The US elections and the incoming Trump administration have put a focus on security at the border with Canada. Talking about border security raises fears: fears of masses of people crossing the borders. The question is, though, who has reason to be afraid, and why?
With Trump announcing mass deportations, it’s the 13 million undocumented people (according to the American Immigration Council) living in the U.S. who have true reason to be afraid, and some will risk their lives trying to seek safety in Canada. Our group, Bridges not Borders/Créons des Ponts, is not afraid OF them but FOR them. Since 2017 we have met hundreds of refugees. We have heard their stories and read what is happening in their countries. Nearly 60 per cent have received refugee status and many are now permanent residents and citizens. Most are doing essential, often low-paid jobs we rely on.
Do we really have reason to be afraid OF them? Since Roxham Road was shut in March 2023, very few people have entered Canada irregularly. This year, from January to October, 950 people were intercepted across Canada, mainly in British Columbia (449), Quebec (393), and Manitoba (88). Ontario now receives 56 per cent more total refugee claimants than Quebec (from January to October 2024, Ontario had 77,404; Quebec, 49,635), while numbers in B.C. and Alberta have climbed. Thus, Quebec is no longer the main destination. By contrast, some 21,000 people have been arrested in the U.S. coming from Canada. Unlike people seeking asylum here, they are mostly seeking economic opportunities or family reunion in the U.S., often aided by traffickers.
Refugees arriving in Canada via air and land are screened under the narrow rules of the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA). The vast majority of people seeking asylum at the land border go to official ports of entry. Of those, about one third are refused and returned to the U.S. Canada has a robust screening process that excludes asylum seekers for reasons of serious criminality, organized crime, security issues, and human rights crimes. And, to our knowledge, there have not been any documented cases of irregular asylum seekers doing harm to Canadians at the border.
We understand concerns about people fleeing the U.S. in greater numbers. But Roxham Road, a safe irregular entry point, is closed. Now there are great risks and costs, and whether they have money to pay smugglers to help them cross or not, people risk being found, arrested, and returned to the U.S. They also risk their lives in treacherous terrains. After, they have to find some way of hiding for two weeks (because of SCTA rules). We don’t have a crystal ball, but we must ask how many can or will attempt this?
A local farmer said to me that we who live on the border see the inhumane face of government policies; and, not just here, but worldwide – where cruel policies, barbed wire, walls, police, dogs, coast guards, helicopters, drones, and sensors are used to arrest or keep desperate people out, forcing them into risky journeys. These contribute significantly to the 63,000 documented deaths in migration since 2014: each one a loved person.
The refugee crisis is real, but it is not here. It is everywhere people have to flee violence, war, persecution, climate disasters. Today there are more than 120 million forcibly displaced people worldwide. Living at the border, what are we to do when someone comes through our property, freezing cold, having risked their life to seek protection here? Turn them in, when in all likelihood they will be returned to the U.S.?
There are many roadblocks in the way of mass deportations from the U.S., not least the dire impact on their economy. However, many will be harmed. Deportation involves force and suffering at every stage: sudden arrest, families split apart, detention in terrible conditions, being forced onto planes and sent to countries where they may be in danger. Remember the children in cages at the U.S. southern border in 2018? 1400 of these children remain separated from their parents six years on. And despite the rhetoric, the number of people entering the U.S. from Mexico is now only 15 per cent of what it was a year ago, a four-year low.
Mass deportations will inevitably send many people back to danger, contrary to the key principle of international refugee law. In the face of this, will the Canadian government continue to assert that the U.S. is a safe country to return refugees to? We cannot see how these inhumane policies are an appropriate response to a world-wide issue that requires international cooperation, resource sharing, and peaceful solutions to the causes of displacement, instead of militarization. These are the only realistic, sustainable paths which recognize that, despite borders, all humans share the same needs for safety, freedom from persecution and want, acceptance and community.
Wendy Ayotte
Bridges Not Borders – Créons des Ponts