Illegal immigration from U.S. to Canada

Mexico is an emerging market that while suffering some recent economic setbacks, isn't a third world basket case that most Americans probably think it is. So most illegal immigrants from Mexico (and there are a lot from the rest of Latin America, not just that country) are not an accurate representation of all Mexicans.

So could a similar situation have happened with indigent underclass migrants leaving the U.S. for Canada?

How about inner city African-Americans? There's been a long history of blacks fleeing the U.S. to Canada, as early as the Revolutionary War (if not earlier). So either the civil rights movement goes south, coupled with worse economic situations in the U.S., leads to more black emigration to Canada. And once things go badly enough, illegal emigration follows.
 
How about inner city African-Americans? There's been a long history of blacks fleeing the U.S. to Canada, as early as the Revolutionary War (if not earlier). So either the civil rights movement goes south, coupled with worse economic situations in the U.S., leads to more black emigration to Canada. And once things go badly enough, illegal emigration follows.

You would need a situation where the economy in the US goes belly-up, but Canada somehow manages to remain lucrative for poor US migrants, through a better employment situation and/or more generous social-safety net. I'm not sure how plausible that is.

I know it's a truism that the Canadian welfare-state is more generous than the US one, a case usually made by foccusing on health-care. I'm not sure if that's true about welfare-payments, though, which would likely be the main draw for migrants.
 
You would need a situation where the economy in the US goes belly-up, but Canada somehow manages to remain lucrative for poor US migrants, through a better employment situation and/or more generous social-safety net. I'm not sure how plausible that is.

I know it's a truism that the Canadian welfare-state is more generous than the US one, a case usually made by foccusing on health-care. I'm not sure if that's true about welfare-payments, though, which would likely be the main draw for migrants.

It's also a truism that slavery and racism are not nearly as entwined in Canadian history and culture as they are in the United States, and even when they do appear, they're not nearly as poisonous. What few slaves there were in Canada were encouraged to become literate, for example. That knowledge by itself would appeal to minority migrants trying to cross the American border into Canada.
 
It's also a truism that slavery and racism are not nearly as entwined in Canadian history and culture as they are in the United States, and even when they do appear, they're not nearly as poisonous. What few slaves there were in Canada were encouraged to become literate, for example. That knowledge by itself would appeal to minority migrants trying to cross the American border into Canada.

Well, we're talking about the 20th and 21st Centuries, right?

As such, I think you still might need to have some pretty serious economic benefits awaiting in Canada, in order to see large-scale African-American migration. I don't think that "Hey, they were nicer to slaves back in the day" is gonna be much of a selling point, without a guarantee of better housing and food.

I suppose that the worst, most life-warping aspects of Jim Crow(eg. lynching, inferior schools) could make Canada seem a tempting destination, even in the absence of better material conditions, if it looked like there were no hope of ending those practices in the US.
 
You would need a situation where the economy in the US goes belly-up, but Canada somehow manages to remain lucrative for poor US migrants, through a better employment situation and/or more generous social-safety net. I'm not sure how plausible that is.

Doesn't have to be completely belly-up, just that either race relations gets so bad there's a lot of emigration out of the U.S., or that for whatever reason impoverished African Americans have enough mobility to cross into Canada.

Is there large scale Mexican migration to the U.S.? I mean, is Mexico losing a substantial amount of its population?
 
Is there large scale Mexican migration to the U.S.? I mean, is Mexico losing a substantial amount of its population?

If you listen to FOX news and the Republican candidates it would certainly seem as if the entire population of Mexico is three guys right now.
 
Mexico is an emerging market that while suffering some recent economic setbacks, isn't a third world basket case that most Americans probably think it is. So most illegal immigrants from Mexico (and there are a lot from the rest of Latin America, not just that country) are not an accurate representation of all Mexicans.

So could a similar situation have happened with indigent underclass migrants leaving the U.S. for Canada?

