Refugee Board: Ahmed Omar and Man .,

refugee board: It is something that you must have that faith in, you must have that patience, Ahmed Omar said, according to CBC. The average wait time before people can go in front of the board has grown to 16 months, but officials say it could become even longer. Like the majority of people hoping to call Canada home, the two Somali asylum seekers who walked across the Canada-U.S. border near Gretna, Man., in July have no idea when they will get their opportunity to argue their claim in front of the Immigration and Refugee Board. The math is clear unless you put more resources to this problem, then it takes longer time to schedule, so there will be longer wait times, said Shereen Benzvy Miller, the head of the board's refugee protection division, during a House of Commons immigration committee hearing on Oct. 3. More than 8,000 people have crossed into Quebec from New York since July, most of them Haitians worried they'll be deported if the United States lifts their temporary protected status. Read full coverage of refugees crossing into Manitoba Will latest restrictions push asylum seekers into Canada A flood of asylum seekers walking over the border into Quebec over the summer has created long delays for refugee board hearings for thousands of refugee claimants in other parts of the country. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.