The lobby of the Wyndham Garden Tower Hotel in Niagara Falls at 8am is busy with chatter in all manner of languages.

The chatter is not from tourists heading out to admire the mist-covered waterfalls, however, but from children who are living at the hotel after arriving from Africa with parents seeking asylum.

Minutes later they are gone, climbing into two yellow buses to take them to school.

The scene plays out in 11 nearby hotels each morning.

The influx of migrants has taken the city to breaking point, according to its mayor, who has to manage the stress of having more asylum seekers per capita than anywhere else in the country, with all the strains that places on schools, hospitals and other services.