Refugee claimants flee to Canada from US, testing compassion and resources on a snowy border

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A asylum seeker who told police that she and her family were from Sudan is taken into custody by Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers after arriving by taxi and walking across the US-Canada border into Hemmingford, Quebec, on February 12. Photo: Reuters

Published: 9:47am, 21 Feb 2017Updated: 10:01pm, 21 Feb 2017

Canadian police said on Monday they had bolstered their presence at the Quebec-US border and that border authorities had created a temporary refugee centre to process a growing number of asylum seekers crossing from the United States.

The Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA, said at a news conference that it had converted an unused basement into a refugee claimant processing centre. Both the border agency and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are reassigning staff from other locations in the province, as needed, to accommodate rising demand.

The CBSA said the number of people making refugee claims at Quebec-US border crossings more than doubled from 2015 to 2016. Last month, 452 people made claims in Quebec compared with 137 in January 2016, the agency said.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers assist a child from a family that claimed to be from Sudan as they walk across the US-Canada border into Hemmingford, Canada, on February 17. Photo: Reuters

The influx is straining police, federal government and community resources from the western prairie province of Manitoba, where people arrive frostbitten from hours walking in freezing conditions, to Quebec, where cabs drop asylum seekers off metres away from the Quebec-USborder, the border agency said.

Canadian Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen’s office did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.

A family from Yemen crosses the US-Canada border into Hemmingford, Quebec, on February 14. Photo: Reuters

A reporter on Monday saw RCMP officers take in for questioning a family of four - two men, a woman and a baby in a car seat - who had walked across the snowy gully dividing Roxham Road in Champlain, New York, from Chemin Roxham in Hemmingford, Quebec.