Montreal’s Olympic Stadium to house asylum seekers, flocking from US to Canada

So many asylum seekers are crossing into Canada from the United States that Montreal’s Olympic Stadium has been opened to house them.

The first groups were bused to the stadium Wednesday. Cots are set up in the windowless, domed facility. The mainly Haitian migrants will stay until they get government financial assistance.

Francine Dupuis, head of a Quebec government-funded program that helps asylum seekers, said a maximum of 450 people will be housed temporarily. She said her organisation helped 448 people in June and 1,174 in July, far more than previously.

“We are really stretched, really stretched,” Dupuis said. “It’s much more than we have ever seen.”

Ninety per cent are Haitians. The US is weighing ending a program that granted Haitians “temporary protected status” after Haiti’s 2010 devastating earthquake. If the program isn’t extended, as many as 60,000 Haitians in the United States could be sent back to their homeland.

“They think the Trump administration will fly them back to Haiti and they don’t want to take a chance,” Dupuis said.

Dupuis said the YMCA and shelters are already full. She said the stadium has agreed to house up to 450 people for a few months but can’t take more because they have other activities at the stadium.