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More than 25,000 asylum seekers have crossed into Canada from the United States between official border posts since 2017, and Roxham Road has been a major conduit. Many are doing so in response to the Trump Administration’s crackdown on illegal residents.

Reports from the front, as it were, show a mix of people coming across the border; Haitian nationals, primarily, but also people from the Middle East and Africa. The range of nationalities hightailing it out of Trump’s America reflects a broad truth about the current climate for those living the United States illegally: often, it’s out of fear that their country of origin will be targeted next.

This wouldn’t normally be a problem. Remember, we are a tolerant people who in 2015 elected Justin Trudeau, the very personification of this cliché, in part because of his plan to welcome some 25,000 Syrian refugees. Yet the situation has changed dramatically in the last two years, resulting in a few real problems and many more cynical, manufactured ones.

First, the bricks-and-mortar reality: we are nearing the limit of our ability to house asylum seekers as they await their hearings. “Toronto has no further ability to accommodate new arrivals of refugees in our system,” said Toronto Mayor John Tory, whose city is the end destination for the majority of asylum seekers.

A conservative practically by birth, Tory is a flaming liberal on social issues, so his warning shouldn’t be taken as fear-mongering. The same can’t be said for some of his colleagues, however.