Living Illegally in Canada

"[Between] 20,000 and 500,000 persons [were living illegally in Canada. Known officially as] undocumented migrants, [these were foreign nationals with] no authorization to reside and/or work in  Canada."

"Some may have overstayed their temporary status, while others may have remained in Canada following a rejected asylum claim."

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 2023 report

 

"The vast majority leave voluntarily, and that's what's expected."

We are talking about 4.9 million documents, sometimes many that apply to one person. They are tourists."

"The vast majority of the people leave the country including artists who come to this country, such as Bruce Springsteen and others." 

(Then) Immigration Minister Marc Miller, 2024

 

"Canadians are fair-minded people. We welcome newcomers, we value immigration, and we understand that a growing country needs talent and ambition from around the world. But fairness cuts both ways. A system that welcomes newcomers must also enforce its own rules. When someone is in Canada illegally and then breaks the law, the response should be direct and decisive. They should be removed from the country. Not years later. Not after endless reviews. Promptly."

"This is not radical. It is common sense."

"Recent reporting out of British Columbia underscores the problem. Police there dismantled an organized extortion network targeting members of the South Asian business community. The crimes involved threats, violence, and fear used to extract money from business owners. According to police and court filings, several individuals charged in that case were either in Canada illegally or here on temporary student visas. The investigation revealed links to organized crime networks operating across borders, with some suspects lacking permanent legal status in Canada."

"This was not a paperwork issue. This was serious criminal conduct carried out by people who were not entitled to be here in the first place, or whose right to remain depended on obeying Canadian law."

"At the same time, Canadians are watching another disturbing pattern play out in Ontario. Individuals who entered the country illegally, had refugee claims rejected, or remained in Canada after their legal status expired, went on to face charges involving violence, extremism, and organized crime. These cases are not theoretical debates about policy. They involve real victims and real threats to public safety."

"The details differ, but the question is always the same. Why are people who have no legal right to remain in Canada still here after committing serious crimes."

"Canada’s immigration system is built on rules. We decide who qualifies to enter. We decide who qualifies to stay. We also decide the conditions under which those privileges are lost. If those rules are not enforced, the entire system loses credibility."

Kevin Klein, Winnipeg Sun

PHOTO CREDIT Ian Dewar

 

According to federal records at the start of 2025, 4.9 million visas would be expiring in the following 12 months, an issue that the federal opposition Conservative party expressed concern over, questioning how the Liberal government planned to react and respond to the situation of those living in Canada holding expired visas. The expectation optimistically held by the government that of those millions, the majority  would leave of their own volition, represents a notional number since there are no data kept on voluntary departures to support the government's response.

 

The issue of out-of-control population growth in Canada resulting from an unprecedented intake of new immigrants, refugee-class and undocumented migrants has been a concern for years, resulting from the previous Liberal government's open-doors policy enunciated by Justin Trudeau, the previous prime minister; essentially that Canada stood prepared to welcome all those seeking haven, as a response to the U.S. crackdown on illegal residents during the first Trump administration. 

 

That embrace of uncontrolled migration, immigration and foreign students studying in Canada has had predictable, but obviously government-agency-unanticipated results, impacting the social fabric of a country known for its 'multiculturalism'. Housing has become scarce and expensive. Social services are beginning to fray under new demands from a skyrocketing population base. The country's universal health care system is in peril with insufficient numbers of medical workers and hospitals stretched to their limits.

 

Moreover, multiculturalism itself has taken on a grim new meaning with growing-in-prevalence ethnic/religious/cultural groups bringing with them cultural biases including racism -- along with political and religious ideological beliefs that run counter to Canadian laws, rights and privileges. Statistics Canada has made note of a minor contraction in the population as 2025 closed, with "enforced removals" seeing an increase, despite no formal exit statistics being kept regarding foreign visa holders.

