Children of migrants living in U.S. pushing up American asylum-seeker numbers
OTTAWA — As Canada grapples with an influx of irregular asylum seekers, statistics show a growing number of people seeking refugee protection in Canada are Americans.
In 2017, people whose country of origin was identified as the United States made up the third largest cohort of asylum seekers. A total of 2,550 asylum claims were made by United States citizens in 2017.
Partial statistics for this year show this trend continued at border and inland entry points, where 1,215 Americans sought asylum between January and August, according to government statistics.
And when it comes to “irregular” migrants who have arrived in Canada between official border crossings, the U.S. was No. 2 in the top five countries of citizenship between January and June, after Nigeria.