The family fled Syria, spent eight months in Lebanon and now they came to Canada because here, Madeleine will have many opportunities, the family said.
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About 70 Syrian-Armenian refugees who were on the flight are expected to arrive at an Armenian community centre in Toronto sometime Friday. Another plane will arrive in Montreal on Sunday. “Now, we feel as if we got out of hell and we came to paradise”, Jamkossian said later.
The newly elected Liberal government is pushing forward with its pledge to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of February amid an intense debate in the West over what to do with people fleeing violence in the Middle East. More than 30 (mostly Republican) governors have said they will not take refugees in their states-despite the fact that states probably don’t have this authority, in governor Mike Pence recently successfully diverted a family to Connecticut-and two bills meant to keep out refugees have been voted on in Congress.
In a story December 11 about Syrian refugees arriving in Canada, The Associated Press relying on a pool report from Canadian Press misidentified the occupations of refugees Kevork Jamkossian as a gynecologist and Georgina Zires as a lab technician.
“I’m aware of the need that’s going on in the world at the moment with this refugee crisis”, Willborn told CBC News. And, it’s because of this fear that many Republican politicians are hesitant on the topic of Syrian refugees.
She added that organizations like hers are “inundated” with donations and offers to help.
“I have said from the start that this is not just a government project”. “The message is clear, that Canada welcomes everyone”.
“There are a lot of moving parts to coordinate and it’s very hard to plan when you don’t know numbers, you don’t know dates”, he said.
The plane full of refugees landed just before midnight in Toronto as other privately sponsored refugees arrived on commercial flights, Reuters reported.
A handful of people gathered at the worldwide arrivals gate at Pearson bearing signs and gifts.
That’s the message one little Canadian girl wanted to send to her new Syrian friends.
Philpott says the government will ensure the health needs of the refugees are met.
“You are home”, Trudeau said to the first passengers to disembark after a 16-hour flight from Beirut on a Canadian military aircraft.
The building has been converted into a special processing center, where arriving refugees not only will go through the usual customs, immigration and health screenings, but also will be given all of the other paperwork necessary for their new lives.
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Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale replied that the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Canadian Border Services Agency have all “indicated collectively that they were fully satisfied with the security procedures that had been put in place them”.