 

Migrants from Venezuela, Nigeria, Haïti and other countries arrive at Roxham Road to cross the border into Canada in early March 2023. Photo by Sebastien St-Jean/AFP via Getty Images

 

The Minister of Immigration noted in 2024 that the number of illegal foreigners living in Canada might be as high as 600,000. Yet the Conservatives confirmed a total of 4.9 million visas and immigration permits were on the cusp of expiring at year's end, 2025. A number, the Liberals responded, that included tourist visas, temporary work permits and foreign students. A record number of temporary migrants arrived on student visas, or as temporary foreign workers, visas that would not be renewed in a too-late government effort to control the upward spiral of an unprecedented population growth.

 

According to Statistics Canada, 3,138,129 temporary migrants were residing in Canada, over double the number of three years earlier. An influx unlike any other in Canada's history, resulting in Canada being  recognized as the fastest growing country in the G7...an "unprecedented surge in immigration"  comprised primarily of low-skilled migrants from the developing world, a far cry from the carefully paced and measured previous immigration protocol that favoured skilled workers into the Canadian economy.

 

Of the 1.5 million migrants who, following the end of COVID lockdowns surged into the country, an estimated 1.3 million remain in Canada. Canada Border Services Agency released statistics indicating that their officers were removing record rates of unauthorized foreign national, by the end of 2025, leading to records for "enforced removals", a category including deportations, along with foreigners who left after receiving a deportation order or were turned away from the border with an exclusion order. 

 

The Conservative contended that should even a relatively small number of the record-high temporary migrant population refuse to self-deport, the government had no capacity to remove them forcefully. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada in October of 2025 informed a committee of the House of Commons that 47,175 individuals who entered Canada on student visas were "non-compliant"; in that they had failed to register at a university, and their locations were unknown.

 

Dozens of international students showed up at a park in Brampton, Ont., recently to fight to stay in Canada. (Submitted by Harinder Singh)

"By the end of this year, nearly five million people will be in Canada with expired or expiring visas, and the government has no plan for how it is going to get them to leave."

Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner

 

"We take our immigration system very seriously on this side of the aisle (Liberal), as I know all Canadians do."

"For that reason, we are strengthening the integrity of our system while maintaining the humanitarian ability that we have in this country."

Immigration Minister Lena Diab 

Since America is deporting them, some undocumented immigrants are looking to Canada as a backup option. Getty

 

 

Galloping Immigraton Slows to a Canter in Canada

 

"There was considerable asymmetry to the cuts to overall immigration that saw much larger percentages in reductions to refugees over the 2024 to 2025 period. It seems as though many Canadians believe that there are man asylum claims that are not legitimate, thus fuelling greater distrust in refugees."

"In previous surveys we've done there was much less dissonance and lesser distinction in either trust or positive sentiment towards immigrants and refugees, but we're now seeing a widening gap between the two, owing, in my view, to a growing perception that many claims are not valid and thus raising questions about the admission process."

Jack Jedwab, president, Association for Canadian Studies  

Compared to 2024, the same eight-month period in 2025 saw a 32.7 percent drop in refugee claimants to Canada; at the same time there was a 18.6 percent drop in economic immigrants while an 8.1 percent drop was seen in family sponsorship immigrants. This, according to an analysis by the Association for Canadian Studies of Immigration, Refugees and Citizen Canada's own data. According to the analysis "The numbers of asylum claimants has gone into a veritable free-fall." 

"We regularly see that polls produce different results depending on how the question is framed, and people's answers are also impacted by the narratives they see being replicated in the media and by political leaders."

Gauri Sreenivasan, o-executive director, Canadian Council for Refugees

In the first eight months of 2025, Canada experienced a drop in asylum claims from from all countries, except for those from Haiti, which went up by 130 per cent. Photo by Clarens Siffroy/AFP via Getty Images

 

The federal government recently announced changes in immigration policies for the direct purpose of reducing the number of people arriving in Canada. Canada's population swelled by millions in the past several years with immigration target numbers, family reunification, temporary foreign workers, asylum seekers, refugees and foreign students studying at Canadian universities stretching the limits of the country's social welfare systems and its housing stock, and most critically its universal health care system beyond the breaking point.

