Migrants continued to attempt to cross into Canada at Quebec’s Roxham Road over the weekend, arriving on buses at the town of Plattsburgh, N.Y., despite strict new border rules between Canada and the U.S. that mean most of those people would likely be sent back to the U.S. and denied the right to claim asylum in Canada ever again.
On Saturday afternoon, a bus arrived from New York City carrying about 15 people from countries including Colombia, Venezuela, Democratic Republic of Congo and Haiti. Less than 12 hours earlier, another group had arrived — only to find out they would not be permitted to enter Canada under the new agreement, unless they met one of the few exemptions.
Most of the dozens still arriving at the border crossing did not know they could no longer enter Canada via Roxham Road, as about 44,000 others have since the beginning of 2022.
Friday afternoon, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Joe Biden announced a renegotiation of the Safe Third Country Agreement that would take effect at midnight. Under the revised agreement, migrants can no longer claim asylum after crossing Canada’s land border. Those who manage to do so illegally cannot claim asylum until 14 days after doing so if they can prove their timeline.
The new rules have been condemned by immigration experts and advocates, who say it will push people to go underground, take dangerous risks and put pressure on front-line responders to surveil and rescue migrants attempting to cross along Canada’s nearly 9,000-km long border. Two men have died in recent months attempting to cross the Canadian border into the U.S.
The Saturday afternoon bus came less than 12 hours after the heartbreak of migrants landing at the Mountain Mart gas station at 4 a.m., after the midnight deadline, only to find out they could be turned away.
There has been significantly less media coverage of the agreement and its fallout in American publications than in Quebec and Canadian ones.
One couple from Colombia was at a loss for words when they found out. They’d spent thousands on making it that far with their child. It had started to snow, but many were dressed in clothes better suited for summer. A man from Angola wore sandals; a girl was in ballet flats.
Several decided to get into one of the few cabs still ferrying people from the bus stop to Roxham, about 30 kilometres away. Taxi drivers in Plattsburgh were told by U.S. authorities they could be arrested by border patrol if they continued to take people to the border after midnight Saturday, but some have opted to do it anyway.
Sunday, another young couple, this time from Venezuela, were among the 20 or so people that took one of those rides to Roxham, after that day’s bus.
While the others walked down the short path across the border, where an RCMP officer was arresting them and leading them into the warehouse where other migrants were waiting to be processed, the couple lingered.
They hesitated to cross for about eight minutes. At one point, the man asked the officer if indeed the worst possible scenario was that they would be sent back to the U.S.
“You have to ask immigration, I’m a police officer,” the RCMP agent replied. No immigration services staff was present.
There have been few, if any, official sources of information at Roxham for migrants to learn the risks they face in deciding to try their luck.
A sign was unveiled at midnight Saturday when the deal came into effect. It says, “Stop. Do not cross. It is illegal to enter Canada from here. You will be arrested and may be returned to the United States. Refugee Claimants must request protection in the first safe country they arrive in.”
What RCMP officers tell people walking down the path didn’t appear to change, though. As before, they tell people they’re illegally entering Canada and that they are under arrest.
They also now point to the sign, but the only other difference is that, once inside, the migrants who do not meet the exemptions to the new agreement are ferried to U.S. border patrollers at an official checkpoint, who either arrest and detain them or release them into the country. On Saturday and Sunday, the officers were not telling people that.
The exceptions to the agreement are for asylum seekers who have family members with legal status in Canada, unaccompanied minors or people who already have a Canadian visa or work permit.
After another five minutes or so, the Venezuelan couple walked across. A CBC reporter on the Canadian side of the border asked the man why he made the decision.
“We want to take that one per cent chance. We want to risk it, because we don’t have any other solutions,” he said. “It’s better than being in our country.”
Stéphanie Valois, the president of the Quebec association of immigration lawyers (AQAADI), said she doubts those who have been attempting to cross are aware that by doing so they will be denied the right to make an asylum claim in Canada in the future.
“Never, ever again,” Valois said over the phone Sunday evening. “I don’t think people realize that.”
She said some migrants who have been found ineligible in the past have been able to stay in the country following an assessment of the risks of deporting them to their country requested by their lawyer, but that those cases are rare.
According to the Canadian Border Services Agency, between 12:01 a.m. Saturday and noon Sunday, two had been returned to the United States and four people’s requests to pursue asylum claims were found ineligible.
Frances Ravensbergen, a volunteer for a group called Bridges Not Borders, was on the Canadian side of Roxham Sunday. She typically hands mittens or socks to migrants on the U.S., calling it a way to bear witness at the rural illegal border crossing.
Ravensbergen was shocked the decision was made by the Canadian and U.S. governments without apparently consulting groups who work directly with migrants.
“Nobody was prepped for this and yet they had time to make a sign,” she said.
