Illegals fleeing US for Canada?

NY Times:

Fleeing stepped-up sweeps by the American authorities, illegal immigrants to the United States, mostly Mexican, are arriving in growing numbers at the foot of the bridge in this Canadian border town seeking refugee status.

Still more immigrants, mostly Mexicans living illegally in Florida, have begun trying to make their way past America’s northern border at other locations, the majority of them flying into the airport in Toronto, Canadian officials said Thursday.

The arrivals here began suddenly three weeks ago, just a family or two at first, fueled by the notion — largely unfounded, the authorities here say — that Canada would grant them asylum.

The journey, some of the immigrants said, was first suggested by an organization in Naples, Fla., which charged a fee for assisting with the paperwork. Now the idea has spread on the Internet and through social networks.

By Thursday, at least 200 people had turned up here, across the border from Detroit, with as much of their lives as they could shove into suitcases, boxes and garbage bags in their cars. Thousands more, refugee advocates and Canadian officials say, may be on their way.

Advocates for immigrants issued urgent warnings to Mexicans pondering similar journeys, and expressed fury at groups that were encouraging them. In truth, refugee status for Mexican citizens is relatively unusual in Canada. Only 28 percent of such claims by Mexicans were approved in Canada last year, compared with 47 percent of claims from all nationalities.

“It’s an outrage that money is being taken to provide false information and dangerous information to these people,” said Rivka Augenfeld of the Canadian Council for Refugees, a nonprofit umbrella organization focused on the rights and protections of refugees. “This idea is just out there and growing.”

Windsor officials, who scrambled to arrange a meeting Thursday in a community center for some of the new arrivals so they could apply for social services, said they were overwhelmed by the sudden onslaught and deeply worried about the days ahead.

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This is sad and amusing at the same time. It does prove a point that has been made here often. Stricter enforcement will lead to self deportation. That they are going north rather than south is something of a surprise to me and to Canadians. The Canadians were expecting more movie stars after the 2004 election. In fact more people have been immigrating from Canada to the US since 2004. Perhaps they can use the people to help pay for their disastrous health care system.