Canada apprehends 19,419 illegal immigrants in 2018

shaheennews

According to Canada’s federal data, a total of 19,419 asylum seekers in have been apprehended last year, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) announced Monday.

The vast majority of apprehensions 18,518 were along the Quebec-U.S. border, the data showed, revealing that number was only marginally lower than the 2017 total of 18,836, it added.

RCMP spokesperson in Quebec, Camille Habel, said that police has spent more than $6.6 million over the past two years to process asylum-seeking migrants at Canada’s busiest illegal border crossing in Quebec.

“If police are satisfied they do not pose a national security threat, the migrants are then handed over to officials with the Canada Border Services Agency for further processing,” she added.

A report from the federal parliamentary budget officer estimated that the average cost to process each irregular migrant from the time they enter Canada to the time their claims are decided at the Immigration and Refugee Board was about $340 million total.

//Petra// RZ