Anybody notice that swamp spruce are just the right size for impaling people. Line the last few km and most of the ones will say 'fuk it' and turn around.
Refugee/Migrant Crisis
- Thread starter Tecumsehsbones
- Start date
Woman charged for aiding illegal entries at popular Quebec-New York crossing
Canadian Press
Published:
January 23, 2019
Updated:
January 23, 2019 5:36 PM EST
A Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer informs a migrant couple of the location of a legal border station, shortly before they illegally crossed from Champlain, N.Y., to Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec, using Roxham Road on Aug. 7, 2017.Charles Krupa / AP Photo
MONTREAL — Canada’s border protection agency has charged a woman in connection with organizing illegal entries into Canada through a popular rural crossing in southern Quebec.
A charge was laid against Olayinka Celestina Opaleye Wednesday at the courthouse in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, south of Montreal.
She is charged under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act for facilitating the entry of asylum seekers into Canada through Roxham Road in exchange for compensation. The charges were laid following an investigation carried out by Canada Border Services Agency.
The agency alleges that in the summer of 2017, Opaleye arranged for the entry of “several individuals” into Canada, acting as part of a network of smugglers who organized their travel.
According to Canadian government figures, there were 19,419 irregular crossings in Canada in 2018, more than 18,500 of them through the Quebec crossing at Roxham Road. That figure was slightly down from 2017, when there were 20,593 crossings, including a notable spike beginning in July of that year.
Dominique McNeely, an agency spokesman, said the woman was charged under a section of the law that covers human trafficking of a group of 10 or more. A conviction under the section can result in a fine of up to $1 million or life imprisonment.
McNeely said it is not the first time charges have been pursued against alleged human traffickers at the popular Quebec-New York border crossing. No further information was available on the case Wednesday. It returns to court Mar. 27.
Trudeau calls Tories’ migration statements ‘fearmongering’
Irregular migrants on track to cost Canada almost $400 million, watchdog says
Human smuggling getting sophisticated at Canada/U.S. border
http://torontosun.com/news/national...l-entries-at-popular-quebec-new-york-crossing
Canadian Press
Published:
January 23, 2019
Updated:
January 23, 2019 5:36 PM EST
A Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer informs a migrant couple of the location of a legal border station, shortly before they illegally crossed from Champlain, N.Y., to Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec, using Roxham Road on Aug. 7, 2017.Charles Krupa / AP Photo
MONTREAL — Canada’s border protection agency has charged a woman in connection with organizing illegal entries into Canada through a popular rural crossing in southern Quebec.
A charge was laid against Olayinka Celestina Opaleye Wednesday at the courthouse in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, south of Montreal.
She is charged under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act for facilitating the entry of asylum seekers into Canada through Roxham Road in exchange for compensation. The charges were laid following an investigation carried out by Canada Border Services Agency.
The agency alleges that in the summer of 2017, Opaleye arranged for the entry of “several individuals” into Canada, acting as part of a network of smugglers who organized their travel.
According to Canadian government figures, there were 19,419 irregular crossings in Canada in 2018, more than 18,500 of them through the Quebec crossing at Roxham Road. That figure was slightly down from 2017, when there were 20,593 crossings, including a notable spike beginning in July of that year.
Dominique McNeely, an agency spokesman, said the woman was charged under a section of the law that covers human trafficking of a group of 10 or more. A conviction under the section can result in a fine of up to $1 million or life imprisonment.
McNeely said it is not the first time charges have been pursued against alleged human traffickers at the popular Quebec-New York border crossing. No further information was available on the case Wednesday. It returns to court Mar. 27.
Trudeau calls Tories’ migration statements ‘fearmongering’
Irregular migrants on track to cost Canada almost $400 million, watchdog says
Human smuggling getting sophisticated at Canada/U.S. border
FUREY: Illegal crossings did not in fact drop off in 2018, new year-end numbers reveal
Anthony Furey
Published:
January 23, 2019
Updated:
January 23, 2019 7:35 AM EST
At the end of Roxham Rd. in Champlain, Fiyori Mesfin, 32, crosses into Canada with her three-year-old son and one-year-old daughter, both U.S. citizens. Andre Malerba / The Washington Post
When I think about Canada’s illegal border phenomenon the one quote that keeps coming back to me isn’t from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, or Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, or Conservative MP Michelle Rempel, the opposition critic on the file.
No, it comes from a senior staffer who made a curious admission during a public city council meeting in Cornwall last August. The Ontario town not far from Quebec was holding meetings because of their close proximity to Roxham Road, the Quebec street abutting the U.S. border that is ground zero for Canada’s illegal crossing phenomenon.
This particular council meeting involved discussion of how a local military facility was playing host to a tent city that would house hundreds of border crossers in the event of a mass arrival.
Louis Dumas, director general of the government’s domestic immigration programs, was on hand to break it all down for the city.
“What is happening in Canada, said Dumas, falls in line with the great migration of refugees and asylum seekers that have been flowing into Europe for the past few years,” a story in the Cornwall Standard Freeholder explained. Then a direct quote from Dumas: “Canada is no longer protected from this reality.”
This is a wild notion, that what we’ve witnessed the past couple of years is not some blip that will soon die down – as the Liberal government would have you believe – but it’s the new normal. That we are now on the receiving end of a constant stream of migration, whether it’s in line with our policies or not.
LILLEY: Poll suggests public support for immigration is divided
EDITORIAL: Leave terminology debate aside, illegal crossings a problem
GUNTER: Legal and illegal immigration are different and that matters
Wild perhaps. But it’s now backed up by evidence – year-end numbers just released by the federal government.
The illegal crossings come and go from the news, perhaps leading people to believe that the issue itself comes and goes. That when it’s out of the headlines that means the crossings themselves are gone. Not so. For the past two years, they’ve remained constant.
Back in 2016, the number of people apprehended for crossing “irregularly” into Canada was 2,464 for the entire country. But by the end of 2017, the number for Quebec alone – the Roxham Road hub – had skyrocketed to 18,836 people.
But last year there was the occasional story that told us the numbers were decreasing. Ministers said the situation was under control. Nothing to see here folks. Did that mean the numbers had significantly decreased?
It was a narrative partially based on fact. While there were 2,479 people who crossed into Quebec in April of 2018 – more than all of 2016 combined – the monthly tally had dropped to 1,179 for June. So at that time you could say they’d dropped. The only thing is it went up again in recent months.
The newly revealed figures for 2018 show the year’s total for Quebec is 18,518 people. That’s not at all a significant decrease from the year before.
Adding the other provinces into the mix, the national tally has gone down slightly from 20,593 in 2017 to 19,419 in 2018. What matters though is Quebec – where there is an organized and concerted effort by refugee groups and human trafficking operations to exploit the current border situation. And the Quebec numbers have held steady for two whole years.
The big problem with all of this has nothing to do with who these specific people are, what country they come from or what they look like. The problem is that this is self-selected migration. This is not government policy. Canada has had zero say in this phenomenon. It just started happening one day and, under the current government’s watch, we’ve let it continue.
