It’s foolish to waste our limited resources on fake refugees from western democracies

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Earlier this month, the Federal Court gave a family seeking refugee status another shot at remaining in Canada. But they weren’t fleeing war — they were fleeing Spain.

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The family (aside from the mother) were Spanish nationals who claimed that they were being pursued by a transnational criminal organization, and that police were so useless that it warranted refugee status in Canada. Originally from Latin America, they moved to Europe when the father allegedly received a death threat from the gang in question.

Spain didn’t feel safe either, however: the father’s relatives there said the gangsters had come looking for him, and the court heard evidence that the organization recently committed several murders there.

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Thus, the family of five came to Canada for asylum. Their claims didn’t guarantee that they would be accepted and granted official refugee status — they’d enter the queue for processing and would receive a decision later on — but as they waited, they would have been eligible for all sorts of state benefits, including free school for the kids and free health care, including prescriptions, optometry, dental care and therapy.

They would go on to be rejected by the refugee tribunal and, after that, the refugee appeals........

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