OTTAWA — Nearly every day on Roxham Road, people cross from the United States into the arms of Canadian police and ask for asylum.
When President Biden arrives in Canada’s capital on Thursday for his first visit to the country since taking office in the Oval Office, the influx of immigrants on that highway, an unofficial border crossing on a rural road in Quebec, will be among the top sights. of the agenda for his meetings with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The Trudeau government has welcomed refugees from Syria and elsewhere, and has promised stunning increases in immigration to the country, giving Canada a reputation for being more open to immigrants than many other Western nations. But over the past year, as migration at the Canadian border has increased, with an increase of asylum seekers entering Roxham Road from a sleepy town in upstate New YorkThere are signs that Canada’s famous hospitality toward immigrants may be unraveling.
The increase of almost 40,000 migrants who crossed in the country last year, more than doubling the number in 2019, has given Canada a small taste of the challenges other Western countries have faced settling refugees and has prompted opponents of Trudeau to call on him to renegotiate a key agreement on asylum. search engines with the United States. The number arriving each month has skyrocketed, with almost 5,000 people who arrive in January.
Trudeau has vowed to bring about changes to the deal with the United States that his political opponents say is driving the rise. On Wednesday, Trudeau suggested that a deal could be announced before Biden returns to Washington on Friday night.
“We have been working very closely with the Americans for many months and we hope to have an announcement soon,” he told reporters.
A Canadian government official, who spoke about the talks on condition of anonymity, said the United States was interested in reworking the agreement because it is faced with a growing number of people going the other way, from Canada to the United States. .
Under the pact, the Safe Third Country Agreement, which was signed by Canada in 2002, asylum seekers who enter Canada through regular land crossings with the United States can be sent back there immediately. But those who enter simply by crossing anywhere else along the 8,890-kilometre (about 5,517-mile) border, the longest land border in the world, they can file a claim and remain in Canada until an immigration hearing determines their final status.
(Asylum seekers who come from other countries on planes or ships are not covered by the agreement, regardless of where they enter. They are comparatively few in number and, in many cases, detained until their hearings.)
But several Canadian immigration and legal experts say that even if changes are made to the agreement, the problem will persist and possibly worsen by making border crossings underground, making them more dangerous. It is also possible that the deal will ultimately be overturned by a pending ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada, which can, as Canada’s Federal Court has done, find it a violation of Canada’s Constitution, as well as its obligation to receive refugees. under international treaties.
“The Canadian government and the immigration ministry are in a difficult position: the politics of this is such that the government has to be seen to be doing something,” said Audrey Macklin, a law professor at the University of Toronto who studies migration issues. . . “But they have to know that anything that closes the routes of entry only amounts to a job creation program for smugglers and some kind of stimulus package to militarize the border.”
Most migrants entering Canada from the United States trudge through the unofficial crossing from New York state. to roxham road in Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec. The highway’s unlikely rise to national prominence began around 2016, waned through much of the pandemic, and returned with a vengeance about 15 months ago.
Its role as a conduit for migrants stems from what Trudeau’s political opponents characterize as a loophole in the deal, a pact that came into force in 2004 and arose largely at the request of Canada and was part of a wide range of agreements. new border measures that followed the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
The steady stream of immigrants arriving on Roxham Road are met by members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who now almost ritually warn them that they will be arrested and charged with entering Canada illegally.
Those who cross are quickly processed, released from detention, and usually bused to Montreal. Not long after, they are allowed to work and receive health care and other social benefits while they wait for their claims to be processed. Many are placed in hotels or other accommodation paid for by the government, and their children attend public schools.
François Legault, Quebec’s premier, has complained that the increase is overwhelming his province. And many of the people who are now crossing are being sent to other provinces, particularly Ontario.
Political opponents, including Mr Legault, have been pressing Mr Trudeau to close the informal crossing on Roxham Road and to amend the agreement to allow Canada to send all asylum seekers back to the United States. regardless of where they enter the country. .
Mr. Trudeau has agreed to redraft the agreement.
“The only way to effectively close not just Roxham Road but the entire border to these irregular crossings is to renegotiate the Safe Third Country Agreement, which is serious work we are doing as a government right now,” Trudeau said last month. .
Hundreds of the migrants circulating on Roxham Road end up in the corridors of the Refugee Center, a legal clinic in Montreal that he has had to turn people away, said Abdulla Daoud, the clinic’s executive director.
Mr. Daoud said the influx of migrants on Roxham Road could be reduced if the agreement were changed to allow migrants from specific countries to enter Canada at regular border areas without fear of being returned to the United States. Canadian Statistics show that last year 30 percent of asylum seekers arriving through irregular entry points, such as Roxham Road, were Haitian and 23 percent were Turks.
“I think that’s a realistic thing that can be done through negotiations with Biden,” Daoud said.
Canada’s population increased by a record more than 1.05 million people last year, according to a report released on Wednesday by the national census agency, which said the population growth rate of 2.7 percent was largely surpassed only by a few African nations.
Although Canada committed to accept 1.5 million new arrivals by 2025 Under its regular immigration system, its geographic isolation from everywhere except the United States allows it to largely control who comes to the country as refugees. The wave of more than 61,000 Syrian refugees who began coming in 2015, the first of whom were met by Mr. Trudeau at the airport when they arrived, were selected by Canadian immigration officials and flown to Canada on government-chartered flights.
Professor Macklin said it was not obvious why the United States would be interested in changing the agreement to allow Canada to return asylum seekers.
While Canada has not detailed its talks with the United States, there has been widespread speculation in immigration circles that Canada may be prepared to help the United States ease the ever-expanding immigration problem at the US border with Mexico.
In exchange for a new Safe Third Country Agreement, several immigration experts speculate, Canada could be prepared to send immigration officers to Mexico to screen asylum seekers and take them north.
Rights activists such as Ketty Nivyabandi, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada, one of the organizations now suing the Supreme Court, said the group would like to see the deal thrown out entirely, if not by the government, then by the Supreme Court. Court, and for Canada to accept immigrants again no matter where they enter.
Closing Roxham Road is not the answer, he said.
“We are pushing them down much more inhuman and dangerous paths to get to Canada,” said Ms. Nivyabandi, “because the circumstances that pushed them to come are not going to go away.”
ian austen reported from Ottawa, and Vjosa Isai from toronto
