The Canadian government should say more clearly that it is not welcoming to people crossing the border irregularly, and promote the United States more as a “safe country” for asylum seekers, recommends a report by Parliament.
“That the Government of Canada actively work to discourage irregular border crossings through Roxham Road and elsewhere through public statements, social media posts, and visits to key source countries to speak to the media and discourage this kind of passages”, can we read as the first recommendation of a report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration tabled on Tuesday.
Titled “Asylum Seekers at the Canadian Border,” the 100-page document reports a “potentially record number” of 50,000 asylum seekers crossing the Canadian border between official crossings in 2022. “95% of these illegal refugees will have crossed the border at Roxham Road, towards the province of Quebec”, we note.
Chaired by Ontario Liberal MP Salma Zahid, the parliamentary committee of twelve elected officials representing the four main parties in the Commons issued 13 recommendations following their work on irregular arrivals in the country. The committee has heard from 27 witnesses since November 2022.
Contribution to humanitarian migration
The committee notes that migration is a massive trend worldwide, with an estimated 103 million people forcibly displaced from their homes in the first six months of 2022 alone. Although the total influx of migrants arriving in Canada has increased in recent years, “Canada’s proportional contribution to global humanitarian migration has declined.”
“While not comparable to the alarming migratory movements observed in the Mediterranean or at the United States-Mexico border, irregular migration through the Roxham Road places considerable pressure on the structures and systems in place in Canada “, can we read.
Since Canada is a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the country has an obligation to guarantee safe and unimpeded access to asylum procedures, as well as to ensure the protection of the rights of these people.
In January 2017, in the midst of a humanitarian crisis in Syria, the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, sent a tweet which read: “To those fleeing persecution, terror and war, know that Canada will welcome you. His critics blamed the message for exacerbating the flow of migrants to Roxham Road, with one even trying to take the Prime Minister to court, without success.
Safe Third Country Approval
In March, the Canadian government revealed its agreement with the United States government to turn away anyone crossing the border via Roxham Road or another irregular crossing point, in exchange for welcoming an additional 15,000 people a year. . The details of this new commitment are still not known.
The parliamentary committee recommends that the federal government “state publicly that the United States of America is a safe third country, that is, asylum seekers arriving in the United States should first apply for protection as refugees in the United States instead of Canada”.
And this, even if several speakers testified that the American asylum system was dysfunctional and not very respectful of the rights of migrants, who are frequently imprisoned there. For example, 28,000 Haitians would have been deported from the United States without having had the possibility of having their case heard, lamented Frantz André, of the Action Committee for People Without Status.
Among the other recommendations of the parliamentary committee, it is suggested to better fund the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at the border and to investigate more criminal organizations involved in human trafficking.
Members of the committee are also asking to accept asylum seekers who are victims of “gender-related” persecution as an exemption from the Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States, to provide work permits to applicants for refugee status upon arrival, and to better fund the community organizations that help them.