Over the past two decades, Canada has seen more and more migrants arriving at the land border to seek asylum. Due to the Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) and proximity to major cities in both countries, Quebec has seen a disproportionate number of arrivals. This agreement prevents the refoulement to the United States of asylum seekers who cross the border between official ports of entry, such as Roxham Road.
This kind of situation is not going to change anytime soon: Canada is caught up in a global crisis in the asylum system that is pushing people to seek protection by any means available. However, the current situation in Quebec is unsustainable.
Canada and Quebec are among the latest in this phenomenon of spontaneous and massive migration. So we can, and must, learn from the mistakes of other countries.
The various attempts to solve this political problem have clearly shown that reinforcing the border does not stop migration. On the contrary, it creates the ideal conditions for the development of a criminal industry trading in human lives. Quebec must therefore resist the ambition to invest in impractical, populist approaches that, in the short term, do nothing to curb migration and instead push it underground.
Investing more money at the border does not stop migration. In the United States, the Department of Homeland Security had a budget of 52.2 billion US in 2022, against 19.5 billion in 2003. Last year, more than 14 billion was dedicated specifically to border patrol. In the same year, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) had a budget of 750 million euros, against 12 million at the start of its operations in 2005, while additional sums are devoted national security forces and surveillance technologies.
Obviously, these exorbitant expenses did not stop migration, neither in the United States nor in Europe.
The Canadian government has approved an annual budget of over $2.3 billion for the Canada Border Services Agency in 2022, a 14% increase from the previous year. Even by doubling its resources, the agency would not be able to close the border, which is almost 9,000 km long, three times longer than that between the United States and Mexico.
Such a goal is just as unattainable as it is undesirable. A dramatic increase in the budget aimed at sealing the border would make Canada, and by extension Quebec, directly responsible for a growth in the human smuggling and trafficking industry. Asylum is a fundamental human right.
The facts are clear
Since the 1950s, the United States has deployed several operations to curb illegal immigration, at enormous cost to taxpayers. One thinks in particular of operations Wetback in 1954 and Hold the Line in 1993. The main consequence? While Mexican migrants used to cross the border with relatively few obstacles, thereby also meeting the labor needs in the United States (mainly in agriculture), these operations favored the rise of the human trafficking industry, which is estimated to generate more than US$13 billion in revenue by 2022.
PHOTO JOSE LUIS GONZALEZ, REUTERS ARCHIVES
The wall built by the Trump administration, separating the United States and Mexico. Crossing the border is not without risk, and death and violence at the hands of coyotes (smugglers) in the Mexican desert are widely documented.
By definition, this industry ignores the rights of migrants. Death and violence at the hands of coyotes (smugglers) in the Mexican desert are widely documented. We also know that immigration policies force some parents residing in the United States to pay dearly for these same smugglers to bring their children back. Children, sometimes infants, have even been abandoned in the desert because they were too slow, too loud, or just needed a simple diaper change.
It must be understood that neither the smuggling nor the trafficking of migrant persons would be as lucrative if border policies did not force these people to end up in the hands of criminals.
In order to avoid wasting public funds on useless efforts to close the border and to encourage criminal organizations by the gang, the Canadian government, which bears the primary responsibility, must devote more resources to the efficient processing of requests for ‘asylum. Ottawa must also end the ETPS, or change it unilaterally, so that more asylum seekers can apply anywhere along the border. Finally, the federal government must ensure that these applicants are distributed throughout the territory according to criteria linked to demographic factors and their specific profile (language, family ties in the country, etc.).
As for Quebec politicians, we must at all costs avoid instrumentalizing the lives of migrants for political gain.