CBSA Has Removed Fewer Than 900 of 45,0000 ‘Irregular’ Asylum Seekers Since 2017

A family, claiming to be from Columbia, is arrested by RCMP officers as they cross the border into Canada from the United States as asylum seekers near Champlain, New York, on April 18, 2018. Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press

OTTAWA—New federal figures shows the Canada Border Services Agency has removed fewer than 900 asylum seekers who have crossed into Canada by exploiting a loophole in asylum laws.

Since early 2017, more than 45,000 migrants have arrived in Canada“irregularly” by entering the country through a forest path between New York State and Quebec—avoiding official border checkpoints where they would be turned away and told to file a refugee claim in the United States.