Source: New California Media

http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=fbaa55f50a76329013d829cd77fe710d

On April 4, 2003 New California Media reported that "February was an unusual month at Vive La Casa shelter in Buffalo, NY, and not only because its aid workers helped process three times the normal number of applications for people from the U.S. seeking asylum in Canada. It was unusual because of the applicants' composition: Of the 952 people who came to ask the non-profit for help with their paperwork and a place to stay while it was being processed, some 550 were Pakistani, about 50 were Egyptian, and the rest were a mosaic of Indonesians, Bangladeshis, Colombians and others - all trying to leave the United States to seek safe haven in Canada... Prompting them was a Feb. 19 INS special registration deadline for nationals of seven countries: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Jordan and Kuwait... The Pakistanis and others crowding the border in January and February weren't taking any chances of being shipped back home on chartered flights, as so many others have been. They wanted to be someplace safe, and they had determined that place was not the U.S. Since NSEERS went into effect, 3,000 Pakistanis have fled to Canada and 1,100 have been deported."