"They ask, 'Is Canada an option?' and I say, 'Yes, it is an option,'" Jacques Sinjuste of the Jerusalem Haitian Community Center said in a phone interview Wednesday. For a US$300 "donation" (most of those interviewed in Windsor claim they paid US$400), JHCC staff download forms off the Internet, help applicants fill them out and give directions on how to get to the Canadian border.
Sinjuste said he's simply providing a "referral" service.
"Most of the time when the people come, they say they've heard something (about Canada). I say that I've heard the same thing," he said."
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What we've got here is a specifically Miami-based "snakehead" that's been ripping off illegals to the tune of $400 per to send them off to Canada with promises of refugee status, rather than a mass northward migration from all over the U.S. to "shake 'de Lion's paw" as our ancestors of the underground railroad put it (I've been reading about Harriet Tubman).
I know that Canada has a strict "point system" for determining the viability of immigrants but fatally generous refugee admissions criteria.
“I don’t believe that Windsor’s residents and taxpayers should have to foot the bill for U.S. immigration policy.”
Why don’t you lay the blame where it belongs. No taxpayers should have to foot the bill for Mexico’s inability to shape up and provide a decent place to live for its own citizens.
What an enterprise..., charge them $500-$1,000/head to smuggle them into the USA..., now $300-400/head to ship them to Canada!
This Canadian bureaucrat is complaining about American immigration policy. If he had a grip on the big picture, he would be complaining about Canadian immigration policy. But then, if he could see the big picture, he wouldn't be a bureaucrat. He would have quit long ago to work in the real world.
Did I miss anything?
Congressman Billybob
Municipal agencies dealing with the sudden influx of mainly Mexican refugee(s)...
"We don't have the means, ability or capacity to deal with this...potential crisis..."
And they're talking about 200 or so people so far? Well. I'm glad some politician somewhere has finally figured out what a drain his community is facing. Too bad it's a Canadian and not one of ours...say, the Mayors of Los Angeles or Phoenix, or any one of a hundred different US cities, for instance.
“I don’t believe that Windsor’s residents and taxpayers should have to foot the bill for U.S. immigration policy,”
Welcome to our world...
I wonder if the planned new bridge between Detroit and Windsor will have a walking lane.
Ping!
The problem might be blamed on American policy since it was lax to the point of non-existent for several years, but clearly it is going to get a lot worse since the crackdown has only begun. They refugees don't meet the minimum specs for refugee status anywhere except Windsor so they ought to be turned away.
We should have a train from the Mexican border to the Canadian border. Maybe our neighbors would like to help their less fortunate southern cousins. And to help the Mexicans, too.
Complaining about illegals? They should be happy about how much the price of vegetables and lawn care has gone down!
I fault the CBSA for this mess- Canada and the US have a “safe third country” agreement in place which means that a refugee arriving from a third country can be turned back at the border; the only Mexican “refugees” entitled to a hearing under Canadian law are those arriving directly from Mexico, so they should have been turned back.
The Haitians are running to Canada simply because the Mayan Indians from Guatemala are now willing to do the landscaping in South Florida for $1 and hour versus the $3 the Haitians were used to getting. ;-)
So maybe if we can send enough the Canadians will build a fence on are northern border so then all we will have to pay for is the one on the southern border.