'I am proud to be here': 7 more asylum seekers walk into Manitoba, where it's 20 C

Seven more asylum seekers risked dangerously cold temperatures as they walked across the Canada-U.S. border into Emerson, Man., earlySunday.

CBC News spotted six men and a woman about4:30 a.m.as temperatures dipped to 20 C.

'I am proud to be here': 7 more asylum seekers walk into Manitoba, where it's 20 C

8 years ago

Duration 2:12

Seven more asylum seekers risked dangerously cold temperatures as they walked across the Canada-U.S. border into Emerson, Man., early Sunday.

Thegroup emerged from a wooded area just south of the border and held on to each other as they walked along a set of train tracks crossing through the southern edge of the town.

A 25-year-old man from Somalia said he had been walking for roughly 22 hours and was not aware he had reached Canada.

"I feel very safe," he said, after learning he had made it across. "I am proud to be here."

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His journey began in 2015. He left Somalia for Costa Rica and made his way to Mexico before crossing into Texas. In the United States he was detained for two months, he said. Upon release, he went to live in Minnesota.

On Saturday, he took a bus to Grand Forks, N.D., and paid a taxi to drop him off somewhere near the Canadian border, he said.

"Mr. Trump, he said, 'I am going to deport Somalis,' so I decided to [come] to Canada," he said.

The young man was travelling alone. He said he came across the other asylum seekers, who he believed were also from Somalia, along the way.

RCMP arrested the group around 5 a.m.and escorted them to the Canada Border Services Agency building at the Emerson port of entry so they could file refuge claims.

Greg Janzen, the reeve of Emerson, said at least four people walked across the border earlySaturday.

Since January, more than 130 asylum seekers have walked across the border into Emerson.

A trailer has been brought in to the port to make space for processing the influx of refugee claims.

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Read CBC's full coverage of refugees crossing the U.S. border into Manitoba