Canadian immigration needs reforms in refugee system

Canada, 19th April: Canadian immigration needs to introduce tough reforms to the laxative policies in the refugee system.

No doubt, Canada immigration minister Jason Kenney has certainly brought noteworthy improvements in the Canada refugee system, however, there are still several reforms needed in Canada’s refugee system. These changes are in the interest of better security of Canada. 

Let’s have a recap of the steps undertaken by Kenney since he became Canadian immigration minister way back in October 2008. At that time, more than 50 percent of refugee claimants in Canada were either from Czech Republic or from Mexico. Moreover, a large number of such asylum seekers in Canada were economic migrants who did not had any legal claims for seeking refugee status in Canada. 

The main motive of asylum seekers from Czech Republic and Mexico was to take advantage of the tedious and slow screening system of Canada which took nearly 10 years after the claims were made by bogus asylum seekers in Canada. So, until that period, the bogus claimant could keep on living in Canada and would face deportation not before 10 years. 

And the fact that the facility of free legal counsel was provided to all asylum seekers in Canada for getting their claims processed in addition to all the healthcare and welfare benefits in Canada encouraged a large number of people to file claims as asylum seekers. 

This is already proving to be a cause of great concern for an average tax payer in Canada. Canadian taxpayers are forced to pay nearly $50,000 from their own pockets towards the cost of failed asylum seekers in Canada.

As per the IRB(Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada), out of the total 6,000 asylum seeker claims received by Quebec from Mexico, nearly 90 percent were found to be false asylum claims which cost nearly $171 million to Quebecers. 

Taking a cue from such large number of bogus asylum claimants in Canada, Kenney imposed visa requirements from various visitors hailing from Mexico and Czech Republic. The steps have considerably reduced number of bogus asylum claimants in Canada. 

For safeguarding the security of Canada include ----

• Increasing measures for better screening of potential immigrants and asylum seekers;

• Reducing the number of migrants from terrorist-producing nations to Canada.