There are none so poor, so vulnerable...

...that there is no-one left who is willing to exploit them. (Updated)

Illegal migrants lured to Canada
Fraudulent sales pitch touts an open-door policy
Thursday, September 20, 2007
National Post, with files from CanWest News Service
Adrian Humphreys

A sudden outpouring of illegal foreign migrants from the United States is crossing into Canada because of bogus claims by unscrupulous immigration consultants, a scam that has blossomed into an urban myth so pervasive the influx is clogging refugee services in some cities.

A fraudulent sales pitch touting an open-door policy and "economic refugee" program in Canada, aimed largely at Mexican and Haitian migrants living illegally in the United States, is proving remarkably attractive to migrants already facing crackdowns in some U.S. states.
[...]
The Canadian Council for Refugees, a non-profit umbrella organization working to protect refugees, issued a warning this week of the scams and the burgeoning myth and asked the federal government to intervene.

Canadian Council for Refugees Warning to those wishing to claim refugee status at the Canadian Border

These miserable bastards are charging these people as much as $400USD for supplying them with Canadian immigration application documents freely available over the internet and for telling them, falsely, that special amnesty programs exist allowing Mexicans and Haitians into Canada.

Many of the poor souls who take their advice and have made it to Canada have promptly been turned over by Canadian immigration authorities to their US counterparts - so they have pretty much paid $400USD to turn themselves in to ICE.

Just when you think you've seen the depths to which human beings can aspire, someone comes along to surprise you. Take Jacques Sinjuste of the Jerusalem Haitian Community Center in Naples, Florida. For a $300USD "donation" (clients interviewed said it was $400 per adult and $100 per child*), he'll download a refugee claimant form for you (from a third-party website unaffiliated with him and whose owners are furious at him) and give you directions to the Canadian border. He said in an interview that he'd been visited by someone from the Canadian Consulate a couple of days ago but "couldn't remember" if he'd been told to stop.

What a prince.

I do hope Mr. Sinjuste believes in an afterlife. I won't be there, but it sure would be interesting watching him explain this.

ronnie

*An earlier version of this post reported that the "donation" was a flat fee of $400. A new story in The New York Times gives more complete information.