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It's an icy morning on the Canadian border in Quebec.
The temperature is hovering around minus 10 degrees Celsius when, just as dawn breaks, car lights appear and a family tumbles out of a taxi, all rugged up in coats and beanies.
This is a daily occurrence of late and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are ready for them.
Standing on the bank of a frozen creek they call out: "Stop. Stop."
"Do you speak English?" they ask.
"If you cross you're going to be arrested. Do you understand?"
A woman in a coloured headscarf, carrying a toddler, responds in the affirmative. The group scrambles across the creek, dragging duffel bags and suitcases.
A little boy turns his eyes to our camera, a little frightened perhaps, or at least uncertain as the police grab bags and hands and shepherd the group towards waiting vehicles.
Usually at this time of year about 50 people a month cross here to seek asylum.
Right now, about 500 people per month are coming into Quebec alone, and while conflict overseas is the ongoing push factor, the numbers have spiked since the election of Donald Trump and new restrictions on immigration and refugees entering the United States.
"I will come for safety and protection, and a home," a young Syrian man tells me.
"President Trump don't like us — that's the reason."
Syrians, Yemenis, Eritreans, Somalis, Sudanese and others catch buses, trains or planes to get close to the border on the US side, then take a cab or walk to skip the border from upstate New York into Canada.
Under a deal between the two countries they would be stopped by the Americans if they tried to claim asylum at a formal border crossing, which is why they're braving the freezing ice and snow to cross a creek at the end of this quiet country road.
"When we process you we're just going to be taking basic information and then we're going to bring you over to the immigration authorities and they're going to process your refugee claim, OK?" one of the police tells a man as he locks handcuffs and folds him into a police car.
The approach is sanctioned by the Canadian Government led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau under his policy to welcome refugees, especially Syrians.
"We still need to do our police work, we need to make those arrests. It's a criminal activity to cross the border illegally, so we need to arrest those people but there's a big humanitarian aspect of it," says Francois Gagnon from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
"I'm a father of three so seeing those people crossing with babies and kids, you take a step back and take things a little bit softer than usual."
The conditions are brutal. Further along the border in Manitoba overnight temperatures have been below minus 30 degrees Celsius. Farmers fear what they will find when the snow melts.
"Some people we know have, for instance, spent the night outside or [been] getting lost in the woods while they were crossing," says immigration lawyer Eric Taillefer in Montreal.
"Some people were rushed to the hospital for frost bite. Especially last week, there was one night where it was minus 32 outside.
"There was a case in Manitoba where a man had to have all of his fingers amputated because of frost bite, so those are the more serious cases."
The asylum seekers are held briefly in detention and they live in community centres while their claims are processed, usually within two months.
However, there's concern the increased numbers may lead to delays.
While surveys show some Canadians do have concerns about the new arrivals they remain in the minority.
Topics: immigration, world-politics, canada, united-states
First posted