A migrant is sharing his story about fleeing the United States following the travel ban put in place by United States President Donald Trump.
The 32-year-old entered the U.S. on a tourist visa about 20 days ago.
Saturday he said he walked three hours in the snow, with three other migrants and a GPS to cross the border from Minnesota into Manitoba.
"Very cold. If the police didn't come, we would be dead,” he said Tuesday.
The migrant now hopes to stay in Canada.
In his home country of Djibouti in East Africa, he said his family members were assassinated. If the wrong people knew he was in Winnipeg, relatives would be at risk.
He said he didn't want to take any chances of being sent back.
"I heard the rumours about U.S. President Donald Trump. That they'll send people back where they came from. That's why people are fleeing to Canada,” he said.
Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council said 10 refugee claimants crossed the border since Trump's travel ban to the seven Muslim majority countries.
The council is concerned about the influx of in-Canada claims, and said seeing 10 applications at their office in one day is a huge amount.
Executive Rita Chahal said 65 million refugees around the world means we are in the middle of challenging times.
“People are running for their lives. People are running for protection. They have lost everything. They just want a safe place to call home,” Chahal added.
Refugee organizations in Winnipeg are forecasting the influx to continue.
In the past 3 months, the majority of claimants have been from Somalia. 19 of the claimants have come from Somalia, 15 from Ghana, 13 from Djibouti and 10 from Nigeria.
The council said there have been 91 claimants since the beginning of November.
Canada Border Services Agency said 410 refugee claimants illegally crossed the border near Emerson between April and December 2016.
