In the past 25 years more than 700,000 people entered Canada asking for asylum. None of these individuals has been screened for health, criminality or security. Many of them arrived without documents or with false credentials and many of them have been smuggled into Canada by international criminal organizations. Few are detained. Most are released and asked to show up for a refugee hearing which might be scheduled one or two years in the future.
In the meantime they are free to work or receive welfare. There is no restriction on their movement and no tracking system. The latest report of the auditor general indicates there are more than 40,000 outstanding warrants for the arrest of people whose whereabouts are unknown. Most of these are people who were found not to be refugees and were asked to leave.
n 2008 almost 37,000 asylum seekers entered Canada and so far this year the flow remains unabated. There is a backlog of more than 62,000 asylum claims before the Refugee Board which will take years to clear. The system is out of control and yet our politicians of all parties refuse to even consider reform. To do so would offend the powerful refugee lobby and threaten the loss of ethnic voters.
Furthermore, it is not politically correct to even discuss immigration and refugee policies in connection with border or security concerns.
Canada’s immigration policies are also a source of concern to our southern neighbour. We are accepting many thousands of immigrants from terrorist-producing countries. Since 1996, for example, we have had almost 140,000 immigrants from Pakistan, more than 75,000 from Iran and approximately 33,000 from Algeria. None of these immigrants may be terrorists but the reality is that only about 10 per cent of them are checked for security and the vast majority of them are not even seen by a Canadian visa officer before obtaining their visa.
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