Following the summit between the President of the United States, Joe Biden, and the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, the thorny political question of Roxham Road may be settled. The modification of the Safe Third Country Agreement was necessary, but we should not harbor any illusions regarding the immense challenges that await Canada in terms of migration policy.
In 2022, 39,500 migrants entered Canada through irregular channels. Of the total, barely 300 entered provinces other than Quebec. This shows the extent to which Roxham Road concentrated most of the problems relating to irregular immigration. But it is certainly not to please Quebec that the Safe Third Country Agreement was amended.
Also in 2022, nearly 110,000 people made the reverse journey, leaving Canada for the United States. Obsessed with controlling its border with Mexico to the south, the United States did not want a new front in the north. This is the determining factor in the agreement sealed between the two allied countries.
Concretely, since midnight Saturday, any migrant intercepted within two weeks of crossing will be turned back, regardless of whether they presented themselves at a border post or not, on the 8900 kilometers of the border between Canada and the United States. Migrants will thus have to apply for asylum in the first safe country where they arrive, so that all those who leave countries of the South in the hope of settling in Canada will now have to apply for residence in the United States. United. Exceptions will be made for unaccompanied minors or a migrant who already has a family member in the country they seek to reach.
The language of the agreement refers to negotiations held about a year ago, which suggests that the Trudeau government has dawdled less than denounced by the opposition parties and the media. This worn-out government, stuck in its pots and pans, has just made a gain. It’s not every day that the Premier of Quebec, François Legault, is “really happy” with a federal decision.
Prime Minister Trudeau has promised to welcome 15,000 more migrants a year for “humanitarian reasons”, to compensate for the closure of irregular crossings. The criteria for this new program remain to be defined. Only the test of the facts will determine if the modification of the agreement will be beneficial for the migration policy for Canada.
There is also no guarantee that a “Roxham bis” path will not see the light of day in the coming months, without the knowledge of the border authorities. Organizations such as Foyer du monde fear that migrants take more dangerous paths, risking their lives. Networks of smugglers could emerge, warned Abdulla Daoud, director general of the Refugee Center. If such fears materialize, which is highly plausible given the extent of organized crime in Quebec, human trafficking will impose an additional burden on police forces that are poorly equipped in this area.
The irregular immigration movement is shaped by a moving survival instinct of those who leave everything behind, in South American countries undermined by corruption, violence, the climate emergency, the economic crisis. They fail at the gates of Canada carrying, in their little suitcases, the immense hope of a better world. The agreement signed at the summit, between Washington and Ottawa, will no doubt be eroded by this irrepressible hope.
It is with these courageous migrants in mind that Amnesty International denounces the amendment to the Safe Third Country Agreement, calling it a “dehumanized view” of asylum seekers and a “death sentence” for them. This position, moreover full of empathy, dispenses with a reflection on the role of the State in the development of its migration policy. As cruel as the fate of the asylum seekers who will now be turned back at the border, whereas they were taken care of with open arms just a few days ago, a migration policy cannot be subject to the goodwill of the applicants. asylum seekers and groups that support their cause.
To some extent, the closure of Roxham Road provides an opportunity to take a step back and see the damage to Ottawa’s handling of immigration. What service are we doing to migrants who are crammed into hotels, being unable to provide them with a work permit in a decent time? With its two million applications of all kinds awaiting processing, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is a heartbreaking monster of bureaucratic negligence.
This is where we should direct our empathy towards migrants, demanding that this ministry deliver results in the provision of services and care for migrants. It is a matter of natural justice and basic decency.