The new data also shows it’s a fairly constant stream. The new normal. Welcome to Canada.
afurey@postmedia.com
http://torontosun.com/news/national...-drop-off-in-2018-new-year-end-numbers-reveal
Anthony Furey
Published:
January 23, 2019
Updated:
January 23, 2019 7:35 AM EST
At the end of Roxham Rd. in Champlain, Fiyori Mesfin, 32, crosses into Canada with her three-year-old son and one-year-old daughter, both U.S. citizens. Andre Malerba / The Washington Post
When I think about Canada’s illegal border phenomenon the one quote that keeps coming back to me isn’t from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, or Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, or Conservative MP Michelle Rempel, the opposition critic on the file.
No, it comes from a senior staffer who made a curious admission during a public city council meeting in Cornwall last August. The Ontario town not far from Quebec was holding meetings because of their close proximity to Roxham Road, the Quebec street abutting the U.S. border that is ground zero for Canada’s illegal crossing phenomenon.
This particular council meeting involved discussion of how a local military facility was playing host to a tent city that would house hundreds of border crossers in the event of a mass arrival.
Louis Dumas, director general of the government’s domestic immigration programs, was on hand to break it all down for the city.
“What is happening in Canada, said Dumas, falls in line with the great migration of refugees and asylum seekers that have been flowing into Europe for the past few years,” a story in the Cornwall Standard Freeholder explained. Then a direct quote from Dumas: “Canada is no longer protected from this reality.”
This is a wild notion, that what we’ve witnessed the past couple of years is not some blip that will soon die down – as the Liberal government would have you believe – but it’s the new normal. That we are now on the receiving end of a constant stream of migration, whether it’s in line with our policies or not.
LILLEY: Poll suggests public support for immigration is divided
EDITORIAL: Leave terminology debate aside, illegal crossings a problem
GUNTER: Legal and illegal immigration are different and that matters
Wild perhaps. But it’s now backed up by evidence – year-end numbers just released by the federal government.
The illegal crossings come and go from the news, perhaps leading people to believe that the issue itself comes and goes. That when it’s out of the headlines that means the crossings themselves are gone. Not so. For the past two years, they’ve remained constant.
Back in 2016, the number of people apprehended for crossing “irregularly” into Canada was 2,464 for the entire country. But by the end of 2017, the number for Quebec alone – the Roxham Road hub – had skyrocketed to 18,836 people.
But last year there was the occasional story that told us the numbers were decreasing. Ministers said the situation was under control. Nothing to see here folks. Did that mean the numbers had significantly decreased?
It was a narrative partially based on fact. While there were 2,479 people who crossed into Quebec in April of 2018 – more than all of 2016 combined – the monthly tally had dropped to 1,179 for June. So at that time you could say they’d dropped. The only thing is it went up again in recent months.
The newly revealed figures for 2018 show the year’s total for Quebec is 18,518 people. That’s not at all a significant decrease from the year before.
Adding the other provinces into the mix, the national tally has gone down slightly from 20,593 in 2017 to 19,419 in 2018. What matters though is Quebec – where there is an organized and concerted effort by refugee groups and human trafficking operations to exploit the current border situation. And the Quebec numbers have held steady for two whole years.
The big problem with all of this has nothing to do with who these specific people are, what country they come from or what they look like. The problem is that this is self-selected migration. This is not government policy. Canada has had zero say in this phenomenon. It just started happening one day and, under the current government’s watch, we’ve let it continue.
The new data also shows it’s a fairly constant stream. The new normal. Welcome to Canada.
afurey@postmedia.com
http://torontosun.com/news/national...-drop-off-in-2018-new-year-end-numbers-reveal
Deaths of Saudi sisters found bound together ruled suicide
Brad Hunter
Published:
January 23, 2019
Updated:
January 23, 2019 12:07 PM EST
Rotana Farea, 22, and her sister Tala Farea, 16, preferred death in the chilly Hudson River to returning to Saudi Arabia.
Two troubled Saudi sisters who died when they plunged taped together into the Hudson River committed suicide, New York officials say.
The harrowing deaths of the Saudi-born women — Rotana Farea, 22, and Tala Farea, 16 — stunned the world and drew attention to their home nation’s misogynistic culture.
An autopsy revealed that the sisters drowned after jumping off New York City’s George Washington Bridge on Oct. 24.
“Today, my office determined that the death of the Farea sisters was the result of suicide, in which the young women bound themselves together before descending into the Hudson River,” chief medical examiner Dr. Barbara Sampson said in a statement.
Call for tighter bail rules after Saudi sex-crime suspect vanishes
Saudi teen: Starbucks, bacon, eggs and bare legs
HASSAN: The Saudi-Netflix affair shows little has changed
The two women disappeared from their home in Fairfax, Va. sometime in 2017.
Their bodies were found beached on the shore of Riverside Park in New York City’s Upper West Side.
Law enforcement sources told the New York Post the woman would have rather taken their own lives than return to oppressive Saudi Arabia.
Their mother’s immigration status had expired in the U.S. and officials had asked her to leave the country. Saudi officials asked for an extension.
Their mother told The Post her daughters had applied for asylum, putting the family’s status in jeopardy.
During their last days, the two women lived it up at New York City hotels.
And as they ran out of money, they decided to take their lives together.
http://nypost.com/2019/01/22/deaths-of-saudi-sisters-found-duct-taped-ruled-suicides
http://torontosun.com/news/world/deaths-of-saudi-sisters-found-bound-together-ruled-suicide
Brad Hunter
Published:
January 23, 2019
Updated:
January 23, 2019 12:07 PM EST
Rotana Farea, 22, and her sister Tala Farea, 16, preferred death in the chilly Hudson River to returning to Saudi Arabia.
Two troubled Saudi sisters who died when they plunged taped together into the Hudson River committed suicide, New York officials say.
The harrowing deaths of the Saudi-born women — Rotana Farea, 22, and Tala Farea, 16 — stunned the world and drew attention to their home nation’s misogynistic culture.
An autopsy revealed that the sisters drowned after jumping off New York City’s George Washington Bridge on Oct. 24.
“Today, my office determined that the death of the Farea sisters was the result of suicide, in which the young women bound themselves together before descending into the Hudson River,” chief medical examiner Dr. Barbara Sampson said in a statement.
Call for tighter bail rules after Saudi sex-crime suspect vanishes
Saudi teen: Starbucks, bacon, eggs and bare legs
HASSAN: The Saudi-Netflix affair shows little has changed
The two women disappeared from their home in Fairfax, Va. sometime in 2017.
Their bodies were found beached on the shore of Riverside Park in New York City’s Upper West Side.
Law enforcement sources told the New York Post the woman would have rather taken their own lives than return to oppressive Saudi Arabia.
Their mother’s immigration status had expired in the U.S. and officials had asked her to leave the country. Saudi officials asked for an extension.
Their mother told The Post her daughters had applied for asylum, putting the family’s status in jeopardy.
During their last days, the two women lived it up at New York City hotels.
