Illegal immigration to Canada
The use of the term irregular or illegal is disputed when referring to the act of crossing the Canada–United States border outside of a point of entry (POE) to claim asylum.
[1] The Conservative Party of Canada, in contrast, use the term illegal, with the justification that entering outside of a port of entry is a violation of the Customs Act.
It provides officers of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) with the authority to detain permanent residents and foreign nationals if any of the individuals have violated the rulings of the Act.
[9] As clarified by James Hathaway, founding director of the University of Michigan's program in refugee and asylum law, "If someone a) comes forward voluntarily, and b) explains that the reason they crossed the border illegally was they were looking for protection, it's clear as a bell: You may not under any circumstance penalize them".
[10] Asylum seekers would be considered in violation of the IRPA if they cross at an unofficial border point, do not promptly go to a port of entry, and do not file a refugee claim.
François Legault, then leader of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), said in August 2017 that the federal government was being "completely irresponsible" and allowing the border to become a "sieve".
Quebec premier Philippe Couillard criticized Legault's calls for tighter border controls as intemperate, saying they demonstrated "a sheer lack of leadership.
"[11] Quebec's Official Opposition, the Parti Québécois, had also raised questions about the province's capacity to absorb the refugee influx, but had not gone as far as Legault had in calling for a more restrictive border policy.
[12] All the province's other party heads condemned the suggestion,[13] as well as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which called it "legally and morally wrong".
[13] His proposal was echoed by Toronto Sun columnist Anthony Furey a month later, who went further, suggesting an actual wall at the site for a few years.
Haitians dropped to 585, roughly a tenth of their 2017 total; the planned revocation of TPS late in 2017 was stayed pending litigation and almost a year later a U.S. federal judge enjoined the Trump administration from doing so.
Quebec saw 75% of the resulting crossings from the US for Canada, and Programme régional d’accueil et d’intégration des demandeurs d’asile (PRAIDA) helped 1,174 asylum seekers in July 2017 compared to the 180 people during the previous year.
In 2007, in Quebec that statistic reached a level of 70% whereby individuals stated that "reasonable accommodations" should be made for illegal immigrants rather than simply deporting them.
Six in ten respondents also told the firm that Canada is "too generous" toward would-be refugees, a spike of 5% since the question was asked a year earlier.
