[LINK] "No visa rule yet for Hungary, despite spike in refugee claims"

[rfmcdonald]

The Canadian Press' Terry Pedwell describes how, even though Roman in Hungary are migrating to Canada by claiming refugee status like their co-ethnics in the Czech Republic, Canada's not imposing visa restrictions on Hungary. (Yet?)

The number of refugee claims by asylum-seekers from Hungary has rocketed to nearly 1,400 so far this year - almost five times last year's total - making it the top source country for refugee claims at points of entry into Canada, figures obtained by The Canadian Press show.

The explosion in Hungarian refugee claimants, however, hasn't convinced the federal government to impose visa restrictions on Hungary as it did on the Czech Republic earlier this year.

[. . .]

The number of claims for refugee status from Hungarians rose to 1,353 to the end of September, compared with 285 for all of 2008 and just 24 the previous year.

And the number of claimants nearly doubled in the three-month period after Canada imposed visa restrictions on the Czech Republic and Mexico, compared with the first half of the year.

While Canada does not break down claimants by ethnicity, immigration authorities anecdotally say the vast majority of recent Hungarian refugee claims have been made by Roma.

[. . .]

Many in the Hungarian-Canadian community don't see the recent wave of claimants as legitimate refugees.

"I know what discrimination is, I went through it as a child," said George Telch of Toronto, who came to Canada as a refugee from the former Yugoslavia in 1949.

"Many of us (in Toronto's Hungarian community) think these people are coming to Canada for economic reasons," he said. "They're not genuine refugees.

"They have the old story in their heads that (Canada) is paradise, you don't have to work, you get rich, you get the car, the house, everything."