The Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has reported that 2017 saw a six-fold increase in US citizens seeking asylum in Canada over 2016.
An IRCC survey cited 2,550 US citizens who applied for asylum status in Canada last year, the largest such number since at least 1994.
In this context, The Guardian cited experts as saying that "Americans were the third largest contingent of asylum seekers in 2017, after Haitians and Nigerians" and that the overwhelming majority of the US applicants are "children born to Haitian parents."
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"Most of the Americans applying for refugee status are the children of non-residents. They are US citizens because they were born there, but they come across the border with their parents because they don't want to be separated," Stephane Handfield, a Montreal-based immigration lawyer, pointed out.
After Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's tweet in early 2017 welcoming to Canada "those fleeing persecution, terror and war", the government's stance on asylum seekers changed significantly.
According to Canadian Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, now there is no "free ticket" into Canada.
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Last year, the Trump administration announced that it would no longer offer Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for those 59,000 Haitians living in the US after a 2010 earthquake devastated the country.
Trump appointees established deadlines for Haitian TPS beneficiaries to leave the country by July 22, 2019, or face deportation and detention.