 

A new poll conducted by Leger Marketing for the Association for Canadian Studies saw 43 percent of respondents stating their distrust of refugees. More respondents, according to the poll, trusted immigrants, on the other hand, some 46 percent. The really interesting part of this revelation is that distrust is highest among immigrants themselves, against refugees, albeit in lower percentages for immigrants. 

 

People from Haiti claiming asylum from their gang-violent nation of poverty and social unrest, increased by 130 percent in that period. Asylum claims from Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans, Ghanians, and people from India, on the other hand saw drops from 68 to 79 percent. Airport asylum claims dropped 76 percent in the first eight months of 2025, over 2024.

 

More men than women stated their distrust of refugees on the survey question. And the same applied for distrust of immigrants; men outnumbering women. International students garnered a 44 percent trust level, while in the distrust category, once again men outnumbered women.  

 

"Immigration has become one of the sharpest fault lines in Canadian politics. Eighty-two per cent of Conservative supporters say there is too much immigration, compared with 40 per cent of Liberals and 30 per cent of New Democrats. This partisan gap is now the widest recorded since the late 1970s and shows no sign of narrowing."

"This political split extends to almost every aspect of the immigration debate – from refugees and integration to perceptions of crime. Supporters of the governing Liberals tend to see immigration as an economic and cultural strength, while Conservative supporters increasingly view it as a strain on resources and national identity."

Immigration Canada 

 

The Ongoing Dilemma Posed by Handling Illegal Migrants in the EU

"The long and often arduous journey to Europe has not been a dealbreaker for the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have arrived on the continent illegally in recent years. More than 385,000 such migrants entered Europe in 2023, nearly triple the pandemic-era low in 2020. These were just a fraction of the twenty-nine million immigrants who arrived in the past decade, legally and illegally, placing significant strain on a migration system already considered ineffectual."

"Migrants endure voyages on unseaworthy vessels, travel on foot through war zones or scalding deserts, and encounter predatory human smugglers or hostile locals. Last year alone, more than three thousand migrants died crossing the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe."

"But disembarking in Europe presents new hurdles. Politicians have pledged to crack down on what they call a migration crisis, especially those from far-right parties, which are gaining support ahead of European Parliament elections in June. Meanwhile, European Union (EU) countries are grappling with how to balance stronger border enforcement with concerns over human rights and migrant safety."

Council on Foreign Relations

SFAX, TUNISIA: Irregular migrants face many risks en route to Europe, including a dangerous voyage on the Mediterranean Sea. Yassine Gaidi/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

 The number of migrants now crossing into European Union countries has decreased dramatically from the highs seen last year, following the years-long efforts by Europe to limit unauthorized migrants entering by land and sea, with the instituting of increasingly tough policies on accepting migrants. Fewer migrants may be crossing into countries of the EU, but anti-immigrant sentiment has been growing, considerable harsher policies are being raised by established political parties that would never have considered them years earlier.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has been attempting to send migrants that have been rescued in the Mediterranean, to Albania. One of the premier welcoming countries in the migration wave of 2015, Germany now has upgraded patrols to all of its land borders. For its part, Poland has plans to introduce legislation temporarily suspending the right of new arrivals to ask for asylum. Anti-immigrant political parties have emphasized uncontrolled migration with a dilution of national identity. Europeans are concerned the influx of migrants is too difficult to manage, frustrated that some 80 percent of failed asylum seekers evade deportation.

Notably, the Christian Democratic party of former German chancellor Angela Merkel who fulsomely gave welcome to immigrants in 2015 is pressing now to have more restrictive measures, a move that has given them a lead in the polls. "The far right is the mainstream when it comes to migration now", observed Susi Dennison, senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

A 2018 EU report reached the conclusion that forwarding asylum seekers to third countries rather than processing their requests was impermissible under EU and international law. Now, however, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, gave praise to Italy's plan as "out-of-the-box thinking". Ms. Meloni's plan would see migrants screened in Albania, and remain in detention centers there, awaiting decisions on their asylum application. An Italian court questioned whether asylum seekers from unsafe countries could be held in Albania.