And as they ran out of money, they decided to take their lives together.
http://nypost.com/2019/01/22/deaths-of-saudi-sisters-found-duct-taped-ruled-suicides
http://torontosun.com/news/world/deaths-of-saudi-sisters-found-bound-together-ruled-suicide
at popular Quebec-New York crossing
Something tells me they aren't trying their hardest to close the place down.
Something tells me they aren't trying their hardest to close the place down.
Militia members get decades in prison in Kansas bomb plot
Associated Press
Published:
January 25, 2019
Updated:
January 25, 2019 9:09 PM EST
This combination of Oct. 14, 2016, file booking photos provided by the Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office in Wichita, Kan., shows from left, Patrick Stein, Curtis Allen and Gavin Wright, three members of a Kansas militia group who were charged with plotting to bomb an apartment building filled with Somali immigrants in Garden City, Kan. Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office via AP, File
WICHITA, Kan. — Three militia members convicted of taking part in a foiled plot to massacre Muslims in southwest Kansas were sentenced Friday to decades in prison during an emotional court hearing in which one of the targeted victims pleaded: “Pleasef don’t hate us.”
U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren sentenced Patrick Stein, the alleged ringleader, to 30 years in prison and Curtis Allen, who drafted a manifesto for the group, to 25 years. Gavin Wright, who authorities said helped make and test explosives at his mobile home business, received 26 years. The plot was foiled after another militia member alerted authorities.
Melgren dismissed defence attorneys’ request that he take into the account the divisive political atmosphere in which the men formed their plot to blow up a mosque and apartments housing Somali immigrants in the meatpacking town Garden City, about 220 miles (355 kilometres) west of Wichita, on the day after the 2016 election.
“We have extremely divisive elections because our system is to resolve those through elections and not violence,” Melgren said.
Stein’s attorneys have argued that he believed then-President Barack Obama would declare martial law and not recognize the validity of the election if Donald Trump won, forcing militias to step in. Stein’s attorneys noted that during the 2016 campaign, all three men read and shared Russian propaganda on their Facebook feed designed to sow discord in the U.S. political system.
Attorney Jim Pratt told the judge that for years Stein had immersed himself in right-wing media and commentators, who normalized hate. But Melgren was openly skeptical, telling Pratt: “Millions of people listen to this stuff — whether it comes from the left or the right.”
Prosecutors presented video testimony from some Somali immigrants who were the targets of the bombing. In one clip, Ifrah Farah pleaded: “Please don’t kill us. Please don’t hate us. We can’t hurt you.”
Allen, 51, choked up as he addressed the judge, prompting his attorney to step in and finish reading a prepared statement in which Allen offered “my sincere apologies” to anyone who was frightened and asked for their forgiveness. But Stein, 49, apologized only to his family and friends, and the judge noted when sentencing him that, unlike Allen, he had shown no remorse.
Wright, 53, apologized to the court, saying the plot is “not who I am.” He also apologized to the immigrants who lived at the apartment complex. The judge later said Wright’s courtroom statement showed he was still in denial about what he did, adding and he did not buy that there was any remorse on Wright’s part.
Melgren sentenced Stein to 30 years for conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and 10 years for conspiracy against civil rights. He sentenced Allen and Wright to 25 years for conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and 10 years for conspiracy against civil rights. Those sentences will run concurrently. Wright also got an additional year to be served consecutively for lying to law enforcement, bringing his total sentence to 26 years.
The judge told all three men that the planned attack was worse than the Oklahoma City bombing because the Garden City plot was motivated by hatreds of race, religion and national origin.
The Kansas plot was thwarted when militia member Dan Day tipped off authorities to escalating threats of violence. He testified at the men’s trial last year that Stein started recruiting others to kill Muslim immigrants after the June 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, by a gunman who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group.
Recordings that prosecutors played for jurors last April portrayed a damning picture of a splinter group of the militia Kansas Security Force that came to be known as “the Crusaders.”
Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker in a news release called the sentences “a significant victory against hate crimes and domestic terrorism.”
“These defendants planned to ruthlessly bomb an apartment complex and kill innocent people, simply because of who they are and how they worship,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said.
The sentencing hearings for the men came a day after two members of an Illinois militia known as the White Rabbits pleaded guilty in the 2017 bombing of a Minnesota mosque, admitting they hoped the attack would scare Muslims into leaving the U.S. No one was injured in that attack.
http://torontosun.com/news/crime/militia-members-get-decades-in-prison-in-kansas-bomb-plot
Associated Press
Published:
January 25, 2019
Updated:
January 25, 2019 9:09 PM EST
This combination of Oct. 14, 2016, file booking photos provided by the Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office in Wichita, Kan., shows from left, Patrick Stein, Curtis Allen and Gavin Wright, three members of a Kansas militia group who were charged with plotting to bomb an apartment building filled with Somali immigrants in Garden City, Kan. Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office via AP, File
WICHITA, Kan. — Three militia members convicted of taking part in a foiled plot to massacre Muslims in southwest Kansas were sentenced Friday to decades in prison during an emotional court hearing in which one of the targeted victims pleaded: “Pleasef don’t hate us.”
U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren sentenced Patrick Stein, the alleged ringleader, to 30 years in prison and Curtis Allen, who drafted a manifesto for the group, to 25 years. Gavin Wright, who authorities said helped make and test explosives at his mobile home business, received 26 years. The plot was foiled after another militia member alerted authorities.
Melgren dismissed defence attorneys’ request that he take into the account the divisive political atmosphere in which the men formed their plot to blow up a mosque and apartments housing Somali immigrants in the meatpacking town Garden City, about 220 miles (355 kilometres) west of Wichita, on the day after the 2016 election.
“We have extremely divisive elections because our system is to resolve those through elections and not violence,” Melgren said.
Stein’s attorneys have argued that he believed then-President Barack Obama would declare martial law and not recognize the validity of the election if Donald Trump won, forcing militias to step in. Stein’s attorneys noted that during the 2016 campaign, all three men read and shared Russian propaganda on their Facebook feed designed to sow discord in the U.S. political system.
Attorney Jim Pratt told the judge that for years Stein had immersed himself in right-wing media and commentators, who normalized hate. But Melgren was openly skeptical, telling Pratt: “Millions of people listen to this stuff — whether it comes from the left or the right.”
Prosecutors presented video testimony from some Somali immigrants who were the targets of the bombing. In one clip, Ifrah Farah pleaded: “Please don’t kill us. Please don’t hate us. We can’t hurt you.”
Allen, 51, choked up as he addressed the judge, prompting his attorney to step in and finish reading a prepared statement in which Allen offered “my sincere apologies” to anyone who was frightened and asked for their forgiveness. But Stein, 49, apologized only to his family and friends, and the judge noted when sentencing him that, unlike Allen, he had shown no remorse.
Wright, 53, apologized to the court, saying the plot is “not who I am.” He also apologized to the immigrants who lived at the apartment complex. The judge later said Wright’s courtroom statement showed he was still in denial about what he did, adding and he did not buy that there was any remorse on Wright’s part.
