Asylum seekers fleeing the US into Canada triple

Under Trump, migrants are risking their lives to flee the United States

As President Donald Trump continues to crack down immigrants and refugees coming to the United States, a new wave of migrants are making a dangerous journey — to flee the US rather than enter it.

Last month, refugees crossing the border from the U.S. into Canada and and then claiming asylum nearly tripled compared with February 2016, according to data obtained by the Washington Post from the Canada Border Services agency.

The stories of this crossing are harrowing. Refugees, many of whom have just arrived in the United States, risk their lives in freezing temperatures to cross the border, often arriving frostbitten and hungry. Several weeks ago, 22 asylum seekers left North Dakota to cross into the Canadian state of Manitoba, arriving in a tiny town of just 700. The migrants primarily came from Ghana and Somalia, which is one of the countries affected by Trump’s travel ban.

A primary reason asylum seekers choose to cross the border illegally rather than enter Canada from an official entry is because the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement states that refugees seeking protection must make a claim in the first country in which they arrive. If they’ve already applied as a refugee in the U.S., they will be turned away at the Canadian border, unless they qualify for the exceptions.

In February, the number of people detained or stopped while crossing the Mexico-U.S. border dropped by 36 percent from the previous February, the lowest number the Customs and Border Protection has recorded in almost two decades. The dramatic decrease suggests that fewer people are attempting to cross the border from Mexico into the U.S. — likely in response to the Trump administrations actions or rhetoric.

SOURCE: Vocativ

 

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