The rejection of asylum seekers can be complex, when the migrants' countries of origin refuse to receive them in a return to their origins. During that time when the deportation order is in place, migrants are able to move undetected to other countries in the bloc. There are few restrictions on travel between many European nations under the Schengen Agreement. 

While no clear way to legally deport failed asylum seekers has been identified, a challenge exists to find countries willing to take failed asylum seekers. "There is a lot of hot air in terms of what could be done next", observed Raphael Bossong, a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

 

LAMPEDUSA: This immigrant reception center is one of four such “hot spots” in Italy where new arrivals are first hosted after crossing into Europe. Yara Nardi/Reuters

 

 

Gun Crimes, Car Thefts, Smuggling, Violence Increase in Canada

"Rival gangs control parts of the tow-truck industry here, using the heavy-duty vehicles to transport drugs, extort car-crash victims with high fees and fake automobile accidents to defraud insurance."

"They once resolved their territorial differences with their fists, but now a wave of gun smuggling from the U.S. has turned their fights into a lethal blood sport."

Reporter Vipal Monga, Wall Street Journal

"Experts say organized smugglers are taking advantage of lax Canadian screening."

"U.S. Customs and border Protection records an 'encounter' in its database when it comes across someone who is inadmissible to the U.S., or when border patrol officers find someone who has illegally crossed the border into the U.S. between border posts."

CBC

Handguns are pictured near recovered stolen cars during a Toronto Police Service press conference in Toronto, Ontario on Wednesday, March 27, 2024. Police say the surge in auto thefts has led to rises in home invasions, violent robberies and gun violence throughout the Greater Toronto Area. (Greg Bruce/CBC)

 

Canada is fast gaining a reputation, under the Trudeau-led Liberal government, of being an unreliable partner to the United States on immigration, crime and border security. Migrants crossing illegally into Canada from the United States by their tens of thousands a few years ago, bypassing legitimate border stations where they knew they would be turned back to the U.S. transited for the purpose of entering Canada have hugely diminished in prevalence.

The preferred mode of entry by far now has become through flights into Canada where disembarking passengers declare on arrival that they are seeking haven, and Canada immigration and border agents simply rubber-stamp a refugee hearing date for them, since they are unequipped and incapable of any background checks to determine whether claimants have any legitimacy and above all, have no criminal records from their countries of origin which would make them inadmissible to Canada.

The mayor of Brampton, Ontario, Patrick Brown, spoke of the irresponsible immigration practices and policies attributable to the Liberal government, in an interview. His comments were directed to the flood of student visas that have allowed ostensible students from abroad to enter Canada for study and to take advantage of the lax entry requirements, with plans to become permanent residents. In the last few years such student visa entrants numbered a half-million annually.

With the presence of so many, a concomitant explosion of car thefts has been bedevilling Canada's residents and police forces in its largest cities. A growing number of gangs operate in the Toronto region where young men are paid to steal cars and drive them to rail terminals, there to be transported by shipping container to the Port of Montreal. Arrived in Montreal, the vehicles are off-loaded by organized crime groups at the port, loaded onto ships and exported globally.

Over $1 billion in value of purloined cars was represented by these thefts in the Province of Ontario alone. The preventive expedient of having government policing agencies inspecting such shipments would catch the problem in its end-game making it unprofitable for the gangs that control this crime of growing proportions, and thus serve to frustrate their purpose, persuading them there is no profit to be had and the runaway thefts would substantially subside.

Ottawa's dismal failure to prevent gun smuggling from the United States to Canada is yet another outstanding problem of long duration. The situation has been responsible for a dramatic increase in shootings and crime among tow-truck gangs that operate in Toronto where it is being recognized that the profits from car thefts sent overseas fund the gun-smuggling racket. 

Compared to 2023, shootings in Toronto have risen 50 percent, and homicides have increased up to 20 percent, caused in part by "the tow-truck violence", according to Inspector Paul Krawczyk of the Toronto Police Service guns-and-gangs unit. Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow faced the need to increase the police budget while investing in preventive programs in hopes of sidelining youth from joining gangs. "No doubt about it we are seeing way too many guns from the States coming across the border", she agreed.

