The movie Frozen River is about two women who smuggle illegal inmigrants from Canada to the USA. (watch it if you can, is very good) And I wonder, why the inmigrants wanted so badly go to the USA? I mean, isn´t Canada a good enough country for them?
If they have crossed the whole world from Asia or Africa, and they are already in a place where they have the same standards than in the USA why would they risk getting cought trying to smuggle into the USA?
In fact the whole thing reminds me to that place in Callais, France, called "The Jungle", where thousands of inmigrants waited for months, or even years to cross the channel and get to the UK. And I wondered....what's wrong with France? Or any other European country, they could go to Germany, Nederland, etc, they were already in mainland Europe, why waste so much time and effort trying to get to the UK when you can find basically the same in any other European country?
I haven't seen the movie, but I will take a guess that the two women did not originate from Canada. Canada and the US share the longest undefended border in the world. While it has been tightened up a lot since 911, it is still comparatively easy to sneak someone across. My guess is that they brought the women in to Canada because our immigration/visitation laws tend to be more relaxed than those of the US, then moved them from Canada into the US.
Human trafficking is an issue here unfortunately. Whenever you have places people want to go, it seems you will also have people who will take advantage of that desire. I recently read an article about my area of Ontario having a surprising number of cases where immigrants were forced into what is essentially slavery and put to work in the seasonal agriculture, housekeeping, and unfortunately, sex trade industries.
I've also noticed that the government has taken to airing advertisement on television about immigration officials. That if someone claims to have the ability to get your spouse or family member into the country, you should do your research and make sure they are a legitimate official or lawyer. So it seems that even the government is admitting at least passively that there are issues with that right now.