How about inner city African-Americans? There's been a long history of blacks fleeing the U.S. to Canada, as early as the Revolutionary War (if not earlier). So either the civil rights movement goes south, coupled with worse economic situations in the U.S., leads to more black emigration to Canada. And once things go badly enough, illegal emigration follows.

Um... despite your "other countries are so great" philosophy, yes Mexico is in quite a bad situation compared to the US (and Canada and the rest of the 1st world). Mexico, outside the tourist areas, actually is very unsafe for Americans (and Canadians and Europeans) to travel to. It has almost 3 times the murder rate average in the world, it has the second highest crime rate among nations in the OECD, and the recent (and effective) crack down which was the result of bringing the military (which is still corrupt) into the business of basically fighting military style has resulted in 28,000 criminals dead since 2006 (and over 1,400 innocent lives), a number I'm pretty sure is not even close to the number that US police departments have killed (when adjusting for relative size of the nation's population). Mexico isn't just a "below average" had some setbacks nation, it IS a third world nation (in both the original meaning and the current pop culture meaning).

Despite other poster's assertions that Canada has such great race relations, that's simply not true. One should ask Japanese and Chinese who lived in Canada. Why were the Chinese the only immigrants who had to pay a head tax to enter? Why were they outright banned from entering in 1923?

Oh, and one last thing- can't have an immigration of Blacks from the US starting in 1911 because Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier and His Majesty's Canadian govt declared a ban on the "Negro" race, Laurier was a huge racist. Tell me again how big bad the US is and how great and enlightened Canada is. I'm definitely not debunking this (and I can spout a lot more bad things Canada has done) and I'm not intending to humiliate Mexico; I'm just sick of everyone wanting to bash the US so badly that they have to lie about the condition and history of other countries to knock the US. Trust me, the US's bad things in today and history are well enough known, you don't have to make other countries look better. But you do have to admit the faults in other countries just as Americans need to realize the faults in their own.
 
It would indeed be a strange set of affairs where the American economy is falling apart somehow Canada's isn't. Canada is pretty well attached to the United States at the hip.
 
It would indeed be a strange set of affairs where the American economy is falling apart somehow Canada's isn't. Canada is pretty well attached to the United States at the hip.

Our economy was better I think from 2010 to early 2014. The Canadian dollar used to be worth 1.15 American then the American economy recovered and now our dollar is at a low that hasn't been seen since the 70's.
Honestly I think the free trade agreement between our two nations does more harm than good to our economy because it forces us to cater to American demands in order to survive. It prevents us from diversifying our market to other economies that are more stable or able to give more mutual benefits.
 
It would indeed be a strange set of affairs where the American economy is falling apart somehow Canada's isn't. Canada is pretty well attached to the United States at the hip.

Yes, essentially race relations would have to go so bad that this becomes more of a refugee situation—and Canada is so influenced by American culture that I can see them being highly reluctant to let such a thing happen. The Canadian economy has never relied on the systematic exploitation of migrant and unfree labor to the extent that the U.S. has. There's not institutional support for this scenario the way there is in the U.S.
 
It would indeed be a strange set of affairs where the American economy is falling apart somehow Canada's isn't. Canada is pretty well attached to the United States at the hip.

And yet things change, Canada has become a lot less dependent on the states in the last 10 years for trade. Canada is still quite linked to commodities for a first world nation, so it would help to have some sort of commodity boom. I think a more racist, perhaps slave owning states would do the trick up to the present day; in the face of which Canada would have a lot of royalist or commonwealth sympathies.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all white men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
 
Um... despite your "other countries are so great" philosophy, yes Mexico is in quite a bad situation compared to the US (and Canada and the rest of the 1st world). Mexico, outside the tourist areas, actually is very unsafe for Americans (and Canadians and Europeans) to travel to. It has almost 3 times the murder rate average in the world, it has the second highest crime rate among nations in the OECD, and the recent (and effective) crack down which was the result of bringing the military (which is still corrupt) into the business of basically fighting military style has resulted in 28,000 criminals dead since 2006 (and over 1,400 innocent lives), a number I'm pretty sure is not even close to the number that US police departments have killed (when adjusting for relative size of the nation's population). Mexico isn't just a "below average" had some setbacks nation, it IS a third world nation (in both the original meaning and the current pop culture meaning).

