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Thursday, February 9, 2017
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This Gardiner Expressway ramp is being torn down to create a more walkable, cycle friendly Toronto. Lance McMillan/metro
Refugees fleeing Trump turning to Toronto Asylum seekers
City doctor says more than 50 treated in the past month Gilbert Ngabo
Metro | Toronto A Toronto doctor who specializes in helping refugees has added his voice to calls for Canada to
open its doors to asylum seekers from the U.S. The Scarborough-based Canadian Centre for Refugee and Immigration Healthcare has treated more than 50 people in the past month who came across the border illegally in the wake of Donald Trump’s election, said Paul Caulford, the centre’s director. “They’re desperately concerned that Trump will deport them,” he said, noting the vast majority are women and children, most of them from Africa.
“They’re all saying: ‘I hid into a truck to get across because they’re going to turn me away, and I can’t be in the States because it’s a horrible place and I can’t return where I came from, which is famine and war and female genital mutilations.’” A report from Harvard University Law School released Wednesday said America is no longer safe for asylum seekers. Caulford himself has appealed to the minister of immigration with a letter highlighting the
crisis and arguing for an end to the Safe Third Country Agreement, which prevents people in the U.S. from applying for refugee status in Canada. Last December, the clinic received four refugees who suffered frostbite as they were smuggled through the border and dropped off in GTA parks and highways among brutal weather conditions. Caulford said recent arrivals often suffer from severe PTSD, headaches or respiratory issues.
He has asked the minister of immigration to speed up the process of providing refugees with healthcare insurance, so private clinics will not turn them away. “I just don’t want them to be vilified for trying to get to safety,” he said. Loly Rico of the FCJ Refugee Centre — a grassroots organization helping refugees file applications and access settlement services — said the numbers have been steadily creeping up every week, and the group is getting
more calls from people asking about how to apply for refugee status at the borders. “The Trump immigration policies make them fear for their safety there,” she said. “This is the time for Canada to open the doors even wider. We have the capacity to help these people.”
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