Elizabeth Weise

USATODAY

SAN FRANCISCO — Americans really did crash the Canadian immigration site Tuesday night as polls closed on the West Coast and the first results indicated Donald Trump would be president.

There were 200,000 users on Canada's immigration website around 11 p.m. EDT on Tuesday when it began to experience difficulties, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Of those, 100,000 were from U.S. internet addresses.

At the same time the previous week the site had just 17,000 visitors, CBC said.

Having 50% of the site's traffic come from the United States is extraordinary. Normally Americans make up between 8.8% to 11.6% of its traffic, according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the Canadian version of what in the U.S. is United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.

At the time of the crash, 50% of the site's visitors were from the United States, 37% from Canada, 3% from Australia and 1% from the United Kingdom.

Canada as a nation is welcoming to immigrants and makes much of the initial process available online. In general, would-be immigrants must have either a post-secondary education, a job offer in Canada, close relatives in the northern nation, a business to bring north or "a high net worth or significant financial resources," according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. Speaking French also helps.