CSMonitor: Is Canada in the Midst of an Influx of Migration from Mexico? David Iaconangelo - The Christian Science Monitor
go to original March 16, 2017

The new Underground Railroad: Immigrants fleeing the US for Canada (ABC News)

After Canada relaxed travel restrictions in December, the number of visitors from Mexico has tripled. Some are asking whether that might have just as much to do with the United States as with Canada.

Several Canadian immigration lawyers, consultants, and activists told Reuters in recent days that their offices have seen a surge of requests for advice from Mexicans hoping to obtain a work permit there.

Marcela Gonzalez, an immigration paralegal in Toronto, said she once got about four phone inquiries a month from Mexican citizens there.

"Now I get four in less than 10 minutes" from Mexicans asking about work authorization and permanent residency in Canada, she told the news service.

And dozens of would-be migrants in a Reynosa shelter who were deported from the United States said they now see Canada as their more viable option, in what might suggest at least a partial shift during President Trump’s first months in office.

"For those without documents, I think [the United States] is over. Now it's Canada's turn," said Cenobio Rita, a deportee who spoke to Reuters.

It remains unclear how many of the 61,500 Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA) forms granted to Mexican citizens for short-term visits to Canada between December and late February were allotted to vacationers or other types of visitors, as opposed to people hoping to stay to work. That should become clearer in June, when the allotted visit period for many travelers begins to end.

Read the rest at The Christian Science Monitor

Related: More Americans Than Mexicans Claimed Refugee Status in Canada (National Observer)

Related: 'I Am a Man with No Land': African Migrants Wait in Limbo, Dreaming of Sanctuary in Canada (CBC News)

Related: In Trump Era, Some Mexican Migrants Head North – to Canada (Reuters)

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