Melgren sentenced Stein to 30 years for conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and 10 years for conspiracy against civil rights. He sentenced Allen and Wright to 25 years for conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and 10 years for conspiracy against civil rights. Those sentences will run concurrently. Wright also got an additional year to be served consecutively for lying to law enforcement, bringing his total sentence to 26 years.
The judge told all three men that the planned attack was worse than the Oklahoma City bombing because the Garden City plot was motivated by hatreds of race, religion and national origin.
The Kansas plot was thwarted when militia member Dan Day tipped off authorities to escalating threats of violence. He testified at the men’s trial last year that Stein started recruiting others to kill Muslim immigrants after the June 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, by a gunman who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group.
Recordings that prosecutors played for jurors last April portrayed a damning picture of a splinter group of the militia Kansas Security Force that came to be known as “the Crusaders.”
Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker in a news release called the sentences “a significant victory against hate crimes and domestic terrorism.”
“These defendants planned to ruthlessly bomb an apartment complex and kill innocent people, simply because of who they are and how they worship,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said.
The sentencing hearings for the men came a day after two members of an Illinois militia known as the White Rabbits pleaded guilty in the 2017 bombing of a Minnesota mosque, admitting they hoped the attack would scare Muslims into leaving the U.S. No one was injured in that attack.
http://torontosun.com/news/crime/militia-members-get-decades-in-prison-in-kansas-bomb-plot
LEVY: City 'overwhelmed' by refugee claimants
Sue-Ann Levy
Published:
February 4, 2019
Updated:
February 4, 2019 9:05 PM EST
A sign on the front door of Sojourn House shelter is shown in Toronto on Tuesday Nov. 21, 2017. The City of Toronto is considering a re-brand of homeless shelter services, in an effort to combat NIMBYism and better reflect its evolving work. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Doug IvesDoug Ives / THE CANADIAN PRESS
A briefing note to Monday’s budget committee says Toronto can no longer accommodate an ongoing influx of refugees wanting to be housed in the city’s shelter system.
“Toronto’s shelter system is in immediate danger of being overwhelmed,” says the seven-page update from Paul Raftis, general manager of the city’s Shelter, Support and Housing department.
Raftis notes –as we’ve heard before — that an average of 18 new refugee claimants are seeking accommodation in city shelters daily and from the beginning of last September to the end of the year alone, 2,066 irregular migrants have turned up at Toronto’s shelters.
A Toronto homeless shelter. (Toronto Sun files)
Despite adding more than 2,500 shelter beds at the city’s own cost, there was a shelter wait list of 330 people as of Jan. 9.
The total cost to house, feed and provide supports to the refugees hit $67.1-million in 2017 and 2018. The feds have only reimbursed the city in fits and starts to the tune of $26-million.
As Raftis states, some of that money has come of out of city reserves — set aside to deal with other social service emergencies — and $60-plus million could have been used for “other services” that help the homeless and near-homeless find housing.
Besides reimbursing the remaining expenses outstanding from 2017 and 2018 — some $43-million — the city is looking for another $45-million in stable funding from the feds to deal with the costs in 2019.
Not one person on the budget committee asked a single question about this briefing note Monday.
That’s not at all surprising considering most of them would prefer to tune out the fact that the current shelter crisis is in large part because 40% of the beds are being occupied by the very refugees Prime Minister Justin Trudeau welcomed to Canada with open arms in January 2017 — with no plan to accommodate them.
That was a huge factor, together with the very public media conference that same month by many council members reiterating that Toronto is a Sanctuary City.
(FILES) This file photo taken on August 6, 2017 shows refugees waiting to be processed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police after crossing the Canada/US border near Hemmingford, Quebec. GEOFF ROBINS / AFP/Getty Images
Raftis notes that despite repeated requests by the city to the province and feds to adopt a regional strategy that would offload some of the refugee pressures outside of Toronto, not much has happened.
A federal “pilot” only housed five to 10 families beyond Toronto’s borders and now the feds refuse to go any further with a regional response unless the province joins the discussions. The province has said beyond the $3-million contribution it made to Toronto in May (for temporary housing in two college dorms) it will not “financially support” the housing of refugees.
LEVY: Group of mostly black gay activists hellbent on destroying Pride
LEVY: Taxpayers on the hook for $1.7 million severance bill
LEVY: City’s proposed 2019 budget signals another taxing year
So Trudeau and Border Security Minister Bill Blair have essentially hung Toronto out to dry.
As the briefing note states: “The city has effectively been left to shoulder the costs and to manage the continued influx of refugee claimants seeking shelter in a system that has reached a saturation point.”
SLevy@postmedia.com
http://torontosun.com/news/local-news/levy-city-overwhelmed-by-refugee-claimants
Sue-Ann Levy
Published:
February 4, 2019
Updated:
February 4, 2019 9:05 PM EST
A sign on the front door of Sojourn House shelter is shown in Toronto on Tuesday Nov. 21, 2017. The City of Toronto is considering a re-brand of homeless shelter services, in an effort to combat NIMBYism and better reflect its evolving work. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Doug IvesDoug Ives / THE CANADIAN PRESS
A briefing note to Monday’s budget committee says Toronto can no longer accommodate an ongoing influx of refugees wanting to be housed in the city’s shelter system.
“Toronto’s shelter system is in immediate danger of being overwhelmed,” says the seven-page update from Paul Raftis, general manager of the city’s Shelter, Support and Housing department.
Raftis notes –as we’ve heard before — that an average of 18 new refugee claimants are seeking accommodation in city shelters daily and from the beginning of last September to the end of the year alone, 2,066 irregular migrants have turned up at Toronto’s shelters.
A Toronto homeless shelter. (Toronto Sun files)
Despite adding more than 2,500 shelter beds at the city’s own cost, there was a shelter wait list of 330 people as of Jan. 9.
The total cost to house, feed and provide supports to the refugees hit $67.1-million in 2017 and 2018. The feds have only reimbursed the city in fits and starts to the tune of $26-million.
As Raftis states, some of that money has come of out of city reserves — set aside to deal with other social service emergencies — and $60-plus million could have been used for “other services” that help the homeless and near-homeless find housing.
Besides reimbursing the remaining expenses outstanding from 2017 and 2018 — some $43-million — the city is looking for another $45-million in stable funding from the feds to deal with the costs in 2019.
Not one person on the budget committee asked a single question about this briefing note Monday.
That’s not at all surprising considering most of them would prefer to tune out the fact that the current shelter crisis is in large part because 40% of the beds are being occupied by the very refugees Prime Minister Justin Trudeau welcomed to Canada with open arms in January 2017 — with no plan to accommodate them.
That was a huge factor, together with the very public media conference that same month by many council members reiterating that Toronto is a Sanctuary City.
(FILES) This file photo taken on August 6, 2017 shows refugees waiting to be processed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police after crossing the Canada/US border near Hemmingford, Quebec. GEOFF ROBINS / AFP/Getty Images
Raftis notes that despite repeated requests by the city to the province and feds to adopt a regional strategy that would offload some of the refugee pressures outside of Toronto, not much has happened.
