Canada Passes Tougher Laws on Immigration

Tough immigration bills designed to give the Canadian government more power to deny entry to bogus refugee claimants were approved Friday after an 11-month-long, acrimonious battle in Parliament.

Two new laws give the government authority to turn back ships carrying illegal aliens and increase the penalties against people helping illegal immigrants enter Canada--allowing fines up to $10,000 and jail terms up to 10 years.

Prime Minister Brian Mulroney had called the House of Commons into emergency session last August to pass the bills, but objections raised by church groups and refugee aid organizations delayed approval.

Mulroney acted after a public outcry about abuse of Canada’s immigration system that followed the landing of 174 Sikhs off the coast of Nova Scotia. There had been an uproar the previous summer after a boatload of Tamils fleeing refugee camps in West Germany and elsewhere in Europe, where aliens are often prohibited from working, arrived in Canada off the coast of Newfoundland.

The new laws require that refugees seek asylum to escape political persecution rather than to seek economic gain.

Under old Canadian laws, authorities were forced to give the benefit of the doubt and allow entry to any alien who sought asylum, no matter how flimsy the claim.

Often, it would take years to hold a hearing on the claim. By then, many with unfounded refugee claims had married Canadian citizens or taken other steps to legalize their status. There is currently a backlog of about 50,000 such cases.

Illegal aliens have flocked to Canada from Asia, South America, southern Europe and Africa. Authorities said there even was a handful of Americans who claimed political persecution in the United States.