The year 2023 marked the end of most passages on Roxham Road, but also highlighted other migratory phenomena which have intensified. People crossing the border between Canada and the United States numbered in the thousands. The influx of asylum seekers also moved to airports, reaching a new high of 128,685 requests in 11 months. Review of events and context analysis.
The month of January 2023 opens with tragic news: Fritznel Richard, a man of Haitian origin who had requested asylum in Canada, died of hypothermia while trying to reach the United States. He had decided to go through the woods not far from Roxham Road, in Montérégie, discouraged by the wait for his work permit and wanting to join his wife in Florida.
Attention quickly turns away from this death to focus on the arrivals of asylum seekers by land on this small road in Quebec. At the end of January, Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette, then in office for three months, went on “Roxham Road, done with” on prime time television.
The majority of asylum seekers who are in accommodation managed by Quebec are already people who have arrived on a completely regular basis, as will be revealed The duty. Nevertheless, Prime Minister François Legault insists: in February he wrote a letter to Justin Trudeau to put pressure on and put an end to irregular entries.
At the end of March, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced, on the sidelines of the visit of American President Joe Biden, that the Safe Third Country Agreement was expanded. This means that it now applies to the entire border, which ends the possibility, with some exceptions, of seeking asylum between two official border crossings, including via Roxham Road.
Observers are incredulous at the possibility, on the one hand, of truly applying the Agreement on the 9000 kilometers of border. Ottawa will recognize shortly after that it will be “difficult” for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to enforce it “systematically”, “given the extent and relief of the Canadian landscape”.
Many also fear that this announcement is the “worst imaginable scenario”, as the Duty Stephan Reichhold, director of the Consultation Table of Organizations Serving Refugees and Immigrants (TCRI).
A closed path, how many others will open? Migration experts warn that people on the move will find other routes to enter the country. “We anticipated a deterioration in the situation, unfortunately, time has proven us right. We are very concerned about the situation, it is time to act,” Mr Reichhold says today.
Exodus to the south
With the announcement of the expansion of the Agreement, many are also wondering what is the interest of the United States in keeping migrants on their territory rather than letting them cross to Canada. It must be said that the country saw 2.5 million people arrive at the southern border during the previous fiscal year.
A week later, police in the Mohawk territory of Akwesasne say they are conducting an investigation after the discovery of six bodies in the St. Lawrence River. When journalists arrived on site the next morning, the first thing we learned was that they were now looking for the body of a one-year-old baby in the icy waters.
In total, eight people died while heading to the United States in a small boat. The dramatic event highlights a journey in the opposite direction to that of Roxham: more and more people are walking towards the south.
The American border patrol in the sector between Quebec and Vermont has actually been worried about this since the beginning of the year. Between January and the end of October 2023, more than 6,800 people were intercepted. A Radio-Canada investigation then reveals that criminal organizations are overseeing these trips and that their machine is well oiled. This includes the issuance of false Mexican passports.
A phenomenon set to last?
“Each time we put more restrictions, there are more criminal networks, because the pressure does not decrease,” observes Adèle Garnier, professor in the Department of Geography at Laval University. “It’s the lack of legal options that criminalizes people,” she adds.
Every time we put more restrictions, there are more criminal networks, because the pressure does not decrease
New records for asylum seekers have been set this year. From the beginning of January to the end of November 2023, more than 59,000 people requested asylum in Quebec, more than last year. Nationwide, arrivals in 11 months were up 40% compared to 2022 — and the year wasn’t even over yet.
The trend has already been emerging for several months: actors on the ground criticized both levels of government this summer for not having yet taken lasting measures. The factors blamed locally are the absence of visas for Mexicans, also in force since 2016, as well as a policy to accelerate the processing of temporary visitor visas.
But internationally, “the reality is that we do not see a lasting solution to humanitarian crises at the moment,” says M.me Garnier. Haiti, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Colombia, Middle East: “We have the impression of a superposition of crises,” she recalls.
It is also possible to notice this in the diversity of migrants who cross the Darién in Colombia, a very busy and very dangerous continental passage. This diversification of origins is also seen in the populations now stuck in Mexico or further south, while the United States is pushing them back: “We are in the process of deterritorializing asylum. It creates asylum seekers in orbit, which countries refer to each other,” notes the specialist.
THE Washington Post recently reported that more than 10,000 people per day are intercepted by U.S. border authorities.
Adèle Garnier is therefore not very optimistic after this year which she describes as “difficult”. The pull factors in Canada will remain, notably the demand for workers. More generally, “there is a total mismatch between mobility needs and available visas”, which means that, for her, “Canada should do much more for the American continent”.