A man and a woman were turned over to the Canada Border Services Agency after being arrested in Surrey, B.C. following an alleged illegal border crossing.MARK BLINCH/Reuters
Police in Surrey, B.C., arrested two people alleged to have illegally crossed the U.S. border into Canada – but Mounties in that community say they have not witnessed an increase in such incidents.
Wednesday's arrests come as crossings by asylum seekers into Quebec and Manitoba continue to draw international attention, although an immigration lawyer says such crossings make up a relatively small number of refugee claimants.
Corporal Scotty Schumann, a Surrey RCMP spokesperson, said a man and woman illegally crossed into British Columbia from the United States around 5:40 a.m. Wednesday.
Read more: Quebec and Manitoba see influx of asylum seekers crossing U.S. border
Read more: Winnipeg steps up with aid for refugees denied U.S. asylum
Read more: Asylum-seekers speak of dangerous voyage that led them to Canada
"Our patrol officers were dispatched to the scene and picked them up roadside. They were arrested under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act," Cpl. Schumann said in an interview.
He said the man and woman were then turned over to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). He said police had not confirmed where the two were originally from; CBSA said it could not provide any information because of privacy concerns.
Cpl. Schumann said the spot where the two people crossed did not offer much of a physical barrier. He said Mounties in Surrey were notified of the incident by U.S. border officials, who saw the man and woman head into Canada.
"If they're observing the border on their side and they feel that somebody's going to come over, they routinely will alert us to that fact," Cpl. Schumann said.
He said police in Surrey have not seen an increase in illegal crossings of late.
An RCMP national spokesperson said last week the force had witnessed an increase in illegal border crossings in Quebec, Manitoba, and British Columbia, with the largest of those increases in Quebec.
Sergeant Annie Linteau, a B.C. RCMP spokesperson, said in an e-mail Wednesday the force could not release provincewide numbers. She also would not say whether most of the crossings in British Columbia were near the Lower Mainland, the Interior or elsewhere.
CBSA did not provide a response when asked for information about B.C. crossings.
Constable Ian MacDonald, an Abbotsford Police Department spokesperson, could not immediately recall the last incident involving an illegal border crossing. He said there has not been a recent increase and such incidents tend to be more common in the spring and summer.
Mario Ayala, executive director of the Inland Refugee Society, said in an interview that his organization has seen an increase in refugee claimants in recent months. In October, he said, there were 29. There were 83 in November, 52 in December and 98 in January. While most of those people walked across the border, he said, others arrived in this province by plane.
Zool Suleman, a Vancouver immigration lawyer, said he has heard anecdotally that more people are claiming asylum in B.C. He said the claims are either being made by people crossing the border illegally, or by those seeking an exemption under the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement because they have close family in Canada.
Mr. Suleman said the anecdotal evidence he's heard suggests the increased arrivals are related to the election of Donald Trump, though he added refugee claims were already on the rise. He said the crossings could be giving Canadians the impression the border is not adequately protected.
"The truth is far from that. There's a very small amount of people who are coming in across the borders illegally. … The largest number of claims tend to be those who are making them at the airports, or people who already entered as visitors, workers, and students and then deciding not to go back and making a refugee claim after they legally entered the country," he said in an interview.