Hemmingford | Twelve hours after the official closure of Roxham Road, area residents have seen no change and are wondering when the real return to normal will take place.
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“They still take them, they don’t leave them on the other side with their suitcases,” laments Hélène Gravel, who has lived on this row for 25 years.
Since midnight Saturday, migrants trying to cross the irregular Roxham Road crossing are now being transported by bus to a border crossing a few kilometers away.
An agreement reached Friday between Ottawa and Washington now prevents refugee claimants from entering Canada from the United States through an irregular crossing point, on pain of being turned back to a US customs post.
“We expect it to take a while before it calms down. Afterwards, are they going to go through the forest? asks Ms. Gravel.
Upcoming dismantling?
“I have no information, it happened so fast. They will surely stay there for a while. Are they going to dismantle their facilities? I hope so, because these shacks take away the cachet of the countryside,” underlines an immediate neighbor of the border crossing on Roxham Road.
She wished to remain anonymous, because the subject of this passage taken by some 40,000 migrants in 2022 is not unanimous among the inhabitants of this once peaceful row of Hemmingford, in Montérégie.
“What will happen? They will put a wall, people will pass the same? Does that mean that [la Gendarmerie royale du Canada] going to start running after people again? asks the resident of the area for 21 years.
“We are going to wish for a return to normal,” she breathes while preparing dinner for her family who have come to visit her.