Quebec border sees asylum claims double between March and April

Asylum claims doubled at a Quebec border crossing in April as the Trump administration seeks to strip legal protections from hundreds of thousands of migrants.

The Canada Border Services Agency says there were 2,733 asylum claims in April at the Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle port of entry, south of Montreal, up from 1,356 claims in March and 755 in February.

That's a fourfold increase over the same period last year, when there were 670 asylum claims at the Quebec border crossing in April.

The steady increase coincides with U.S. President Donald Trump's attempt to revoke temporary protected status for 600,000 Venezuelans and 500,000 Haitians living in the United States.

But the overall number of asylum claims across Canada so far this year has dropped by half compared to the same time last year, and the border agency says it has increased removals of people who are inadmissible to Canada.

Asylum seekers coming from the U.S. can only make claims in Canada if they meet certain exceptions to the Safe Third Country Agreement, and the agency says it has returned 1,439 claimants to the U.S. so far this year.