Asylum seekers get health-care benefits first, eligibility questions later
Asylum seekers arriving illegally in Quebec are getting access to health-care services before the government knows whether they’re eligible to make a refugee claim, due to a backlog of cases, according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
About 3,800 people have crossed the Canada-U.S. border into Quebec in the first two weeks of August. This influx, after nearly 3,000 people arrived in July, has pushed the government to set up temporary tent housing in Lacolle, and more recently in Cornwall, Ontario.
But there are signs that the high numbers have significantly strained the system.
Normally, “irregular” arrivals who cross the border illegally first go through a security check and then go through a second screening to determine whether they are eligible to make a refugee claim. These two checks are usually done within a matter of hours or days.
But according to Denise Otis, a protection officer with the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Montreal, the eligibility interviews are taking months to arrange. “The situation right now is for people unless you are very vulnerable, at this moment we are the 21st of August, you will have your eligibility interview in January.”