A federal “pilot” only housed five to 10 families beyond Toronto’s borders and now the feds refuse to go any further with a regional response unless the province joins the discussions. The province has said beyond the $3-million contribution it made to Toronto in May (for temporary housing in two college dorms) it will not “financially support” the housing of refugees.
LEVY: Group of mostly black gay activists hellbent on destroying Pride
LEVY: Taxpayers on the hook for $1.7 million severance bill
LEVY: City’s proposed 2019 budget signals another taxing year
So Trudeau and Border Security Minister Bill Blair have essentially hung Toronto out to dry.
As the briefing note states: “The city has effectively been left to shoulder the costs and to manage the continued influx of refugee claimants seeking shelter in a system that has reached a saturation point.”
SLevy@postmedia.com
http://torontosun.com/news/local-news/levy-city-overwhelmed-by-refugee-claimants
LEVY: Yonge St. building to house refugee overflow?
Sue-Ann Levy
Published:
February 5, 2019
Updated:
February 5, 2019 7:03 PM EST
A group of women watch their children outside the Radisson hotel at Hwy 401 and Victoria Park Ave. in North York on Tuesday. (Jack Boland/Toronto Sun)
City shelter officials have squirreled away $3-million in the 2019 budget for a north Toronto building to house refugees, the Toronto Sun has learned.
The item — the last line in the staff-recommended list of new and enhanced budget priorities for 2019 — is described as the costs to transition motel clients to 5800 Yonge St.
According to reports, that 8.1-acre site — situated north of Finch Ave. — was the former North York hydro building and was sold to a Markham-based condo developer last April.
Shelter, support and housing spokesman Greg Seraganian says the owner of the property approached the city to assist with its refugee response and is being held as a “contingency space.”
LEVY: Street count proves refugees taking huge toll on shelters
‘IT’S NOT FAIR’: Tory wants help dealing with refugees
He said it will be used if the influx of refugees increases at a “rate which cannot be accommodated through other programs.”
Seraganian said the $3-million is for operating costs for the shelter should there be a need to use it.
“Should there be a need to activate this site, the appropriate notice to and information sessions with the community would be provided,” he added.
The likelihood of needing the building appears to be increasing each and every day.
As reported in Tuesday’s Toronto Sun, a seven-page briefing note from Seraganian’s boss, SSHA general manager Paul Raftis, to the budget committee warns that Toronto’s shelter is in “immediate danger of being overwhelmed.”
Raftis reports that an average of 18 new refugee claimants seek shelter in the city’s hostel system daily and there’s a wait list of 330 people, despite the addition of more than 2,500 shelter beds at the city’s own cost in the past two years.
The city spent $67.1-million in 2017 and 2018 to feed, house and provide minimal supports to refugees.
To date the feds have only reimbursed $26-million of that.
The city says it needs $45-million in stable funding from the feds this year to manage the influx.
Raftis also notes that despite calls to the province and the feds to develop a regional strategy that would offload some of the refugees to towns and cities outside of Toronto, the city has been essentially hung out to dry.
Not one person on the budget committee or any councillor who attended Tuesday’s meeting asked any questions about the dire refugee situation or about the $3-million budget item.
SLevy@postmedia.com
http://torontosun.com/news/local-news/yonge-st-building-to-house-refugee-overflow
Sue-Ann Levy
Published:
February 5, 2019
Updated:
February 5, 2019 7:03 PM EST
A group of women watch their children outside the Radisson hotel at Hwy 401 and Victoria Park Ave. in North York on Tuesday. (Jack Boland/Toronto Sun)
City shelter officials have squirreled away $3-million in the 2019 budget for a north Toronto building to house refugees, the Toronto Sun has learned.
The item — the last line in the staff-recommended list of new and enhanced budget priorities for 2019 — is described as the costs to transition motel clients to 5800 Yonge St.
According to reports, that 8.1-acre site — situated north of Finch Ave. — was the former North York hydro building and was sold to a Markham-based condo developer last April.
Shelter, support and housing spokesman Greg Seraganian says the owner of the property approached the city to assist with its refugee response and is being held as a “contingency space.”
LEVY: Street count proves refugees taking huge toll on shelters
‘IT’S NOT FAIR’: Tory wants help dealing with refugees
He said it will be used if the influx of refugees increases at a “rate which cannot be accommodated through other programs.”
Seraganian said the $3-million is for operating costs for the shelter should there be a need to use it.
“Should there be a need to activate this site, the appropriate notice to and information sessions with the community would be provided,” he added.
The likelihood of needing the building appears to be increasing each and every day.
As reported in Tuesday’s Toronto Sun, a seven-page briefing note from Seraganian’s boss, SSHA general manager Paul Raftis, to the budget committee warns that Toronto’s shelter is in “immediate danger of being overwhelmed.”
Raftis reports that an average of 18 new refugee claimants seek shelter in the city’s hostel system daily and there’s a wait list of 330 people, despite the addition of more than 2,500 shelter beds at the city’s own cost in the past two years.
The city spent $67.1-million in 2017 and 2018 to feed, house and provide minimal supports to refugees.
To date the feds have only reimbursed $26-million of that.
The city says it needs $45-million in stable funding from the feds this year to manage the influx.
Raftis also notes that despite calls to the province and the feds to develop a regional strategy that would offload some of the refugees to towns and cities outside of Toronto, the city has been essentially hung out to dry.
Not one person on the budget committee or any councillor who attended Tuesday’s meeting asked any questions about the dire refugee situation or about the $3-million budget item.
SLevy@postmedia.com
http://torontosun.com/news/local-news/yonge-st-building-to-house-refugee-overflow
Federal officials dealing with backlog of refugee security screens: Bill Blair
Canadian Press
Published:
February 5, 2019
Updated:
February 5, 2019 10:40 PM EST
Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction Bill Blair stands during question period in the House of Commons in West Block on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2019.Sean Kilpatrick / THE CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA — Canada’s border-security minister says there is a backlog in the screening of asylum seekers, including those who are considered irregular border-crossers walking into the country from the United States, but it doesn’t constitute a security problem.
Internal government documents obtained by lawyer Richard Kurland under the federal access-to-information law show that as of Feb. 28, 2018, there were 11,745 asylum-seekers waiting for second security screenings, up from 1,683 just two years earlier — an increase of about 700 per cent.
All those in the queue had already been screened once at the border to see whether they posed clear security threats.
LEVY: Street count proves refugees taking huge toll on Toronto shelters
LILLEY: Trudeau math doesn’t add up when funding illegal border crossers
LILLEY: Time for feds to pay costs for illegal border crossers
LILLEY: Grits have no clue what to do about illegal border crossers
MALCOLM: The latest Liberal fearmongering – Conservatives will ‘militarize the border’?!
Overall, 41 per cent of the backlog cases were refugee claimants “who are already in Canada but who have not been security screened,” Canada Border Services Agency officials wrote in a presentation outlining why things were so backed up, and who was stuck in it.
