Canada’s border cities, bursting at the seams with asylum seekers, brace for more amid Trump turmoil

Of note:

Some hotels in Niagara Falls, Ont., are unusually full for the middle of the winter off-season, when many visitors stay home. Normally that would make the mayor of a tourist city happy – but not Jim Diodati.

His community, which says it has more asylum seekers per capita than any other municipality in the country, is ground-zero in Canada’s efforts to house thousands of refugee claimants in hotels while they wait for their claims to be processed. The mayor, who can see the United States from his perch at city hall, is worried it’s about to get a lot worse.

Mr. Diodati is concerned that if more asylum seekers start coming to Canada because of Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policies, his city will be unable to handle it – and he’s not alone. While the federal and provincial governments are trying to demonstrate to Mr. Trump that they’re serious about stopping the flow of migrants going south, mayors of the country’s border towns say there’s not enough talk about these implications of Mr. Trump’s policies.

In Niagara Falls, a city of around 95,000 people where tourism drives the economy, the influx of refugees is pushing local emergency rooms, schools, shelters, food banks and housing supply to the brink, Mr. Diodati said.

At its peak more than a year ago, there were nearly 5,000 asylum seekers housed in 11 hotels in the city’s downtown core, dotted with souvenir shops, arcades, amusement rides, indoor water parks and a casino….

Source: Canada’s border cities, bursting at the seams with asylum seekers, brace for more amid Trump turmoil