My first reaction was, "They got the message." My second reaction is, "They were in no danger." Yahoo News:
WINNIPEG, Manitoba/BUFFALO, New York (Reuters) - Refugees in the United States fearing a worsening climate of xenophobia in the wake of a divisive U.S. presidential campaign are flocking to Canada in growing numbers.
Manitoba's Welcome Place refugee agency helped 91 claimants between Nov. 1 and Jan. 25 - more than the agency normally sees in a year. Most braved the freezing prairie winter to walk into Canada....
Since late summer, 27 men from Ghana walked to Manitoba from the United States, Yeboah said. Two lost all their fingers to frostbite in December and nearly froze to death.
More than 7,000 refugee applicants entered Canada in 2016 through land ports of entry from the United States, up 63 percent from the previous year, according to Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).
Over 2,000 more entered "irregularly" during a similar time period, without official authorization, such as across unmonitored fields.
Four hundred and thirty asylum seekers crossed Manitoba's border irregularly in the first nine months of 2016-17, up from 340 the entire previous year, CBSA said.If they were lawfully already in the US, this dangerous walk into Canada makes no sense. I wonder if the left's screeching about immigration misled them into thinking they were going to be deported even after arriving lawfully.
I've seen my international-student facebook friends commenting about their fears on posts where someone is passing off as "upcoming policy" their imaginings that Trump will void all F1/F2 and J1/J2 visas for non-citizens studying at US universities.
ReplyDeleteIt made me ponder what sort of deluded or evil person you would have to be -- to deliberately scare people with such stories.
When I was abroad as a student there was always a little fear buried that some small change in my host-government's policy, or some paperwork glitch for my scholarship funds at an inopportune time, would mess up my annual visa renewal and interrupt or end my studies. So I can understand that a change of government that brings many unknowns will heighten that fear.
But I've no doubt from what I've seen that malevolent people are deliberately stoking those sorts of fears with tall tales that are obviously hogwash to me, but would not necessarily be to those less familiar with US language and culture.