The Toronto Star first reported the details, which lit a political fire in the House of Commons’ daily question period.
Border Security Minister Bill Blair said officials check all asylum-seekers at the border and stressed “there is no security threat to Canadians.”
He said there is a backlog for the second checks, but didn’t say how many people are in it now.
“As part of the process of determining their eligibility for asylum … there is an additional screening that takes place,” Blair said.
“We are working hard to deal with the backlog that they left to us,” he said, referring to the previous Conservative government, “and we will complete that process before anyone is eligible for refugee status in our country.”
The answer didn’t sit well with Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel, who questioned how Blair can say there are no security threats if the people involved had yet to go through the full screening process.
“One could argue that it would be difficult to evaluate if someone posed a security risk to Canada if their security screening was not completed,” Rempel said.
Everyone who comes across the border is screened upon arrival and given a biometric scan to check against data held by some of Canada’s allies, such as the United States, to see if the person has any flags on his or her file.
Refugee claimants who pass the first test are admitted into the country, and then undergo a secondary screen involving the Mounties and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to see if there is anything in their past that could render them ineligible.
The total backlog of cases one year ago, including applications for temporary and permanent residency, stood at 28,467, up from 5,419 in 2016, for an increase of 525 per cent, the documents say. And applicants waited an average of 72 days for the secondary screens to be completed.
The longest wait time as of February 2018 was 872 days.
Kurland said it’s problematic that the security screening process continues after people have entered Canada. Pointing to the documents, Kurland noted some claimants who don’t raise immediate alarms can have “extensive criminal history for theft.” That’s the sort of thing the initial check isn’t designed to detect.
“These people wait in security backlog in larger numbers and for longer periods of time. Why?” said Kurland, a lawyer with the firm Kurland, Tobe. “We know there are bad people. Do we save money by letting more bad people spend even longer periods of time in our streets because we have a growing backlog of security cases, or do we spend the money now to reduce the security backlog?”
http://torontosun.com/news/national/officials-dealing-with-backlog-of-refugee-security-screens-blair
Canadian Press
Published:
February 5, 2019
Updated:
February 5, 2019 10:40 PM EST
Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction Bill Blair stands during question period in the House of Commons in West Block on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2019.Sean Kilpatrick / THE CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA — Canada’s border-security minister says there is a backlog in the screening of asylum seekers, including those who are considered irregular border-crossers walking into the country from the United States, but it doesn’t constitute a security problem.
Internal government documents obtained by lawyer Richard Kurland under the federal access-to-information law show that as of Feb. 28, 2018, there were 11,745 asylum-seekers waiting for second security screenings, up from 1,683 just two years earlier — an increase of about 700 per cent.
All those in the queue had already been screened once at the border to see whether they posed clear security threats.
LEVY: Street count proves refugees taking huge toll on Toronto shelters
LILLEY: Trudeau math doesn’t add up when funding illegal border crossers
LILLEY: Time for feds to pay costs for illegal border crossers
LILLEY: Grits have no clue what to do about illegal border crossers
MALCOLM: The latest Liberal fearmongering – Conservatives will ‘militarize the border’?!
Overall, 41 per cent of the backlog cases were refugee claimants “who are already in Canada but who have not been security screened,” Canada Border Services Agency officials wrote in a presentation outlining why things were so backed up, and who was stuck in it.
The Toronto Star first reported the details, which lit a political fire in the House of Commons’ daily question period.
Border Security Minister Bill Blair said officials check all asylum-seekers at the border and stressed “there is no security threat to Canadians.”
He said there is a backlog for the second checks, but didn’t say how many people are in it now.
“As part of the process of determining their eligibility for asylum … there is an additional screening that takes place,” Blair said.
“We are working hard to deal with the backlog that they left to us,” he said, referring to the previous Conservative government, “and we will complete that process before anyone is eligible for refugee status in our country.”
The answer didn’t sit well with Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel, who questioned how Blair can say there are no security threats if the people involved had yet to go through the full screening process.
“One could argue that it would be difficult to evaluate if someone posed a security risk to Canada if their security screening was not completed,” Rempel said.
Everyone who comes across the border is screened upon arrival and given a biometric scan to check against data held by some of Canada’s allies, such as the United States, to see if the person has any flags on his or her file.
Refugee claimants who pass the first test are admitted into the country, and then undergo a secondary screen involving the Mounties and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to see if there is anything in their past that could render them ineligible.
The total backlog of cases one year ago, including applications for temporary and permanent residency, stood at 28,467, up from 5,419 in 2016, for an increase of 525 per cent, the documents say. And applicants waited an average of 72 days for the secondary screens to be completed.
The longest wait time as of February 2018 was 872 days.
Kurland said it’s problematic that the security screening process continues after people have entered Canada. Pointing to the documents, Kurland noted some claimants who don’t raise immediate alarms can have “extensive criminal history for theft.” That’s the sort of thing the initial check isn’t designed to detect.
“These people wait in security backlog in larger numbers and for longer periods of time. Why?” said Kurland, a lawyer with the firm Kurland, Tobe. “We know there are bad people. Do we save money by letting more bad people spend even longer periods of time in our streets because we have a growing backlog of security cases, or do we spend the money now to reduce the security backlog?”
http://torontosun.com/news/national/officials-dealing-with-backlog-of-refugee-security-screens-blair
LILLEY: Internal report shows illegal border crossers not fully screened for security
Brian Lilley
Published:
February 5, 2019
Updated:
February 5, 2019 7:59 PM EST
Wearing her gold high-stop sneakers, Lena Gunja, 10, originally from Congo and who had been living in Portland, Maine, follows her family as they approach an unofficial border crossing with Quebec while walking down Roxham Road in Champlain, N.Y., Monday, Aug. 7, 2017. "In Trump's country they want to put us back to our country," said Gunja. "So we don't want that to happen to us so. We want a good life for us. My mother, she wants a good life for us." (AP Photo/Charles Krupa) ORG XMIT: NYCK105
The claim from the government is that Canadians don’t need to worry about the more than 40,000 people that have crossed the border illegally over the past two years because everyone is screened and vetted.
Well, it turns out that is only kinda true.
An internal government document released under access to information laws shows that as of a year ago, there was a backlog of nearly 30,000 people that had not been fully security screened.
“More than 40% of all backlog cases are refugee claimants who are already in Canada but have not been security screened,” the document from the Canada Border Services Agency said.
That 40% amounts to 11,745 refugee claimants.
Surely that number has grown since February 28, 2018.
And the government can’t deny that this is a direct result of the illegal border crossers coming across at Roxham Rd where Quebec and New York State meet, because the number of refugee claimants in the backlog has grown in lock-step with those arrivals.
At the end of February 2016, CBSA had a security screening backlog of 5,419 cases — of those 1,683 were refugee claimants.
Two years and a Justin Trudeau tweet later, the backlog for refugee claimants is over 11,000.
The government continually says the illegal border crossers don’t put any strain on the system — a claim they made about the CBSA in the House of Commons on Monday.
Clearly there is a strain, or the backlog would not be where it is.
