Immigrants are fleeing Trumps America

Remarkableriots · August 17, 2018

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2018/08/03/feature/undocumented-immigrants-are-fleeing-trumps-america-and-these-americans-are-easing-their-journey-to-canada/?utm_term=.fe60675ca6fd

https://www.stripes.com/news/us/undocumented-immigrants-are-fleeing-the-us-for-canada-and-these-americans-are-helping-1.540970

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McFetridge is part of a loosely assembled network of progressive activists, faith leaders and taxi drivers who have mobilized to help undocumented immigrants cross the northern border. To some, they're selfless do-gooders ushering people to better lives. To others, they're perpetuating a problem that has debilitated Canada's immigration system.

For centuries, residents note, towns in the Champlain Valley have been a path to security, serving as an escape route for people fleeing slavery, the Vietnam War draft and Central American wars. Now, when it comes to immigration, this GOP-friendly part of New York has become a hub of the resistance.

"We view this as our Underground Railroad," said Carole Slatkin, an advocate who has helped immigrants traveling through Essex, New York, a town that was part of a major route for enslaved people. "While no one is being flogged, and no one is being sold, there is this sort of modern-day equivalent of feeling like people are in danger."

"To me, it's just being abusive," said Paul Viau, mayor of the township of Hemmingford, a Canadian farming community along the border. "There are people who sympathize with [the immigrants] and people who have a harder time with it. But no one appreciates that someone would pack them up and bring them to the border at an illegal crossing."

In Quebec, the leader of its nationalist party, Jean-François Lisée, has suggested constructing a wall along the southern border of the province.