New immigrants to Canada are expressing dissatisfaction and feelings of unfairness over the fact that illegal border crossers are jumping the immigration queue.
The Department of Immigration spent $249,823 on research done by Ipsos to interview 4,004 new legal immigrants on the issue.
Focus groups found that new immigrants claimed the number of illegal border crossers were “significant” and that the amount was “disproportionately higher than Canada’s population can absorb.”
Some participants raised concerns about a “loophole” in Canada’s immigration system and how illegal border crossers “lie to the Canadian government.”
“Your English has to be good, you do all these tests, your health has to be good, then you land in Canada and find people here who don’t speak English and you wonder, are there double standards?” said one participant.
“We worked really hard to get here and there was no support and no help.”
The study also found that some felt that the US should take more responsibility to prevent illegal crossings into Canada.
According to a 2018 poll, a majority of Canadians also think the federal government is handling the border situation poorly. A total of 68% of Canadians agreed that the government isn’t doing a good job dealing with illegal border crossers.
Since 2017, a total of 52,097 migrants have crossed illegally into the country.
According to the Auditor General of Canada, wait times for asylum seekers to receive a decision on their asylum applications could balloon to five years by the year 2024. In 2018, the queue contained a total of 71,380 claims and asylum claimants had to wait up to two years before they received a decision on their claims.
A union representing Canada Border Services Agency officials has raised the alarm over the lack of resources to deal with the growing influx of illegal border crossers flowing into the country.
President of the Customs and Immigration Union Jean-Pierre Fortin stated that the CBSA would have to double the number of workers to properly vet and keep track of bogus refugee claims.
