Refugee Claimants: Asylum System

Immigration Status Dept: Yet another Gazette editorial paints Canada as being overly generous toward refugees. You state accurately that in 2008, Canada was the first among G8 countries in the number of refugee claimants arriving per capita. However, you neglect to mention that Canada was not the first among rich industrialized countries. Norway, Sweden and Switzerland received far more claimants per capita -as many as triple the Canadian level, according to Montreal Gazette. Most of the U.S. citizens who seek asylum in Canada, mentioned in the editorial, are American-born children of Haitian refugee claimants. Our committee has worked with many of these claimants. They invariably recount that they did not get a fair hearing in the U.S. and had no chance of regularizing their immigration status there, even if they are married to a U.S. citizen and have children born in the States and re: "More proof we must fix our refugee system" Editorial, July 18 You also point out that the U.S. received far fewer refugee claimants on a per-capita basis than Canada. The comparison is a useful one. Because of the harsh and often politicized nature of the U.S. asylum system, including widespread detention of claimants and lack of access to legal aid, many claimants feel they will not get a fair hearing and prefer to simply go underground. This has no doubt contributed to the parallel economy of some 10-12 million people without any legal status in the U.S. In Canada, this phenomenon is quite rare. As reported in the news.
@t parallel economy, montreal gazette