It is clear that once again Canada's governing Trudeau Liberals have failed the test of good governance in this index as in so many others. It has not escaped the notice of both American presidential candidates that the U.S. border with Canada is becoming a vexing problem by a government that appears to have no real interest in finding ways to protect Canadians from the growing scourge of criminal violence.

Ontario Provincial Police and the Canada Border Services Agency said they've seized 598 stolen cars that were destined for export at the Port of Montreal, during a news conference on April 3. The vehicles had an estimated value of $35.5 million dollars. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)

Oops -- Damage Control Alert!

"[The upcoming general election is about] freedom, America and democracy [and the nation's economy is thriving] because of you [immigrants to the United States] and many others."

"Why? Because we welcome immigrants. Look, think about it. Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they're xenophobic. They don't want immigrants."

"Immigrants are what makes us strong. Not a joke. That's not hyperbole, because we have an influx of workers who want to be here and want to contribute."

U.S. President Joe Biden, address to Asian-American audience at fundraiser

US President Joe Biden speaks April 24, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

 

A simplistic analysis for economic enlightenment to an audience he is pitching,to  help fund his re-election. Where he implies negatively that Japan and India along with China and Russia are "xenophobic" in their attitude toward welcoming newcomers. The United States' 'open borders' to immigration by illegal migrants must make those countries shudder, thinking what they'd do themselves faced with a similar situation, while simultaneously smirking that they don't quite anticipate becoming a target in the same class as the United States.

For one thing, none of them would go out of their way to welcome as future citizens and a bolster to an aging workforce, migrants, refugees and immigrants from Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East and North Africa. India, China and Russia have ample reason to shrink from such a scenario given their interior experience with their own Muslim populations. For another, those countries have a vast complex of various ethnic, religious and cultural groups within their citizenry, some of which agitate forcefully resulting in social disequilibrium.

Mr. Biden cannot possibly, intelligently boast that the United States  under his administration has fared well in attempting to hold back the tide of illegal entries crossing the border between Mexico and the United States, straining the capacity of cities toward which they stream to handle their human needs, aside from the fact that among the migrants there are invariably present seeking infiltration, individuals and groups inimical to the security of the country.

At that campaign fundraising event, it's difficult to imagine his audience viewing those assertions with any credulity, unless they're completely oblivious of world events, and Asian-Americans tend to be fairly knowledgeable. The countries whose immigration policies with the exception of Russia and China that he cites as short-sighted; Japan and India in particular are close allies of the United States; their reactions to his opinion might be lacking enthusiasm.

Particularly in a climate that has twisted itself into a woke pretzel where academia is placing limits on the numbers of orientals that Ivy League universities can admit, to make way for less intellectually endowed applicants under the human rights  banner of 'diversity, equity and inclusion', where white-privilege can be extended to encompass anyone in society who is intellectually exceptional to the mainstream.

Biden, according to White House national security spokesman John Kirby, stated that a broader point about the U.S. position on immigration was being made: "Our allies and partners know well in tangible ways how President Biden values them, their friendship, their co-operation and the capabilities that they bring across the spectrum on a range of issues, not just security related".

Concertina wire lines the path as members of Congress tour an area near the Texas-Mexico border, in Eagle Pass, Texas. As congressional negotiators try to finalize a bipartisan deal on the border and immigration, their effort is drawing the wrath of hard-right lawmakers and former President Donald Trump. That vocal opposition threatens to unravel a delicate compromise. (AP Photo/Eric Gay

Neighbourly Migrant-Sharing

 

"You don't have to walk anywhere, we can buy you a free ticket. You can go to any city. We can take you up to the Canadian border, wherever."

"[Denver already has] too many migrants [resources are sapped]."

"OK, who wants to travel to different cities where there is more work?"

Andres Carrera, "newcomer communication liaison", City of Denver

"Some want to go to Canada, some want to go to warmer states, and we are there for them as they continue to move on with their pursuit of this dream."

"[My administration is funding the] re-ticketing process [of migrants wanting to move elsewhere, including illegally crossing into Canada]."