Yeah, but their economy is still at a good enough position to be on the up-and-up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Eleven

The BRICS nations all have some really truly wretched living conditions for the common people, but economically speaking they're doing well enough (well maybe Russia less so these days) to be considered future powerhouses. Certainly in Mexico, as in those nations, most of that wealth is going to only benefit local elites. But that doesn't mean they won't be desirable countries to trade with/extract resources from.

In this crazy modern world of neoliberalism, third world countries with terrible living conditions CAN become economic superstars.
 
All you need is to have an incompetent presidential administration SERIOUSLY mismanage the economy, and you'll have out-of-work and desperate Americans making a run for the border.
 
All you need is to have an incompetent presidential administration SERIOUSLY mismanage the economy, and you'll have out-of-work and desperate Americans making a run for the border.

I'm sorry, but what exactly can a "presidential administration" do to the economy? You do realize POTUS does not manage the economy right?
 
All you need is to have an incompetent presidential administration SERIOUSLY mismanage the economy, and you'll have out-of-work and desperate Americans making a run for the border.

I'm sorry, but what exactly can a "presidential administration" do to the economy? You do realize POTUS does not manage the economy right?

You could have a president mismanage the economy by, for example, vetoing a stimulus bill. Lets say you have a situation similar to 2008 but backwards, and Congress sends a stimulus package to the President's desk to besigned, but the President has misread the situation, vetoes the bill, the economy suffers a nuclear meltdown and goes into a Second Great Depression.
 
You could have a president mismanage the economy by, for example, vetoing a stimulus bill. Lets say you have a situation similar to 2008 but backwards, and Congress sends a stimulus package to the President's desk to besigned, but the President has misread the situation, vetoes the bill, the economy suffers a nuclear meltdown and goes into a Second Great Depression.

A stimulus package does not prevent, nor effect the start or continuation of a depression. Did they not teach you in school that the New Deal did not, and could not, end the Great Depression?
 
So could a similar situation have happened with indigent underclass migrants leaving the U.S. for Canada?

How about inner city African-Americans? There's been a long history of blacks fleeing the U.S. to Canada, as early as the Revolutionary War (if not earlier).....

I am skeptical insofar that the challenge specifically calls for illegal immigration from the US to Canada. This means that not only a substantial amount of people would want to leave the US for Canada, Canada must also close its borders and not recognize the arrivals from the south. I know, Canada's track record on welcoming foreigners is not that stellar as it believes itself to be, but overall they still regard US Americans, even African-Americans as some kind of brothers and I see Canada closing its borders with every other nation in the world before I see it closing its borders with the US.

The only way Canada would be afraid enough to bar US citizens from 'official' refugee status would be if any US citizen could pose a serious
threat to the welfare of Canada. Barring such ASB scenarios like an outbreak of super-Ebola in the US and Canada living in fear that every outsider could bring the virus in, I see Canada standing with the US population (if not the leaders) rather then cordoning itself off.

So yes, I am skeptic
 
Napoleonrules wrote:

Despite other poster's assertions that Canada has such great race relations, that's simply not true. One should ask Japanese and Chinese who lived in Canada. Why were the Chinese the only immigrants who had to pay a head tax to enter? Why were they outright banned from entering in 1923?

And both blacks and First Nations(nartives) and are way over-represented in Canada's prison population(ie. compared to their percentage of the population), same as blacks and hispanics in the USA.

And in many places, the living-conditions of Inuit and and First Nations are atrocious. Google "suicide rate Nunavut" for an example.
 
to get illegal immigration into Canada, you'd need the odd situation where the US is both hurting economically and repressive politically, while Canada is freer and harsher on immigration than it is now. How you get all that, I have no idea...
 
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