Canada recently struck a deal with the U.S. and can now turn migrants back to the border, and advocates are not happy.
Ottawa negotiated a border deal with our neigbours down south that would reportedly allow the country to turn away asylum seekers at unofficial points of entry.
This would in turn do away with the loophole that allowed migrants arriving in Canada from the U.S. between official ports of entry to make asylum claims.
Last Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Joe Biden had a meeting on Parliament Hill and made changes to the Safe Third Country Agreement..
VIDEO: https://twitter.com/KingSiasi/status/1639437716038328321
The announcement came during Biden’s first official visit to Canada since becoming president in 2020.
“To address irregular migration, we are expanding the Safe Third Country Agreement to apply not only at designated ports of entry, but across the entire land border, including internal waterways, ensuring fairness and more orderly migration between our two countries,” Trudeau said in a press release.
This change came into effect on Saturday, Mar. 25.
Advocates have spoken out on social media and do not agree with the decision, and are denouncing the “catastrophic policy.”
Welcome Collective, an organization that supports refugee claimant families in Montreal, posted a thread to Twitter and said they were “shocked and saddened” after hearing the news that Canada would put in place an “asylum ban” at a time when a record number of people worldwide are displaced from their homes.
“From what has been reported so far, this policy appears likely to lead to an increase in remote and dangerous border crossings, human smuggling, and a lack of access to essential services for those who do make it to Canada,” the organization tweeted Friday.
“Asylum bans don’t work. People will continue to seek a safe place to live, as anyone would in their shoes. This policy will just make it more dangerous, and deadly.”
The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) also joined the chat and said this move makes it easier for Canada to violate its commitments to refugees and that turning marginalized individuals back to the U.S. could mean subjecting them to more abuse.
“We should be making it easier for asylum seekers to attain safe harbour. We should not be making it easier for their rights as human beings to be violated,” it said.
