The United States intercepted more than one million migrants at its border with Mexico between 1er October 2021 and March 31. This number marks a spectacular increase compared to the last two years, and it is about to jump with the lifting, on May 23, of a decree allowing customs officers to prohibit entry to certain migrants for medical reasons. sanitary.
The influx of migrants to the southern border of the United States is a major political issue for the government of Joe Biden in the run-up to the midterm elections next November. He has also instructed his vice-president, Kamala Harris, to find solutions to this problem, in particular by helping the countries of Central America to revitalize their economy. But this is a long-term solution that will not bear fruit for several years, if it even works.
Meanwhile, the US refugee system is overflowing. And Democratic politicians, who had so decried Donald Trump’s heartless approach, are now on the defensive, their Republican rivals accusing them of encouraging the onslaught of migrants at the border.
We understand, in this case, that Washington is not rushing to grant the request of Ottawa, which wishes to renegotiate the Agreement on safe third countries which is at the heart of its dispute with Quebec on the influx of migrants. The Biden government has no reason to worry about the few thousand asylum seekers crossing the border via Roxham Road in Montérégie. After all, these are people who would otherwise have turned to an already sunken American system.
We must therefore take with a huge grain of salt the statements of Justin Trudeau and his ministers Sean Fraser and Marco Mendicino, respectively responsible for Immigration and Public Security, who affirm that the negotiations on the overhaul of this pact are going well. train.
Moreover, it is not clear if the Federal Prime Minister really wants to close the loophole in the agreement that came into force in 2004. In practice, the latter only allows migrants who cross the border outside a border post to apply for asylum; those who go through an official passage are systematically turned back under this agreement negotiated in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001.
The Liberals are already under pressure from refugee organizations to simply pull Canada out of the deal, claiming that the United States is not a “safe” country. Not to mention that renegotiating the agreement to allow Canada to send asylum seekers who take Roxham Road back to the United States would damage Mr. Trudeau’s progressive image.
The famous tweet that Mr. Trudeau published the day after Donald Trump adopted an executive order banning immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries in 2017 has still not been removed from the Twitter account of the Prime Minister. “To those fleeing persecution, terror and war, know that Canada will welcome you regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength. #Welcome to Canada “, he then promised. It is not because Quebec politicians are preparing to embark on an election campaign that he is about to give it up. On the contrary, one imagines that Mr. Trudeau takes a certain pleasure in seeing them agitated like this; it allows him to play the role and continue to delight the New Democrat electorate.
“I understand that it worries a lot of people and [que ça crée] some controversy for certain political parties, but the reality is that we are a country where rules are followed and where people who arrive here making declarations as asylum seekers have the right to have an analysis of their case,” Trudeau said Thursday. The Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada takes an average of 14 months to decide each case, and those whose claims are rejected can appeal the decision.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is in the grip of other major crises and is already suffering the wrath of criticism for its slowness in processing the files of Afghan refugees and facilitating the entry into the country of Ukrainians fleeing the war. At the head of this department recently, in the wake of the last federal election, Sean Fraser has neither a detailed knowledge of the workings of the system nor even the mandate to undertake a reform. The problem is therefore likely to worsen in the months to come.
François Legault and his Minister of Immigration, Jean Boulet, expect it. Their outings this week were mainly aimed at shining the spotlight on Justin Trudeau at a time when the capacity to receive Quebec asylum seekers is reaching its limits. The main interested party no doubt thanks them.