Posted on 09/19/2007 5:07:07 PM PDT by Pikamax
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
For 15 years, Manuel Ortega was living his version of the American Dream in Florida.
He had steady employment, sometimes working as a detailer for local car dealers, other times as a forklift driver. He earned enough to buy a van and rent a house for his wife and three children. His kids earned good grades in school and played with the family pet, a Shih Tzu named Chaparro (Shorty). They were safe and kept out of trouble.
Ortega's dream, as he recounted it Tuesday standing outside a room at a Windsor motel, is now but a memory. He is one of an estimated 180 Mexicans from Florida who've rushed across the border and into Windsor to claim refugee status, fleeing a crackdown on illegal aliens in Florida.
Local agencies that work with refugees have been told to brace for 4,000 to 8,000 refugee claimants.
Every single day this month, Mexican nationals who have been living illegally in Florida -- some for a dozen years or more -- are turning up at the Windsor-Detroit border seeking refugee status. The first group arrived at the YMCA on Aug. 28.
"They've been coming steadily ever since," said Jacquie Rumiel, director of programs for new Canadians at the YMCA.
The Ortegas left Naples, Fla. and say all they ask for in Canada is "a chance," said the father.
"Give us a chance to show what kind of people we are," the 39-year-old said. "We don't be afraid to work. We don't be afraid to start again. We need the chance, please, to do that."
Ortega said his fear of being deported to Mexico intensified within the past three months as immigration officials became more visible on the streets and the incidents of deportation of his acquaintances increased.
When his American neighbour threatened to report him to authorities, he told his family to pack-up. They simply couldn't risk returning to Mexico, where he says he fears the powerful drug cartels, corrupt government and poor living conditions.
"We don't have a future in Mexico," Ortega's 36-year-old wife said, noting her brother and his family also fled to Windsor fearing deportation. "We can't go back."
After driving his 1996 Grand Caravan for 24 hours without stopping -- except for gas and food -- the Ortegas arrived at the Windsor tunnel Sept. 11. When they told the border guard they were seeking refugee status, the Ortegas were given a list of social services organizations to contact for support.
The Y is one of the first stops for asylum seekers. The settlement program there directs new immigrants to legal help, housing and other programs.
It's hard to get a firm figure on the numbers who have arrived recently. While 120 have crossed the Y's threshold, the city's social services department, which is in daily contact with the Canada Border Services Agency, thinks the number is closer to 180. But the Salvation Army thinks the real number could be into the hundreds.
The Salvation Army has put up 50 families -- some with five, seven and nine children each -- at four city hotels. Their bills, including meals, are being sent directly to the city's social services department. Another 30 single men are sleeping and getting hot meals at the Salvation Army Church Street shelter.
"We are being inundated with them," said Maj. Wilfred Harbin, Salvation Army administrator. Like others in the city, he has heard that up to 7,000 Mexicans seeking refugee status could be headed this way.
"What are we going to do with them? We're running out of beds."
In fact, said Harbin, all the beds are filled. A handful of men are sleeping on mats on the gymnasium floor of the building. "Maybe the military can help us," said Harbin, unable to think of where else he could get a shipment of cots in a hurry.
Salvation Army hostel supervisor Marlene Dufault said she believes the U.S. crackdown on illegal immigrants has led to the influx of Mexicans at our border. She said a church group in Naples has been charging the asylum seekers $400 a head, promising them there will be jobs awaiting them here.
The Canadian Council for Refugees sent out an alert Tuesday in response to what it calls an "urgent" situation.
According to the national non-profit group that acts as an umbrella organization for agencies that help refugee claimants, there are "fraudulent advisers in the United States endangering asylum seekers" by telling them there is a "special Canadian program" for Mexicans.
The only accurate information the Mexicans are getting from these advisers is that they won't be turned away at the border.
Under the U.S.-Canada Safe Third Country Agreement, asylum seekers from the United States would normally be turned back. But those coming through the United States from Mexico are an exception because the United States would require those people to have a visa, but Canada does not.
Danny Yen, Canada Border Services Agency spokesman, explained that means the United States would not accept those people if turned back.
Legal Aid has begun footing the bill for the refugee claimants to get legal advice.
Immigration lawyer John Rokakis said seven Mexicans came through his door Tuesday with Legal Aid certificates paying for three hours of a lawyer's time. Monday he saw three others and had a steady trickle last week as well.
Few will have successful refugee claims, he predicted. "Of the ones I've seen there are maybe one or two that may have something," he said. One is a man who sought political asylum in the United States and was denied.
