Canada’s foreign minister asked the United States for help handling illegal immigration dogging the shared border.
Canada’s Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale told his American counterparts that they need to help Canada trace back travel visas that the Canadians say are being used to jump the border. According to the CBC, Canada’s state television network, Goodale claimed that U.S. embassies are issuing travel documents to visitors who only spend a small amount of time in the states before heading north.
“We have asked them to go back upstream and examine the pattern of these travel documents being issued and how come the people to whom they were issued appear to have had no intention of staying in the United States, but were simply using the documents as vehicles to get into the United States and then make a beeline for the Canadian border,” Goodale told the CBC.
That’s right. Canada is worried that the United States is being too lenient in issuing travel visas because they say the U.S.’ generosity has ended up causing them problems — even though Canada has been selling itself to the international community as a country with “open arms.”
Goodale also told the CBC that he asked the United States Department of Homeland Security to be more proactive in warning Canada about upcoming immigration policy changes because every time the United States cracks down on immigration, foreigners make a beeline for the border.
The minister reportedly asked acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke to help the two countries take “joint steps … to address illegal migration across their shared border.”
The issue is especially concerning, the Canadians say, because when the United States bars a group of migrants or refugees from entering a country, those same migrants or refugees just shift course to Canada — or, in some cases, as with Hatians and some Mexicans, they simply bypass the United States and hop into our neighbor to the north using unguarded roads in upstate New York.
Of course, Canada asked for the trouble they now face. Back in January, as President Donald Trump announced more stringent immigration policies, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was happy to say that Canada would gladly receive all those turned away by the stars and stripes.
Now, they’re not so sure.