Posted on 09/19/2007 5:07:07 PM PDT by Pikamax
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
For 15 years, Manuel Ortega was living his version of the American Dream in Florida.
He had steady employment, sometimes working as a detailer for local car dealers, other times as a forklift driver. He earned enough to buy a van and rent a house for his wife and three children. His kids earned good grades in school and played with the family pet, a Shih Tzu named Chaparro (Shorty). They were safe and kept out of trouble.
Ortega's dream, as he recounted it Tuesday standing outside a room at a Windsor motel, is now but a memory. He is one of an estimated 180 Mexicans from Florida who've rushed across the border and into Windsor to claim refugee status, fleeing a crackdown on illegal aliens in Florida.
Local agencies that work with refugees have been told to brace for 4,000 to 8,000 refugee claimants.
Every single day this month, Mexican nationals who have been living illegally in Florida -- some for a dozen years or more -- are turning up at the Windsor-Detroit border seeking refugee status. The first group arrived at the YMCA on Aug. 28.
"They've been coming steadily ever since," said Jacquie Rumiel, director of programs for new Canadians at the YMCA.
The Ortegas left Naples, Fla. and say all they ask for in Canada is "a chance," said the father.
"Give us a chance to show what kind of people we are," the 39-year-old said. "We don't be afraid to work. We don't be afraid to start again. We need the chance, please, to do that."
Ortega said his fear of being deported to Mexico intensified within the past three months as immigration officials became more visible on the streets and the incidents of deportation of his acquaintances increased.
When his American neighbour threatened to report him to authorities, he told his family to pack-up. They simply couldn't risk returning to Mexico, where he says he fears the powerful drug cartels, corrupt government and poor living conditions.
"We don't have a future in Mexico," Ortega's 36-year-old wife said, noting her brother and his family also fled to Windsor fearing deportation. "We can't go back."
After driving his 1996 Grand Caravan for 24 hours without stopping -- except for gas and food -- the Ortegas arrived at the Windsor tunnel Sept. 11. When they told the border guard they were seeking refugee status, the Ortegas were given a list of social services organizations to contact for support.
The Y is one of the first stops for asylum seekers. The settlement program there directs new immigrants to legal help, housing and other programs.
It's hard to get a firm figure on the numbers who have arrived recently. While 120 have crossed the Y's threshold, the city's social services department, which is in daily contact with the Canada Border Services Agency, thinks the number is closer to 180. But the Salvation Army thinks the real number could be into the hundreds.
The Salvation Army has put up 50 families -- some with five, seven and nine children each -- at four city hotels. Their bills, including meals, are being sent directly to the city's social services department. Another 30 single men are sleeping and getting hot meals at the Salvation Army Church Street shelter.
"We are being inundated with them," said Maj. Wilfred Harbin, Salvation Army administrator. Like others in the city, he has heard that up to 7,000 Mexicans seeking refugee status could be headed this way.
"What are we going to do with them? We're running out of beds."
In fact, said Harbin, all the beds are filled. A handful of men are sleeping on mats on the gymnasium floor of the building. "Maybe the military can help us," said Harbin, unable to think of where else he could get a shipment of cots in a hurry.
Salvation Army hostel supervisor Marlene Dufault said she believes the U.S. crackdown on illegal immigrants has led to the influx of Mexicans at our border. She said a church group in Naples has been charging the asylum seekers $400 a head, promising them there will be jobs awaiting them here.
The Canadian Council for Refugees sent out an alert Tuesday in response to what it calls an "urgent" situation.
According to the national non-profit group that acts as an umbrella organization for agencies that help refugee claimants, there are "fraudulent advisers in the United States endangering asylum seekers" by telling them there is a "special Canadian program" for Mexicans.
The only accurate information the Mexicans are getting from these advisers is that they won't be turned away at the border.
Under the U.S.-Canada Safe Third Country Agreement, asylum seekers from the United States would normally be turned back. But those coming through the United States from Mexico are an exception because the United States would require those people to have a visa, but Canada does not.
Danny Yen, Canada Border Services Agency spokesman, explained that means the United States would not accept those people if turned back.
Legal Aid has begun footing the bill for the refugee claimants to get legal advice.
Immigration lawyer John Rokakis said seven Mexicans came through his door Tuesday with Legal Aid certificates paying for three hours of a lawyer's time. Monday he saw three others and had a steady trickle last week as well.
Few will have successful refugee claims, he predicted. "Of the ones I've seen there are maybe one or two that may have something," he said. One is a man who sought political asylum in the United States and was denied.
In the short term, the refugee claimants are the guests of city taxpayers. Some have U.S. bank accounts they can't access and others are destitute.
Teresa Piruzza, executive director of Ontario Works said, as of Monday, ten families and 18 individuals had applied for social assistance. "We're just starting to process them," Piruzza said of the applications.
Welfare currently pays up to $548 per month for individuals and $1,193 for families with two children under the age of 13.
As he recounted his story, Ortega repeatedly stressed his thanks to social services for helping his family.
