On Thursday, Andrew Scheer took to Twitter to post an infographic about illegal border crossings in Canada, claiming that Trudeau has “failed to manage Canada’s immigration system” and citing the number of illegal border crossings in June 2019 is higher than that of June 2018, suggesting there is a trend.

Justin Trudeau is misleading Canadians. He claims the number of crossings has decreased, when in fact they have not. Illegal crossings lead to backlogs in the immigration system that can cause longer wait times for those who play by the rules. pic.twitter.com/SL8mAACP2e — Andrew Scheer (@AndrewScheer) July 18, 2019

However, according to the data put out by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), in the first five months of 2019 80 per cent of refugee claimants in Canada made their claim through official entry points. Only a small number of refugees go to Canada, which receives less than 0.3 per cent of the world’s refugee population. In 2018, refugee claimants only represented 0.15 per cent of the total Canadian population.

Scheer paints refugee claimants to be criminals and a burden on Canada – in reality, crossing the border at an unofficial entry point to claim asylum is not a punishable offence. Most refugee claimants crossing the border at unofficial entry points are fleeing violence and persecution, coming from countries at war or with serious human rights issues.

Scheer has also claimed that illegal border crossers are jumping the queue and “skip the line.” This is also untrue – refugee claimants do not delay or take the spot of economic immigrants or refugees resettled from abroad as they are processed in entirely different programs and selected on different criteria.

Bill Blair, Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime, called Scheer out on Twitter. “Andrew Scheer is wrong. There’s been a significant decrease since 2018 when comparing January to June. His concern for our borders was absent when the Conservatives cut $1.2B from security agencies. Will he stand up to Doug Ford whose cuts will delay refugee hearings at the IRB?”

Here are other important factors about refugee claimants in Canada: