There was something obscene in the images, the handshakes, the smiles, the optimistic tone of the headlines surrounding the announcement of the agreement reached between Justin Trudeau and US President Joe Biden on the ” modernization” of the Safe Third Country Agreement last week.
Just after the announcement of this agreement, the media rumor even suggested a gain, an outlet. An effective diplomatic process, it was pointed out. Remember that any movement on the chessboard does not constitute progress simply because it modifies the status quo. It is always possible to make an already unbearable situation worse.
Thus, at the end of what have been described as long and arduous telephone negotiations, the Safe Third Country Agreement, decried by human rights defenders since its entry into force in 2004, was amended the worst way possible for the safety and dignity of people seeking asylum at the Canada-US border.
Without any democratic process, without prior consultations—and even as the Supreme Court of Canada is examining its compliance with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms—we agreed to extend the agreement to so-called irregular border crossings. With the entire land border now designated as an official crossing, almost all land entries into Canada to seek asylum will be subject to arrest and deportation to the United States.
At home, everyone immediately understood that this would lead to the effective “closure” of Roxham Road. “Close the Roxham Road”, the rallying cry of the migration panic that in recent months has seeped into parliamentary discourse, has apparently been heard. Even if, in practice, it means nothing. Closing Roxham Road simply means letting more breaches develop. Other more clandestine, more dangerous breaches.
It was still a smiling François Legault who appeared before the press last Friday, to say he was “very happy” with the agreement reached between Justin Trudeau and President Biden; it’s a “great victory for Quebec,” he said.
In the hours after the “modernized” agreement came into effect, I thought a lot about a 2017 evening at the Maison d’Haïti, in the Saint-Michel district of Montreal. About twenty people who had just arrived in the metropolis had gathered that evening to exchange informally.
At the time, “Roxham Road” did not evoke much in the imagination of Quebecers. Nor had the whole world seen the sights, heard the cries of children locked in cages on the US-Mexico border — soul-piercing sounds that haunt you forever. We did not yet understand the details of the land migratory routes that criss-cross the Americas.
I remember the heavy silence, charged with thousands of kilometers traveled on foot. I remember the looks that saw the depth of the continent. “Let the tongues loosen”, I had been whispered. These are stories that we never forget: 11 borders crossed on foot, from Africa or Haiti, to Brazil first, then north, always north, nights in the jungle, beatings, detention in the United States, camps, hunger, thirst, humiliation. All because it was better than staying where we were.
Anyone with the slightest interest in these stories is forced to admit that declaring the United States a “safe” country for migrants is a hoax.
For a week now, the testimonies have been surfacing. People who, after months of exile, superhuman trajectories, learned a few hours before their arrival at the Canadian border that they could no longer seek asylum there. Disoriented people, at the end of their resources, and henceforth bereft of hope, are sent back to the south of the border.
These voices, these faces should be superimposed on the declarations of a François Legault who is happy — even triumphant — to see the Government of Canada respond to his grievances. They should be superimposed on the proverbial benevolent smile of Justin Trudeau, on his empty declarations, reproducing ad nauseam the myth of Canada championing human rights.
We must make visible the violence that is experienced in the liminal space of borders, and back it up with the facade of progressiveness of the Canadian government, as well as the policy of little led by the government of Quebec. You have to understand that the alliance that is made today on the backs of those who are fleeing, who are dying on the roads, serves power. It is necropolitics as a shared competence.
It’s a safe bet that we will boast for a long time of having “closed Roxham Road”. We will talk about a great political victory both for the integrity of Canadian borders and for respect for the resources available in Quebec. We will lock ourselves into this myth of scarcity that limits hospitality, without ever saying that it has been fabricated by decades of neoliberal governance. We will even congratulate ourselves for having contributed to it.
The reality is that we have only found a way to stop seeing the distress that is refused to be relieved.