Here's how many Americans crashed Canada's immigration site

Many Americans panicked at the news of a Trump presidency
 By 
Marcus Gilmer
 on 
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Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

As it became more and more likely on Election Night that Donald Trump was heading for a shocking victory, users flooded Canada's immigration website and caused it to crash.

Now, we're learning more about who was flooding the site. The CBC reports that approximately 200,000 people were on the site at one time on Election Night, and half of those people were American.

For reference's sake, a week before the election, when Hillary Clinton was leading in most polls, the average daily traffic was around 17,000 people with fewer than 2,000 of those being from the United States.


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Beyond those rough estimates, we still don't know much. A spokesperson for the department told Mashable that it's too early to know the exact number of immigration applications submitted since Election Day.

Canada expects to welcome 300,000 new citizens in 2017, but how many of those will be American remains to be seen. According to data provided by Canada's immigration office, 6,664 Americans became new citizens of Canada in 2015.

While much of the interest is just intense emotional reaction to Trump's election, for those who try to follow through on the threat, the road to becoming Canadian is actually pretty tough. Immigration lawyer Chantal Desloges told the Globe and Mail:

“It’s not just as simple as getting a job. If you’re offered a job that doesn’t fit under NAFTA exceptions, then your employer here in Canada would need to prove to the Canadian government why we need someone from outside the country when our unemployment rate is already so high."

So, remember: you can try to immigrate to Canada, but you'd better have a damn good sales pitch when you do.

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Marcus Gilmer

Marcus Gilmer is Mashable's Assistant Real-Times News Editor on the West Coast, reporting on breaking news from his location in San Francisco. An Alabama native, Marcus earned his BA from Birmingham-Southern College and his MFA in Communications from the University of New Orleans. Marcus has previously worked for Chicagoist, The A.V. Club, the Chicago Sun-Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.

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