Migrants who recently left New York City for better opportunities Canada are reportedly making their way back to the Big Apple.
Ilze Thielmann’s non-profit organization, Team TLC, gets funding from New York City to help migrants get to another location through a process called “re-ticketing.” Many of them ask to go north to Plattsburgh, New York, where they cross over into Canada using an unofficial border crossing commonly used by asylum seekers known as Roxham Road, CBC reported.
“They want to cross the Canadian border and take their chances there,” Thielmann said, according to CBC. “They think that there are all these jobs up there. They think they’re going to be able to get asylum very easily up there, and that’s just not the case.”
Some migrants bussed to Canada already heading back to NYC https://t.co/UuIjgEDGYl pic.twitter.com/prbGw2tThU
— New York Post (@nypost) February 9, 2023
When they arrive in Canada, however, they find that the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side.
“Mucha nieve,” (Spanish for “lots of snow’) Colombian native Jose Liandro observed to the New York Post. Liandro, 37, reportedly left New York City for Canada last week, but is now settled in a Hampton Inn outside of Montreal, seeking a return to the United States.
Canada announced in November 2022 that it planned to welcome a total of 1.4 million new permanent residents into the country, but has reportedly been caught off-guard by the influx of asylum seekers entering the country, prompting Quebec’s immigration minister Christine Fréchette to call for a crackdown on the unofficial crossings.
Eva Gracia-Turgeon, who runs a shelter for asylum seekers in Montreal, understands why New York is encouraging people to leave, citing the strain on resources and states its not much different than their own situation in Canada.
“I think the problem is, for a lot of politicians, the fact [that] Roxham Road exists. And they want to point to [re-ticketing] as another element for closing Roxham Road, where it’s not the solution. You can put a wall, you can close a road, but it’s still not going to change the situation. You still need to take care of the people you receive in your own province, in your own country,” Gracia-Turgeon said, according to CBC.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams rejected the idea that he was encouraging people to go to Canada, telling Fox 5 that city officials are merely trying to help migrants get to a preferred destination. (RELATED: New York City Is Busing Illegal Immigrants To The Canadian Border)
“Those who are seeking to go somewhere else, not we’re pushing or forcing, if they’re seeking to go somewhere else, we are helping in the re-ticketing process,” Adams told the outlet. “Some want to go to Canada, some want to go to warmer states, and we are there for them as they continue to move on with their pursuit of this dream.”