Quebec tells Eric Adams to stop buying NY migrants bus tickets
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The government of Canada’s second-most populated province is demanding that Mayor Eric Adams “immediately” stop helping migrants illegally enter the Great White North, as recently revealed by The Post.
“Any form of assistance to migrants crossing the border where it is strictly forbidden to do so should stop immediately,” a spokesperson for Quebec Premier Francois Legault said.
“We understand that the situation of migrants in New York poses major challenges, but the situation in Quebec and particularly in Montreal is even worse and constitutes an important humanitarian issue.”
Earlier this month, The Post exclusively reported that Adams was using taxpayer funds to get bus tickets for migrants in the Big Apple to travel upstate to Plattsburgh.
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From there, migrants take taxis and vans to a cul-de-sac at the end of Roxham Road in Champlain, where they walk across the border and surrender to Canadian Mounties to seek asylum, as The Post documented on Feb. 5.
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As many as 250 migrants use the Roxham Road crossing to illegally enter Canada each day, with nearly all of them settling in Montreal, Quebec’s biggest city, Legault spokesperson Ewan Sauves said.
The situation has overwhelmed Montreal’s ability to provide housing and other public services, with the flood of new students alone equivalent to the opening of 13 new schools, he said.
Last year, 39,161 people used Roxham Road to illegally enter Canada, comprising 99.1% of all such border crossings, Sauves said.
By comparison, the latest figures released by City Hall on Monday showed that officials have processed more than 45,600 migrants since the spring, with about 29,100 housed in 91 emergency shelters as of Sunday.
Mayor Eric Adams has defended funding nonprofits to “reticket” migrants who want to leave the city and go to Canada.Paul Martinka
Those figures likely represent an undercount, however, because they don’t include migrants who stay with relatives, friends and other people in their networks after arriving in New York, according to City Hall.
But while the Big Apple’s population is nearly 8.5 million, Montreal’s is just 1.7 million.
Adams’ office didn’t immediately return a request for comment, but the mayor last week defended funding various nonprofits, including Catholic Charities, to “reticket” migrants who want to leave the city and go to Canada.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault said all aiding of migrants crossing the border “should stop immediately.”Getty Images
“We are not encouraging anyone to go to another country,” Adams said during a Wednesday appearance on CNN. “If we speak with a migrant, interview them, [we] find out their desires and make sure that we are assisting them like we’ve done.”
The surge in border crossings at Roxham Road has sparked controversy in Quebec, with the separatist Parti Québécois recently calling for police intervention and the creation of an “enclave” to block the Roxham Road path between the US and Canada.
Another separatist political party, Bloc Québécois, tweeted Friday that Quebec was not an “all-inclusive,” sparking outrage from the democratic socialist party Québec solidaire, the Canadian Press reported Sunday.
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“An all-inclusive is a place where we go to crash on the beach drinking margaritas,” Québec solidaire spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois said while attending the party’s national council in Montreal.
“The people who enter Quebec to apply for asylum are people who are fleeing violence, exploitation, persecution. They are not people who want to take it easy.”
Nadeau-Dubois added: “These comparisons have no place.” (New York Post, February 13, 2023)