Toronto — More than a dozen Cuban pilgrims planning to seek refugee status after World Youth Day are hoping their attempt to stay in Canada will send a powerful message to the Cuban government.

"They want to demonstrate what kind of repression there is in Cuba," Ismael Sambra, president of the Cuban Canadian Foundation, said on behalf of the group on Monday.

"They prefer to fight in Cuba, but if some people decide to escape that's great too because it is a way to rebel against the dictatorship in Cuba."

The Cubans, who were part of a larger delegation visiting from their country, are hiding in out in residences throughout Toronto after escaping during the watch of Cuban security police as Pope John Paul II delivered a mass on Sunday.

The defectors, who Mr. Sambra says are all professionals in their 20s, plan to visit Toronto immigration offices this week and apply for refugee status. They're expected to argue that they'll be persecuted for their religious and political beliefs if they return home.

Although Mr. Sambra wouldn't give further details on the defected pilgrims until the other visiting Cubans leave the country via Montreal on Tuesday, he said the group is spread out throughout the city in the homes of families that have taken them in.

"Freedom to express religious and political ideas — this is what they seek," Mr. Sambra said of the pilgrims hoping to escape the communist regime of Cuban President Fidel Castro. "Canada can give them an asylum."

Rejean Cantlon, spokesman for the federal Citizenship and Immigration Department, said he could not comment on the defected Cubans as no formal applications have yet been made, but said the department is prepared to review their applications.

"They have a right to make a claim," he said. "We have a longstanding commitment to helping people in need of protection."

If they were to apply for refugee status this week, the Cubans would be able to see immigration officials in about a month, when a decision would be made on their eligibility to apply.

If they were considered eligible, their applications would have to be further reviewed before being either accepted or denied. If they were rejected at any stage of the application process, they'd be sent home.

So far, about 10 World Youth Day participants have applied to stay in Canada — far fewer than expected.

Immigration officials had reviewed 26,000 VISA applications for World Youth Day, about 6,000 of which were denied.

Those 6,000 applicants were rejected either because they said they would remain in Canada after World Youth Day or because immigration officials feared that they would not leave.

Arch Ritter, a professor of economics and international affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa, said the Cuban defectors may be successful in staying in Canada, but said they face grim consequences if they're sent back to Cuba, and could lose their property and jobs.

Any message the group attempts to send the Cuban government, he added, is futile.

"The (Cuban) government gets this message all the time and it doesn't care," said Mr. Ritter, an expert on Cuba's political system and Cuba-Canada relations.

In the summer of 1999, more than 600 Chinese migrants arrived in British Columbia, with some forced to swim to the rocky coastline of the Queen Charlotte Islands. Most of those migrants have been deported back to China, although some have received refugee status.