The government has been shifting hundreds of agents in and out of southern Quebec to deal with this issue.
They’ve done the same with RCMP officers and bureaucrats from other departments.
And even with all of that, they can’t keep up — something the department admits in this 33 page internal presentation.
“Factors leading to extended times in the backlog include scheer volume of referrals, incomplete referrals, and a lack of system functionality to close some referrals as ‘unable to security screen,’” the document states.
So while the politicians say there is nothing to worry about, no problems, everything is working fine, the bureaucrats own internal reports state that the “sheer volume” is a problem.
This isn’t the only report showing a strain on the system that politicians want to ignore.
A different report from bureaucrats released to Toronto City Council’s budget committee on Monday said that the city’s shelter system was “overwhelmed” by refugee claimants.
When that report was tabled, not a single politician or official asked a question about the strain on the system, they simply want to look away.
FUREY: Someone has to say it – it’s time to build a wall at Roxham Rd.
Undocumented immigrants get help fleeing Trump’s America to Canada
LILLEY: CBSA arrest of alleged human smuggler proves Grits have no clue what to do about illegal border crossers
The presentation says most applicants are low risk, this is of course speaking of all applicants in the backlog which includes applicants for permanent residency and temporary stays.
The document points to a “0.2% non-favourable” rate.
If just 0.2% of the 11,745 refugee claimants were deemed inadmissible due to their completed security screening, that would amount to 235 people.
That could be 235 habitual thieves, or rapists, or terrorists.
We simply don’t know — and neither does CBSA.
“Canadians are justifiably concerned about these revelations,” said Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel.
“They expect the system to adequately screen those seeking to enter the country and their confidence in that system is shaken every time they learn that it has failed.”
Immigration lawyer Richard Kurland, the man who obtained the internal document and released it to the media, said he believes that the worst-of-the-worst, like terrorists and war criminals, are still kept out with the initial — though incomplete — security screening, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t facing the prospect of letting in people we shouldn’t.
“The political decision is that Canada will save money by taking more risk,” Kurland said.
Is that good enough for Canadians?
Is that what the government promised?
The answer to both of these questions is no.
Throughout this border debacle that Trudeau created he has maintained that the system is working and Canadians are safe.
We now know that isn’t true.
http://torontosun.com/news/national...rder-crossers-not-fully-screened-for-security
Brian Lilley
Published:
February 5, 2019
Updated:
February 5, 2019 7:59 PM EST
Wearing her gold high-stop sneakers, Lena Gunja, 10, originally from Congo and who had been living in Portland, Maine, follows her family as they approach an unofficial border crossing with Quebec while walking down Roxham Road in Champlain, N.Y., Monday, Aug. 7, 2017. "In Trump's country they want to put us back to our country," said Gunja. "So we don't want that to happen to us so. We want a good life for us. My mother, she wants a good life for us." (AP Photo/Charles Krupa) ORG XMIT: NYCK105
The claim from the government is that Canadians don’t need to worry about the more than 40,000 people that have crossed the border illegally over the past two years because everyone is screened and vetted.
Well, it turns out that is only kinda true.
An internal government document released under access to information laws shows that as of a year ago, there was a backlog of nearly 30,000 people that had not been fully security screened.
“More than 40% of all backlog cases are refugee claimants who are already in Canada but have not been security screened,” the document from the Canada Border Services Agency said.
That 40% amounts to 11,745 refugee claimants.
Surely that number has grown since February 28, 2018.
And the government can’t deny that this is a direct result of the illegal border crossers coming across at Roxham Rd where Quebec and New York State meet, because the number of refugee claimants in the backlog has grown in lock-step with those arrivals.
At the end of February 2016, CBSA had a security screening backlog of 5,419 cases — of those 1,683 were refugee claimants.
Two years and a Justin Trudeau tweet later, the backlog for refugee claimants is over 11,000.
The government continually says the illegal border crossers don’t put any strain on the system — a claim they made about the CBSA in the House of Commons on Monday.
Clearly there is a strain, or the backlog would not be where it is.
The government has been shifting hundreds of agents in and out of southern Quebec to deal with this issue.
They’ve done the same with RCMP officers and bureaucrats from other departments.
And even with all of that, they can’t keep up — something the department admits in this 33 page internal presentation.
“Factors leading to extended times in the backlog include scheer volume of referrals, incomplete referrals, and a lack of system functionality to close some referrals as ‘unable to security screen,’” the document states.
So while the politicians say there is nothing to worry about, no problems, everything is working fine, the bureaucrats own internal reports state that the “sheer volume” is a problem.
This isn’t the only report showing a strain on the system that politicians want to ignore.
A different report from bureaucrats released to Toronto City Council’s budget committee on Monday said that the city’s shelter system was “overwhelmed” by refugee claimants.
When that report was tabled, not a single politician or official asked a question about the strain on the system, they simply want to look away.
FUREY: Someone has to say it – it’s time to build a wall at Roxham Rd.
Undocumented immigrants get help fleeing Trump’s America to Canada
LILLEY: CBSA arrest of alleged human smuggler proves Grits have no clue what to do about illegal border crossers
The presentation says most applicants are low risk, this is of course speaking of all applicants in the backlog which includes applicants for permanent residency and temporary stays.
The document points to a “0.2% non-favourable” rate.
If just 0.2% of the 11,745 refugee claimants were deemed inadmissible due to their completed security screening, that would amount to 235 people.
That could be 235 habitual thieves, or rapists, or terrorists.
We simply don’t know — and neither does CBSA.
“Canadians are justifiably concerned about these revelations,” said Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel.
“They expect the system to adequately screen those seeking to enter the country and their confidence in that system is shaken every time they learn that it has failed.”
Immigration lawyer Richard Kurland, the man who obtained the internal document and released it to the media, said he believes that the worst-of-the-worst, like terrorists and war criminals, are still kept out with the initial — though incomplete — security screening, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t facing the prospect of letting in people we shouldn’t.
“The political decision is that Canada will save money by taking more risk,” Kurland said.
Is that good enough for Canadians?
Is that what the government promised?
The answer to both of these questions is no.
Throughout this border debacle that Trudeau created he has maintained that the system is working and Canadians are safe.
We now know that isn’t true.
http://torontosun.com/news/national...rder-crossers-not-fully-screened-for-security
Of course they're not screened properly. The Trudeau Regime has done nothing but lie to the Canadian people.
THE REFUGEE EFFECT: Levy sounds off on how it's impacting our city's homeless
Stan Behal
Published:
February 6, 2019
Updated:
February 6, 2019 1:40 PM EST
WATCH ABOVE as Sun Columnist Sue-Ann Levy slams Prime Minister Justin Trudeau refugee policy that is overwhelming our social services.
What do YOU think?
Tweet and Facebook us!
And don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube Channel.
http://torontosun.com/news/national...s-off-on-how-its-impacting-our-citys-homeless
Stan Behal
Published:
February 6, 2019
Updated:
February 6, 2019 1:40 PM EST
WATCH ABOVE as Sun Columnist Sue-Ann Levy slams Prime Minister Justin Trudeau refugee policy that is overwhelming our social services.
