I wonder if any of these individuals would have been eligible to emigrate through regular channels. Most of them seem too young to be in adminstration roles within the Special Olympics and probably would not have been approved for immigration purposes, especially someone who was intellectually challenged. One of the reasons a person may be inadmissable for immigration is if they put undue pressure on health and social services.
Since all we can do is speculate as to their motives and plans, I think they are a group of individuals who decided to take a chance to grasp the gold ring during a rare opportunity to be within spitting distance of a country that has a reputation for allowing refugees from places other countries ignore. As recently as October, many French Haitians who arrived in the US via the Mexican border were hoping that Canada would take some of them in. Instead, the majority were returned to Haiti from the US. I think it's possible if any of those Haitian asylum seekers had made it through the border they would have made their way to Canada.
One of the largest Haitian diaspora is in Miami which is pretty close to where they stayed but I think it's probably the first place immigration would have started looking. I don't think these Haitians would qualify anymore for TPS since the extension only applies to those who were already assigned as of August 2021. So it makes sense to me they'd try to travel to next largest community in North America.