New York City mayor Erik Adams

Immigrants file into a U.S. Customs and Border Protection bus after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in Eagle Pass, Texas. Since 2022, thousands of migrants have been bused north from Texas to "sanctuary cities" like Denver or New York; both of which have attempted to redirect the migrants even further north into Canada.  Photo by John Moore/Getty Image

February figures from U.S. Customs and Border Protection cite over 7 million people illegally crossing the Southwestern U.S. border in the past three years. A flood that prompted Texas Governor Greg Abbott in 2022 to pack busloads of migrants to northern states, mostly jurisdictions that declared themselves to be "sanctuary cities". There, local law enforcement has orders not to cooperate in enforcing federal immigration law.

Resulting in states like Denver, a certified "sanctuary city", which has been the destination of about 40,000 bused migrants from Texas, spurring the conversation above, where the migrants are asked if they're interested in moving on elsewhere, the financial tab for the travel picked up by the city, unable itself to accommodate any greater numbers of migrants than it has already made room for. As such, Denver joins New York City as a "sanctuary city" whose attempts to cope with the bused-in surge of migrants includes offering them free passage to Canada.

It's not exactly a one-way situation. U.S. border agents in New York, New Hampshire and Vermont last month reported having arrested record numbers of migrants attempting illegal entry from Canada. Last year, 7,000 migrants wee arrested while illegally attempting to enter those states through Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick. "I have never seen anything like it", Vermont-based U.S. Border Patrol Agent Erik Lavallee commented in an interview.

The City of Denver commented publicly that migrants sent directly to Canadian cities did not reflect city policy. On the other hand, the city sees itself clear to distributing free bus tickets to U.S. stops located close to the Canadian border, should migrants express such a request. The situation is part of a record-breaking surge of illegal migrants. Migrants had arrived via the southern border to Denver, where a simultaneous surge in illegal crossings is steeper exponentially than anything coming from Canada.

An official tally by the Office of the Texas Governor identifies New York City as the prime target of their operation to bus migrants to U.S. sanctuary cities. Border agents, on the other hand, report that migrants arriving from Canada often attempt to avoid detection, as opposed to migrants arriving via Mexico who frequently seek border patrol agents to claim asylum.

 

Plattsburgh, N.Y.-based border agent Raymond Bresnahan in January revealed that while most migrants arriving through Canada seek employment, the agents are seeing not-insignificant numbers of "aggravated felons. We still catch a lot of bad people".

Screenshot of migrants arriving on buses in Denver, Colorado. KUSA

With All Due Respect

"As a medical and humanitarian organization, we could not stay silent in the face of the exceptional scale and severity of the violence reported to our teams [on Samos and the island of Lesbos]."

"Non-Assistance [to migrants], violence and pushbacks have become part and parcel of a system of border management [on the two Greek islands]."

"From land, testimonies point to a pattern of practices including physical assault, handcuffing, informal detention, groups being forcibly taken to the shore before being pushed back at sea, as well as humiliating strip searches." 

"[The perpetrators were described as] groups of unidentified people with covered faces] who often stole migrants’ phones, money and other possessions."

"MSF has witnessed people running out of the forest screaming, crying and reporting being beaten, and MSF medical staff have treated people on the spot for suspected violence-related injuries."

Doctors Without Borders (MSF)

Refugees and migrants in a dinghy are lit by a a Greek coast guard patrol boat's spotlight during a rescue operation near the eastern Aegean Sea island of Samos. A leading international medical charity said on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023 that has received scores of testimonies over the past two years from migrants that point to a "recurring practice" of alleged secret, illegal and often brutal deportations back to Turkey from two eastern Greek islands. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

 

Europe, and not only Europe, has been undergoing years of forced 'occupation' by an unending stream of migrants claiming to be refugees needing haven in their escape from repressive, controlling, abusive regimes in countries with high crime rates and often civil war. The majority of the migrants are young men looking for economic opportunities; in many instances a lack of employment in their home countries and in other instances regional conflict may add too the influx of these migrants streaming to Europe and North America, all through clearly illegal routes that pose a danger to the migrants themselves.