What do YOU think?
Tweet and Facebook us!
And don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube Channel.
Hundreds of ex-slaves in Libya coming to Canada: Immigration minister
Canadian Press
Published:
February 6, 2019
Updated:
February 6, 2019 5:34 PM EST
Ahmed Hussen, the federal minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, speaks during a press conference in Halifax on Monday, July 9, 2018.Michael Tutton / The Canadian Press
OTTAWA — More than a year after the United Nations asked countries to take in refugees living in slavery in Libya, Canada has begun resettling hundreds of them, the UN and the federal government said Wednesday.
Canada was one of the few countries to respond to a request from the United Nations refugee agency in December 2017 to take the refugees who were living in detention centres in Libya, said Michael Casasola, the head of resettlement for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Ottawa.
“It can take some time for the countries to do their selection because it was a voluntary act. So they want to screen. They go through their usual selection processes,” said Casasola. “That can take time.”
More than 150 people have been resettled and another 600 more are expected over the next two years through the regular refugee settlement program, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said Wednesday.
Canada is also planning to take in 100 refugees from Niger who were rescued from Libyan migrant detention centres, including victims of human smuggling, he added.
That was also helpful because Niger has been pressuring the UN to find new homes for the refugees it has taken in, said Casasola.
“What Canada has done in addition to being part of the pool of cases in Libya, they’re actually taking refugees out of Niger directly, which is something that helps us get some space with the local government too,” he said.
Libya is a major stopping point for asylum-seekers from Africa who intend to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe. A video of what appeared to be smugglers selling imprisoned migrants near Tripoli became public in 2017, prompting world leaders to start talking about freeing migrants detained in Libyan camps.
Hussen revealed the resettlement plan on Monday night at an event in Ottawa to celebrate Black History Month, but provided few details.
The minister told the gathering that Canada was asked by the UN to “rescue” people who have “endured unimaginable trauma.”
The Mediterranean Sea crossing from north Africa to Europe’s southern coast has been a perilous one for migrants fleeing violence and instability.
Last month, the United Nations Migration Agency reported that 5,757 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea through the first 27 days of 2019, an increase over the 5,502 who arrived during the same period last year. The death toll dropped slightly, to 207 this year compared with 242 deaths in the same period of 2018.
The influx of migrants into Europe has sparked a backlash. Italy’s populist government does not allow ships to bring migrants to its shores, as part of an effort to force other European Union countries to share the burden of dealing with arrivals.
“As Canada takes more refugees, including Libyan refugees, it is important to remind other countries of their own commitments under the 1951 Refugee Convention and the need to respect the principle of responsibility sharing, which is one of the new norms of the refugee compact which Canada and other countries have just signed,” said Fen Hampson, the executive director of the Canadian-led World Refugee Council.
The council, a coalition of international experts and former politicians, was formed to provide solutions to the global migration crisis, which was recently addressed by the United Nations Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.
Last week, a coalition of aid organizations from several European countries condemned the politicking in Europe around migrants.
“Since January 2018, at least 2,500 women, children and men have drowned in the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, EU leaders have allowed themselves to become complicit in the tragedy unfolding before their eyes,” their open letter said. “Every time a ship brings people who have just been rescued to a European port, EU governments engage in painful, drawn-out debates about where the ship can disembark and which countries can host the survivors and process their asylum applications.”
The Canadian initiative with the Libyans follows recent resettlements of about 1,000 Yazidi refugees from Iraq and 40,000 Syrians, threatened by Islamic State militants and Syrian forces.
http://torontosun.com/news/national...n-libya-coming-to-canada-immigration-minister
Canadian Press
Published:
February 6, 2019
Updated:
February 6, 2019 5:34 PM EST
Ahmed Hussen, the federal minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, speaks during a press conference in Halifax on Monday, July 9, 2018.Michael Tutton / The Canadian Press
OTTAWA — More than a year after the United Nations asked countries to take in refugees living in slavery in Libya, Canada has begun resettling hundreds of them, the UN and the federal government said Wednesday.
Canada was one of the few countries to respond to a request from the United Nations refugee agency in December 2017 to take the refugees who were living in detention centres in Libya, said Michael Casasola, the head of resettlement for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Ottawa.
“It can take some time for the countries to do their selection because it was a voluntary act. So they want to screen. They go through their usual selection processes,” said Casasola. “That can take time.”
More than 150 people have been resettled and another 600 more are expected over the next two years through the regular refugee settlement program, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said Wednesday.
Canada is also planning to take in 100 refugees from Niger who were rescued from Libyan migrant detention centres, including victims of human smuggling, he added.
That was also helpful because Niger has been pressuring the UN to find new homes for the refugees it has taken in, said Casasola.
“What Canada has done in addition to being part of the pool of cases in Libya, they’re actually taking refugees out of Niger directly, which is something that helps us get some space with the local government too,” he said.
Libya is a major stopping point for asylum-seekers from Africa who intend to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe. A video of what appeared to be smugglers selling imprisoned migrants near Tripoli became public in 2017, prompting world leaders to start talking about freeing migrants detained in Libyan camps.
Hussen revealed the resettlement plan on Monday night at an event in Ottawa to celebrate Black History Month, but provided few details.
The minister told the gathering that Canada was asked by the UN to “rescue” people who have “endured unimaginable trauma.”
The Mediterranean Sea crossing from north Africa to Europe’s southern coast has been a perilous one for migrants fleeing violence and instability.
Last month, the United Nations Migration Agency reported that 5,757 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea through the first 27 days of 2019, an increase over the 5,502 who arrived during the same period last year. The death toll dropped slightly, to 207 this year compared with 242 deaths in the same period of 2018.
The influx of migrants into Europe has sparked a backlash. Italy’s populist government does not allow ships to bring migrants to its shores, as part of an effort to force other European Union countries to share the burden of dealing with arrivals.
“As Canada takes more refugees, including Libyan refugees, it is important to remind other countries of their own commitments under the 1951 Refugee Convention and the need to respect the principle of responsibility sharing, which is one of the new norms of the refugee compact which Canada and other countries have just signed,” said Fen Hampson, the executive director of the Canadian-led World Refugee Council.
The council, a coalition of international experts and former politicians, was formed to provide solutions to the global migration crisis, which was recently addressed by the United Nations Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.
Last week, a coalition of aid organizations from several European countries condemned the politicking in Europe around migrants.
“Since January 2018, at least 2,500 women, children and men have drowned in the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, EU leaders have allowed themselves to become complicit in the tragedy unfolding before their eyes,” their open letter said. “Every time a ship brings people who have just been rescued to a European port, EU governments engage in painful, drawn-out debates about where the ship can disembark and which countries can host the survivors and process their asylum applications.”
The Canadian initiative with the Libyans follows recent resettlements of about 1,000 Yazidi refugees from Iraq and 40,000 Syrians, threatened by Islamic State militants and Syrian forces.
http://torontosun.com/news/national...n-libya-coming-to-canada-immigration-minister