How Fluid is the Canadian Border?

Although this article focuses on how immigrants get scammed, it also provides a small bit of information on how Canada sees refugees.

-----
Undocumented immigrants vulnerable to scams
A South Florida group has sparked a growing exodus of undocumented immigrants to the Canadian border.
Posted on Sat, Sep. 22, 2007
Miami Herald
BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@MiamiHerald.com


...Under an agreement signed with the United States in 2004, Canada allows nationals from countries who meet certain conditions to apply for refugee status. Nationals from Haiti and Mexico arriving to Canada from the United States may apply. Immigrants from countries in Central and South America may not.

Haitians denied refugee status likely would be allowed to stay because Canada has suspended deportations to Haiti because of political conditions there. Mexicans would be deported if denied refuge because there is no such moratorium.

STANDARD FOR STATUS

The bar is still high for refugee status in Canada, even for Haitians and Mexicans.

''There is no special program for Mexicans and Haitians or any other nationalities specifically to immigrate to Canada, and no one is automatically accepted for refugee status until a determination is made by an independent refugee board,'' said Mike Fraser, spokesman for the Canadian Minister of Citizenship and Immigration in Ottawa.

``To be a refugee, claimants must demonstrate that they have reasons to fear persecution or risk of torture or punishment in their home country.''

Fraser added that Canadian officials have asked refugee groups in the United States to ``stop spreading information that may not be true...''

For entire article click title of this post

The Definition of a Refugee

Thinking of those immigrants who are originally from Mexico and travel to Canada requesting refugee status..

Who could be considered a refugee? Cuban immigrants to this day, almost 40 years after Castro's takeover can arrive on a boat and are automatically welcomed as refugees. A few days ago I saw photographs of two women who traveled from Cuba to Florida in a small boat. The interaction between them and the police was so different compared to when undocumented immigrants from other Latin American countries meet the police. What would happen if two women immigrants from Mexico got in a boat in Tampico and made their way to Post Isabel in Texas? You can bet the reception wouldn't be the same. The Cuban women were being comforted by police, given blankets. The Mexican women would be in handcuffs.

Perhaps we can learn from this. How were Cubans able to negotiate refugee status? If the bottom line is that they have to be persecuted in their home country. Then I ask, are all the Cubans that have immigrated individually persecuted? Over the years I have met a number of individuals who they or family members had to leave Mexico, El Salvador, or Guatemala because of persecution, the kind with a bullet to your head. Especially those from Central America who were children at school when men with guns burst in classrooms and took out their teacher and killed him or her...