Between 2017 and 2019, 95% of people who made a refugee claim at the Canadian land border did so in Quebec, and almost all at Roxham Road, where there is no official border crossing. Almost 18 months after having banned it due to the pandemic, the federal government has, since last Sunday, allowed people crossing the border between border crossings to file an asylum application. What can we expect from this reopening?
To answer this question, we have to go back to the pre-pandemic years. The transformation of Roxham Road into the hotspot of this border is no coincidence: it stems from several decades of migration policies aimed at preventing the spontaneous arrival of asylum seekers. Responding to an anxiety over the functioning of the federal asylum system in the 1990s, these policies took an anti-terrorist turn following the attacks of September 11, 2001. That year, Canada and the United States joined forces. agreement on the Smart Border Declaration, of which the Safe Third Country Agreement (ETPS) is a part. Established in 2004, the ETPS makes it possible to return the majority of asylum seekers who present themselves at the Canada-United States border to the United States.
This agreement is at the origin of what has been called the “migration crisis” of Roxham Road. Indeed, among the exceptions it provides, the ETPS does not apply to people crossing the border at a place other than a point of entry. Due to its geographic location and the political climate, Roxham Road has established itself as the main unofficial point of entry into Canada. If the first arrivals took place in a chaotic manner, the authorities subsequently put in place certain arrangements to accommodate these people in an orderly fashion. Nevertheless, this temporary arrangement allowed the Canadian authorities to exercise surveillance over irregular arrivals, to maintain some control over these people and, ultimately, to examine their requests in a way that respects the rights of asylum seekers as well as Canadian law.
During the first weeks of the pandemic, Canada almost completely closed its land border to asylum seekers. While the government subsequently reinstated the few exceptions to the ETPS, people arriving between official points of entry still could not file their application, being returned to the United States to await the moment when the authorities would allow them to come and do so. Although the Canada Border Services Agency began contacting these people last August, this closure means that new, more remote paths are now being taken. On the American side, refugee aid organizations deplore the difficult conditions in which people find themselves waiting to be able to submit their application.
The lifting of this exception announced on Sunday will have consequences at Roxham Road and elsewhere along the land border. This is a good time to consider repealing the ETPS and thus allow asylum seekers to report directly to border crossings. Otherwise, the images from 2017 risk returning to the front pages of our newspapers: entire families arriving irregularly at Roxham Road, their suitcases in hand, since this is their only option to claim refugee status in Canada. Or, worse yet, asylum seekers who, as was the case in 2017, perish in the snow-capped rural areas of the Prairies in search of a passage between two border crossings. This cat-and-mouse game between the authorities and asylum seekers ultimately serves no one.