARE DISCOURAGED
Although the Safe Third Country Agreement allows US and Canadian authorities to turn back asylum seekers back and forth at official ports of entry, it does not apply to unofficial crossings such as Roxham Road .
A Canadian government official who was not authorized to speak privately told Reuters the United States had little incentive to extend the deal to the entire 6,000 kilometer border.
Asylum seekers in the United States wait an average of more than four years to appear in immigration court, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. According to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, after filing for asylum, it takes at least six months to obtain a work permit.
“People are discouraged by the very long time it takes to get work papers and asylum hearings,” said Ilze Thielmann, director of the TLC NYC team, which helps immigrants arriving in New York.
In Canada, the median processing time for asylum claims was 25 months in the first 10 months of 2022. That’s up from 15 months in 2019, according to the Immigration and Refugee Board. refugee.
Raymond Theriault, 47, said he left his home in the Nicaraguan mining town of Bonanza in order to connect with relatives in Canada, where he said his late father was born.
Thériault said he struggled to find steady employment and was blocked by local authorities from opening a small seafood restaurant after criticizing the government.
After crossing into the United States via El Paso in November, he visited a girl in West Virginia and entered Canada via Roxham Road last month. In New York, he paid $140 for a bus ticket to Plattsburgh.
Today, in a government-funded hotel in Niagara Falls, he says he is happy with his decision to go to Canada.
“There’s more support, they’re more humanists,” he said. “In the United States…if you starve, the problem is yours.”
The Quebec government has said the influx of asylum seekers is testing its ability to house people and provide basic services. The federal government said it has transferred more than 5,500 asylum seekers to other provinces since June, the first time it has done so.
In his downtown Montreal office, refugee lawyer Pierre-Luc Bouchard says he’s never been busier.
“I have limited resources. I cannot serve everyone,” he said. “My colleagues are tired of saying ‘no'”
NUMBERS INCREASING IN BOTH DIRECTIONS
Irregular crossings to the United States are also increasing.
The U.S. Border Patrol said it apprehended more than 2,200 people crossing between ports of entry in the four months since October, nearly as many as in all of fiscal year 2022. The force said it deployed 25 additional officers on the stretch of border that includes Champlain, New York, where most of the migrants were apprehended.
Immigration experts say closing the border to asylum seekers could push migrants to take even riskier routes. Last year, an Indian family of four froze to death in the Canadian province of Manitoba as they tried to cross the border into the United States.
“People will make riskier and more dangerous decisions, and more tragedies will occur,” said Jamie Chai Yun Liew, professor of immigration law at the University of Ottawa.
(Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny in Champlain, New York, and Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing in Spanish by Juana Casas)