 

For years tens of thousands of migrants, mostly from Africa and the Middle East have posed a problem in their endless numbers arriving on shores that can barely manage to answer to their most immediate needs of shelter, food, health care and a future. Their non-stop arrivals now number in the millions scattered throughout Europe where most countries at the urging of the European Union have agreed to receive these migrants. And for years, the suspicion that among them are also men with ties to known terrorist groups.

 

The infiltration of Europe generally by mostly men from cultures unlike that of the receiving countries has posed a problem. Crime has become more prevalent, as have violent attacks and particularly attacks against women. Cultural, tribal and sectarian roots reflect a heritage alien to that of Europe. Many of those arriving are culturally unadaptable to the values and the laws of democratic countries. And all too many of the migrants take advantage of generous social welfare programs to the detriment of people native to the welcoming countries living in poverty.

 

Greece and Italy have suffered disproportionately from the avalanche of migrants teeming onto their shores necessitating costly and complicated measures for accommodating the sheer numbers that engender resentment on the part of native Europeans. Doctors Without Borders has produced a report critical of Greece in particular, ostensibly drawing on interviews they have conducted with migrants between 2021 and 2023, claiming harsh and violent treatment. 

MSF's report accuses Creek authorities of a "recurring practice" of secret, illegal and sometimes brutal deportations back to Turkey from the two eastern Greek islands. Turkey had opened its borders in 2020 into the EU, actively encouraging migrants to move on and cross into Greece. Turkey wants to be rid of the migrants that have flooded en route to move onward to Europe. Turkish authorities cite the burden Turkey has taken on, giving shelter to millions of Syrians who fled the Syrian regime's war on its Sunni Syrian population.

Turkish authorities along with the charity, refugee activists and others allege that in the Aegean Sea and Greece's northeastern land border with Turkey, forced returns had been carried out by uniformed officers or unknown masked individuals. Strong denial to these "pushbacks" has come from the government in Athens which argues that its coast guard has acted in a humanitarian fashion by saving hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Middle East and Africa attempting to reach Greece, crossing in small boats from Turkey.

 

A boat used to patrol the seas for migrants is seen in the harbour in Samos. (Romain Chauvet/CBC)

 

There is a national need to protect Greece's borders, which in effect are those of the European Union, from mass illegal immigration. The MSF report included a case where migrants reported to its staff that two people, one a pregnant woman, died off the island of Samos when their boat was towed at high speed toward Turkish waters. The islands of Lesbos and Samos represent key landing points for migrants arriving from Turkey.

Migrants are now turning to alternate, longer voyages as a result of the enforced returns to Turkey, claims the report. Longer voyages that risk greater hardship or death, with an increase of yachts in recent years crammed with migrants leaving Turkey to round southern Greece heading directly for Italy.

Logic might have it that given the great dangers involved in making such illegal migrant voyages and entries, the migration would cease, but it does not. People are knowingly placing themselves in danger.

That being the case, are countries at the receiving end of millions of illegal migrants -- whose arrivals will alter those countries' demographics, with incoming flocks of people who cannot or will not adapt to values common to Europe, to their laws, accommodating themselves to what is normal and socially accepted in a country unlike their own -- not obligated to its own heritage, history, culture and values to maintain them and refuse further entries?

Opened in September 2021, this camp on the Greek island of Samos is the first Closed Controlled Access Center (CCAC) for asylum seekers. Fully funded by the EU at a cost of 43 million euros, the camp is surrounded by multiple barbed wire fences and equipped with a security system that includes CCTV cameras. (Romain Chauvet/CBC)

Another Migrant Tragedy

"The agents told them that stormy cold weather conditions were ideal cover to cross into the U.S. undetected. They said it was their best opportunity and last chance to cross into the United States or return to India or stay back in Canada."

"'You have to walk in -35 degree Celsius to evade arrest by Canadian or U.S. security agents. Follow the lights of an American gas station because you will find no navigation available in the dark and extreme weather'."

Indian police official

 

"The victims were taken to Toronto in Canada and later to Vancouver. The agents then dumped them at Winnipeg in Manitoba province, leaving them to cross over to the U.S. on their own."