"Social services, they help us too much," he said. "I want to say thanks and to Canadians 'thanks.'"
No offense meant to you or intelligent conservatives in Canada! Look, I’m part Canadian in family and ancestry, back to 1635 (ok, pre-Canadian) .... I only mean to mock the kind of liberal socialists who also predominate in Massachusetts (where I grew up), the ones who ridicule and disparage and marginalize people like FReepers for any concern about border security. I notice from some of your posts that we agree on just about everything you have posted about - so I am not referring to good conservative Canadians like you, only to those baaaaaad socialist Canadians who have been mocking and condescending to me and my friends for as long as I can remember.
And, the Canucks can't own guns, eh!
Gee, and Bush keeps telling us there’s no way to get these people out of the country.
I lived in Mexico for 2 years. Not that bad but I had money. Poverty in Mexico is real poverty, not like here.
An old rust bucket freighter came from Germany about seven years ago. 124 "Asian Indians" came ashore in small boats. Nova Scotians had to entertain them. They lied like well laid rugs. Refugees from India, said they. Yet it was civilized Germany where they had debarked. Canada prosecuted the German skipper. For all I know, they are still living the life of Riley here. Even maybe in the USA. Well, at least the flow is limited. Now for my lame sense of humour:
When we see the venerable and affable broadcaster Lloyd Robertson ending the CTV news with his usual little light fillip. When he dons a sombrero and attempts a bit of hispanic, we will know we will have to cultivate yet another culture. Perhaps the august ladies of the CBC will flaunt their hips in some outrageous tango.
Get with it Amigos.
Well put.
It's certainly not easy to be a gun owner in that country. I think governments in general don't like citizens to be self-reliant in any way and that would include defending oneself. Governments want you to be dependent on them, so they can more easily control you, so you will lose more and more personal power and freedom to them. Elected officials tend to see themselves as a breed apart and see us as a problem to be managed, much like you would manage a herd of cattle. It's hard to find a candidate who doesn't take that attitude.
Think of it as tough love. We've been giving our pols Heck. Now you all need to do the same with yours :)
I don’t think anyone means to create any bad feelings with Canada, we like Canada! I feel we’re quite blessed to have a neighbor like you.
We’re just so darn happy to get rid of all the illegals we can, we don’t care where they go, just that they go! And besides, your country has been saying they need immigrants. I have read articles like that. From what I hear they’re all hard working and take the jobs no one else will do.
At least they’re going to your country legally. They didn’t even come to ours legally.
My sympathy to you and other conservatives there.
Mike
I think the Ortegas are real enough. The paper has pictures. I want to know whether or not the reporters put the story together from scratch, or if it was spoon-fed to them by people with an agenda.
All reporters have sources, and we must expect them to go to relevant sources for information. My issue is, did the reporters go to their sources, or did their sources go to them with a pre-cooked tale (Senator Simpson’s unannounced story floating in over the transom), however true the details of the tale might be.
We know most reporters have agendas. Maybe it shouldn’t be that way, but it is. And we must suspect that always has been the case. It is possible, we must admit, for reporters to push their own agenda while pursuing genuine stories, at least part of the time. I would like to find out if this particular story is a result of reporters pushing their own agenda, or not, as the case may be, or if it is a case of two reporters willingly functioning as propaganda tools at the service of other (we must assume compatible) interests.
It suprises me that you would take that as proof that the "Ortegas" are who they are claimed to be. Remember Dan Rather's staged photos from Vietnam? How about the more recent examples from Iraq? Does it make sense that people who are in the country illegally and are leaving Florida because they fear arrest and deportation, would agree to have themselves identified by name and by photograph? Does Ortega believe that Canadians don't read US newspapers? What is the likelihood that these reporters verified that the Ortegas are, in fact, here illegally, as they reportedly claim?
I share your interest in knowing just how these reporters hooked up with the "Ortegas," but I'm far more interested in knowing how they verified the facts of the story before publication.
Long experience has taught me that the surest approach is to assume reporters are lying unless proven otherwise.
If it makes you feel any better, I’m much more comfortable living in the border state I’m in now (Idaho) than the border state I used to live in (”New” Mexico).
I am pretty concerned that the Salvation Army is helping these guys. I thought they were a good charity.
Ms Bean - given the apparently generous welfare benefits your government is apparently providing to these people, it is fair to expect that you will soon get more of them.
Given that the Loonie hit parity, or nearly so, with the US dollar today, I would suggest that you and like minded Canadians should make hay while the sun shines. The number of welfare cases your country is about to receive will, at a minimum, be very, very expensive. The American experience has been that these folks consume a lot more government largesse than they put back into the system. And, by and large, the ones that do work tend to be unskilled labor.
Accordingly, were I in your situation I would view the Loonie / US Dollar parity as temporary, and take what advantage you can while the opportunity presents itself.
Oh yeah, that is still the US taxpayer's money anyway.
I hope they are smart enough to start deporting illegals immediately, en masse.
It is no crime to return a Mexican to Mexico.
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