In the short term, the refugee claimants are the guests of city taxpayers. Some have U.S. bank accounts they can't access and others are destitute.
Teresa Piruzza, executive director of Ontario Works said, as of Monday, ten families and 18 individuals had applied for social assistance. "We're just starting to process them," Piruzza said of the applications.
Welfare currently pays up to $548 per month for individuals and $1,193 for families with two children under the age of 13.
As he recounted his story, Ortega repeatedly stressed his thanks to social services for helping his family.
"Social services, they help us too much," he said. "I want to say thanks and to Canadians 'thanks.'"
As opposed to yellow? Kind of a contrast thing?
They are running out of beds huh? Well, a REAL liberal would give a Mexican his bed or even his house. Let’s see the Canadians put their money where their liberal mouths are :) They need ALOT more diversity up there in lily white Canada.
Thank You for all of your support. All of us conservative Canadians really appreciate it. It is nice to know who your friends are. I didn’t see a whole lot of them on This thread.
Sounds like a good unifying fundraiser for FR. :p
Excellent! Keep up the pressure and get all 20 million of them moving up there.
bump for publicity
Of course, when it gets really bad, the Canadian Gubmint (and probably a slew of Canadian citizens) will rail against the USA for having let the problem get this bad....not the damned illegals for acting like rats leaving a burning ship.
Sounds like good news to me.
we’re bracing for our winter canadian snow birds
here in socal.
some of them have their autos shipped down on semi-trucks.
you can always tell a canadian driver because they’re blocking traffic.
Now if we can only run the Quebecians out of Florida....
Like the USA, Canada is just too derned nice and civilized for their coming invasion.
Having lived in North Mexico City (aka “Los Angeles, CA”) for 10 years,
I hope The Canadians wake up fast.
Of find their new “refugees” are ready to do the jobs even their Inuits
won’t do.
Hope they all head north before they get snowed in down here.
In 10 years the Canadian hockey players will sport names like Pancho and Paco instead of Jean Paul and Pierre.
Yes... and also after they learn what "cold" means. It sure ain't like that down where they came from!
- John
GOOD.
If Canada thinks the illegals are so oppressed, let Canuckistan take care of them.
And for those illegals who don't like the cold winters up in Canada, be sure to let them know that San Francisco has declared itself a sanctuary city in solidarity with the "undocumented immigrants." I'm sure that town of 400,000 will be happy to host another million.
I just want to thank all of you for your kind remarks regarding My country. I also would like to take the time to thank all of my fellow citizens for fighting the war on terror. Thank You for dying for these ungrateful people. Thank You for fighting a war which most people disregard, and have little respect for.
Thank You all of the Canadian Soldiers who are fighting and dying in Afghanistan. Last time I looked we were there because of 9/11. Thank You Americans who have posted such derogatory remarks on this thread. It will be remembered.
Just how, exactly, did Sarah Sacheli and Roberta Pennington find the Ortega family? Were these reporters camped out at the Windsor port of entry, and did they approach the Ortegas when they came through because they had the look of an immigrant family from Mexico who had made a wayside stop (of fifteen years, yet) in the US before continuing on to Canada? Somehow, that possibility just doesn’t seem likely.
Who had the idea for the story? Did Sacheli & Pennington go to their editor with the idea for the story, or did the editor send them out to develop a lead that was his idea? And, whoever thought of it, what was the genesis of the idea? Like a bulb, did it just light up in someone’s head? Or, as Senator Simpson was given to observe from time to time, did it come floating in over the transom unannounced?
Going back to the original question, who introduced the reporters to the Ortega family and to their story? There are a ton of candidates mentioned in the article: “Local agencies,” whatever that means; Jacquie Rumiel, director of programs for new Canadians at the YMCA; Maj. Wilfred Harbin, Salvation Army administrator or maybe hostel supervisor Marlene Dufault; someone at the city’s social services department or the Canada Border Services Agency; or maybe the Canadian Council for Refugees; maybe it was one of those “fraudulent advisers in the United States” that the article mentioned; could it be Legal Aid or possibly immigration lawyer John Rokakis, all likewise mentioned in the article.
One has to wonder. Did the reporters go out and hunt for their sources? Or, did the sources come to them (or their editor) with a ready-made story freshly pulled off the shelf?
Then there are all the details and quotes from the Ortega family. Did these two reporters actually do a face-to-face with the Ortegas? Or were all those details and quotes fed to the paper by a third, unidentified, party? Was Sacheli’s and Pennington’s only task that of sitting at their desks and writing up a pre-cooked tale? Inquiring minds want to know.
I love it.
Even odds that the Ortegas are a product of these reporters’ imaginations.
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