As someone else said, they are getting denied. There are many many more disgusting examples of those American exceptionalist attitudes that make more sense to get your jimmies rustled about, just look in any direction.

I would guess that most of the people applying are representative of populations that do legitimately feel unsafe in the US right now (or at least less safe than, say, a year ago). It just doesn’t rise to the established standards in Canada, which, admittedly, exist for obvious reasons. Someday they might. I hope I’m wrong, but these couple hundred applicants are probably a bellwether and this conversation about people fleeing the US for greener pastures seems likely to continue.

And hey, it doesn’t cost them anything and I’m pretty sure there’s no penalty from Canada for claiming asylum and not getting it, beyond just not getting it and some human having to waste their time processing these. It’s better that the process is there than for it to not be.

Lastly, we shouldn’t get to decide whether people feel safe or not, it’s not your choice to make and we kind of just have to believe them unless they’re clearly just trolls doing it as some kind of weird stunt for Internet likes. I’m not saying that’s what you’re doing here, but I’ve seen a lot more of it about, it’s a feature of this cruel time we find ourselves in. It actually wouldn’t surprise me if there are a handful of people who applied just to troll or “pErSeCuTeD fOr BeInG ChRiStIaN” types in the mix also though.