Especially since the dreamy Justin Trudeau became prime minister, we’ve tended to look to our neighbors to the north as our moral betters in every way, but a new Reuters/Ipsos poll has threatened to shatter that illusion.
Despite Trudeau’s tweet welcoming all refugees to Canada, which he just happened to issue the same night that protests broke out over President Trump’s travel ban, it looks like the Canadian population at large appears to be “just as concerned about illegal immigration as their American neighbours,” with nearly half in favor of deporting refugees who are illegally crossing from the United States.
Almost half of Canadians want illegal border crossers deported, poll suggests https://t.co/aQ7mA2Kp4X pic.twitter.com/ZsJHxRXRIj
— CBC News (@CBCNews) March 20, 2017
Sad … that poll conflicts with the narrative that refugees who had risked it all to reach the United States found themselves having to risk it all again after Trump’s inauguration just to finally find a host country that truly welcomed them.
https://twitter.com/anitabeveridge/status/843987692983607296
Um, sort of. When asked about recent border crossings from the United States, 48 percent said Canada should “send these migrants back to the U.S.” However, only 36 percent said Canada should “accept these migrants” and let them seek refugee status, with the remainder undecided.
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If they are true refugees who now feel unsafe in racist/xenophobic/islamophobic US, we should welcome them.
— ?? Luna ?? (@Cdn_Luna) March 20, 2017
That will be up to Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board to decide. But according to Reuters, even the executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees admitted that “refugees are much more welcomed when we have gone and selected them ourselves as a country, as opposed to refugees who have chosen us” — sounds kind of xenophobic, doesn’t it?
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