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Run Away! Increasing Numbers of US Asylum-Seekers Seeking Refuge in Canada

© AFP 2023 / Geoff RobinsAn RCMP officer checks the documents of two women from Sudan after they illegally crossed the Canada-US border. (File)
An RCMP officer checks the documents of two women from Sudan after they illegally crossed the Canada-US border. (File) - Sputnik International
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The number of asylum-seekers fleeing the United States for Canada is increasing at startling rates.

Over the past year some 6,000 people have fled to America's northern neighbor, and, in July alone, Canadian police stopped an estimated 3,000 people illegally attempting to walk into Quebec.

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"We've never seen those numbers," claimed Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) spokesman Claude Castonguay.

"Even though our officers are patrolling 24 hours a day all year long, we've never seen such numbers coming in," he added, according to the Vermont Public Radio.

A rural road border crossing north of Champlain, New York, has recently become one of the most popular pathways to flee the United States for Canada.

According to a Yemeni man who asked to remain anonymous, the decision to flee the US came about because he did not feel safe in the country.

"It's not freedom, it's not safety in the United States," the unnamed asylum-seeker stated. "I came here [to the Canadian border], and I'm going to help my family… [they] live in Abu Dhabi, they don't have work, they don't have money," he added.

He researched his flight to Canada by looking online, according to wgntv.com.

"I'm looking on the internet, how to go this way, and ask some people on the internet, and they show me everything," he said.

The man, like so many others, was stopped by police officials once he reached the border checkpoint.

Bilateral agreements between Canada and the United States prevent people who are already in the United States from asking for asylum at border checkpoints.

People from Haiti, Sudan, Turkey and Eritrea make up a substantial proportion of those escaping the United States in search of better lives in the north.

Many of those fleeing to Canada are said to be Haitian; as a temporary protected status given to many in the island nation following a catastrophic 2010 earthquake will expire in January, 2018.

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