Amidst visa waiver and Trump victory, Canada gets ready for rush of immigrants from Mexico

As the assured visa waiver is getting functional along with the victory of Donald Trump, Canada is preparing to address the rush of immigrants from Mexico. This is at the same time when Donald Trump has announced to expel illegal migrants.

The immigrants from Mexico do not require the visa to Canada from now onwards. One of the spokespersons for the Immigration Ministry of Canada has said that there might be an increase in the number of immigrants from Mexico, particularly tourism and corporate travelers.

The visa for immigrants from Mexico was implemented from the year 2009 in order to address the issue of fake asylum seekers. On the other hand, the visa waiver comes at a time when Trump has declared to expel millions of illegal immigrants from the US. This has caused much worry to the immigration officials of Canada who anticipate an increase in the numbers of the refugees from Mexico, as quoted by them to the Guardian.

In the years 2005 to 2008, the number of asylum seekers from Mexico was almost thrice the number and this made Mexico the nation with highest appeals for asylum. There were 9,400 appeals for asylum in 2008 out of which only eleven percent were approved.

The Canadian government introduced visa to curb the number of asylum seekers. As a result, the number of refugees to Canada from Mexico reduced to mere 120 in the year 2015.

Meanwhile, Mexico exerted immense political pressure on Canada to remove the visa requirement for Mexicans to Canada. The Canadian government agreed to waive the visa in return for Mexico increasing its imports of beef from Canada.

But at that time many would not have anticipated the victory of Trump in the US presidential elections. Trump had particularly declared to build a wall across the borders the US shared with Mexico and expel millions of illegal immigrants.

Lorne Waldman the immigration lawyer from Toronto has said that if Trump goes ahead with his vows on immigration, it would have a considerable effect on Canada. The two factors that will attract huge numbers of immigrants to Canada will be the victory of Trump and visa waiver, he added.

The lawyer recollected similar inflow of immigrants from the US in the post 9/11 period when Muslims in the US were expelled who took refuge in Canada.

In the recent years, the number of immigrants from Mexico to the US decreased significantly owing to the tough border security rules and comparatively steady employment sector.

The victory of Donald Trump, his tough stand on immigrants, vow to nullify all the existing bilateral trade collaborations between the US and Mexico and enforcement strict import duties have caused much concern that economy of Mexico will be under crisis.

However, Immigration refugees and citizenship Minister of Canada has differed on this issue by saying that visa waiver will help to strengthen ties between Canada and Mexico and encourage tourism. John McCallum said that Canada was pleased to welcome more nationals from Mexico and ready to facilitate the necessary requirements for the same.

He told the House of Commons that the government was prepared to face the situation as every policy had its own pros and cons, quoted the Guardian.

John McCallum also said that the government will very keenly scrutinize the immigrants from Mexico and the visa waiver would be removed if there was an increase in the number of refugees from Mexico. After a certain period of time, the visa could be again implemented as Canada continued to enjoy complete independence on the issue.

He, however, expressed hoped that the point where immigration would become no longer fit to be sustained would not evolve at all as a matter of fact.