"[The migrants were] forced [to] walk in the snow [to cross the border]."

"There are deputy agents, main agents in India. The crossing agents in Canada and the U.S. help with legal and other assistance."

"The two wanted accused are agents from Canada and the United States."

Deputy Commissioner of Police Chaitanya Mandlik

Jagdish Patel, left; son Dharmik; wife Vaishali and daughter Vihangi are shown in this family photo released to the media at the time of their death in January 2022. Two men in India have now been charged with acting as immigration agents, culpable homicide, human trafficking and criminal conspiracy, in relation to the deaths of the Patels. (Vaishali Patel/Facebook)

 

It was a year ago that the bodies frozen in the snow on frigid winter terrain were found. They had set out with a larger group of an additional eleven people hoping to make the passage on foot from Manitoba during blizzard conditions. In the dark of night and white-out blizzard conditions, feeling the misery of -34degree Centigrade probing relentlessly through their winter parkas and boots, they became disoriented and separated from the larger group. They were a father, mother and two children, ages three and eleven.

Of the larger group of eleven, seven made their way to safety. After walking through these abysmal conditions for over eleven hours, the seven were apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol officers. The cause of death for Jagdish Patel, 39, his wife Vaishaliben Patel, 37, their daughter Vihangi, and three-year-old son Dharmik was ascribed to exposure to extreme cold. These were people originally from western India, the state of Gujarat, and they knew little about survival in Arctic conditions.

Theirs is a preventable tragedy. There have been others caught out in foul winter weather in isolated terrain who have suffered from frostbite, to the extent of losing limbs, in their determination to reach a desired destination. This family lost everything. The trend to illegal migration, to enter a country, pass through its borders surreptitiously rather than undergoing the lengthy process of legal immigration is on the rise everywhere. 

Patel family home in India

 

Elsewhere, the crossings themselves are so fraught with danger -- usually those undertaken by sea passage on inadequate vessels holding too many hopeful migrants -- the carnage of drowning deaths is pitifully large. There are opportunistic migrants, and there are people desperate to escape endemic poverty, discrimination, local violence, drugs, and conflict.Usually refugees listed with the United Nations have a fairly good chance of being accepted by Western democratic nations.

The aspiration to join a wealthy country for the imagined promises of future stability, acceptance, wealth, a good education for children and access to universal health services has its draw on people who believe that other countries' residents enjoy a superior, material and political way of life. The family of four that perished on a cold stormy winter night walking across the border form Canada into the United States chose a risky way of achieving their goal.

They were prepared to pay handsomely for the services of people smugglers, never imagining that they would be paying for a horrible trial that would end in the deaths of their two vulnerable children and themselves under dreadful circustances. Now, India has arrested two of four human traffickers they name as 'agents' who acted as seasoned enablers for unlawful entry across a country's borders, with the intention of living on an underground economy, or declaring themselves refugees to await an official government decision on acceptance or rejection of their claim.

 

 

The Patel family was reported to have been reluctant to cross the border under such extreme weather conditions, but that they succumbed to the assurances of the 'agents' looking after their aspirational welfare. Two of the smugglers were arrested and charged with culpable homicide, although four in total are suspected to have formed an illegal immigration network recruiting citizens of India who are able to pay the toll demanded to smuggle them into the United States.

The other two suspects forming the gang of four have been identified as one in Canada and another in the United States; 'crossing agents'. They were to be paid some $10,000 per person for smuggling these people to their destination of choice. So these were not people trying to escape poverty, but rather people from the world's largest democracy, hoping to enter the United States illegally to make a new life for themselves there; their rationale for that choice is unclear.

The group of illegal migrants a year ago in the care of organized smugglers had the benefit of being given identical cold weather clothing consisting of new winter coats with fur-trimmed hoods, gloves, ski masks and insulated rubber boots. The alleged driver assigned to pick the migrants up on their entry to Minnesota was arrested soon after the discovery of the bodies of the Patel family. His case is yet to be heard in court while authorities in the U.S. continue to investigate the human smuggling ring.