MONTREAL, Canada — Donald Trump was in the White House within three weeks, but the US president has already said many are cooperative attacks on immigrants and refugee rights.
Republican leaders sent immigrants to the infamous detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They called for more deportation. Effectively banned asylum. The refugee resettlement program has been suspended.
Trump has also used tariff threats to put pressure on his country’s neighbors, Canada and Mexico, enacting stricter measures at their respective borders, stopping irregular travel to the United States.
For Canadian rights advocates, the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policy is the cause of alarm, and they ask Canada to stop sending most asylum seekers arriving at Canadian borders in search of protection for the US. I did.
“The US government itself is becoming an agent persecuting people within its borders,” says Wendy Ayotte, co-founder of Bridges Not Borders, a group that supports refugees and asylum seekers at the Quebec-New York border. He said.
“When we bring people back to the US as we do now, it will make us complicit in the repetitive request regime,” Ayot, who lives in the small town of Havelock, told Al Jazeera.
“It conspires with the possibility that this person will suffer from detention in poor condition or be sent back to his home country.”
Canada and the US Border Agreement
This week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that he has agreed to a 30-day freeze on planned tariffs on Canadian goods after the Trump administration pledged to strengthen border security.
“Nearly 10,000 frontline personnel are and are working to protect the border,” Trudeau said in a social media post.
“Canada has agreed to ensure we have a safe north border,” Trump added to his true social platform.
The Canadian government had already announced plans to boost border security late last year shortly after Trump threatened to impose tariffs first. That $909 million ($1.3 billion) scheme included investments in drones, helicopters and other surveillance equipment.
Transitions at Canadian borders are also subject to strict rules.
In 2023, the two countries expanded what they called the Secure Third-Party Agreement (STCA).
Under the agreement that first came into effect in 2024, asylum seekers must seek protection in one of the two countries where they first arrived. This means that people already in the US will not be able to file asylum claims in Canada unless they meet certain exemptions.
The contract previously only applied to asylum claims at official ports of entry. This means that people who crossed irregularly to Canada can hear their bills once in Canadian soil.
However, in March 2023, Trudeau and then President Joe Biden expanded the STCA across the border, including between ports of entry. This made it even more difficult for people to access Canada’s asylum system.
There have been several well-known cases of people trying to enter the United States from Canada, but the numbers remain low compared to those on the US-Mexican border.
In 2024, the US Customs and Border Patrol reported fewer than 200,000 encounters with people trying to irregularly cross the country from Canada. Over 2.1 million encounters were registered on the US border with Mexico over the same period.
I got a good call with President Trump. Canada is implementing a $1.3 billion border plan. It’s an increase in resources to reinforce borders with new choppers, technology and personnel, strengthen coordination with American partners, and stop the flow of fentanyl. Almost…
– Justin Trudeau (@justintrudeau) February 3, 2025
The Canadian government defends the STCA as a “critical tool” that helps both Canada and the US effectively manage refugee claims.
“Canada and the US continue to benefit from STCA in managing asylum claims at shared borders and hope this continues,” Immigration spokesman, refugee and citizenship Canada e-mails Al Jazeera He spoke via email.
“The Canadian government will strongly block irregular border intersections,” the spokesman said.
“They are illegal, dangerous, dangerous. They are illegal and dangerous. They work with their US counterparts to keep their communities safe as part of years of collaboration and mutual interest. We continue to accommodate southbound intersections.”
But rights advocates said the deal doesn’t stop irregular migration, but will only push hopeless asylum seekers to take a more risky route for safety.
Gauri Sreenivasan is the Co-Enforcement Director of the Canadian Refugee Council (CCR), a group involved in legal challenges against the STCA. The organization has for years argued that the United States is not a safe place for those seeking asylum.
“It’s true that a series of executive orders and what we are seeing now is what President Trump is seeing. [have made] The United States is not dangerously safe for those seeking protection,” Srinivasan told Al Jazeera.
CCR, Amnesty International Canada, and the Council of Churches of Canada are violating the rights of life, liberty, security, and equal protection, as set out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I tried STCA.
The Supreme Court of Canada awarded the right to life in 2023, and asylum seekers face the potential violation of rights in the US, but to STCA, people who could be at risk if sent back. He said it contained sufficient safety mechanisms to exempt it.
However, the judge sent the case back to lower federal courts to control the equal protection argument. Hearings are expected this year, but no dates have been set, Srinivasan said.
She added that Canada does not need to wait for the court to control the STCA.
“They should be able to assess what is happening now under a series of sequences [Trump] “And it clearly identifies that the conditions are no longer safe and that the United States does not have effective rights.”
“What do we represent?”
Anne Dutton, senior advisor to the University of San Francisco’s Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGR) at the University of California’s School of Law, said it was a “very concerned time for asylum” in the United States.
“It’s clear that the Trump administration has an agenda that limits the rights and protections of immigrants and asylum seekers,” she told Al Jazeera.
CGRS is one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed this week against an effective ban on Trump administration’s asylum claims. The ban was laid out in one of the Republican president’s enforcement actions on January 20th, the first day of his term.
The order is being used “to close the southern border to all migrants, including asylum seekers,” Dutton told Al Jazeera. “We’re really keeping out the opportunity to seek asylum at the first point.”
In the face of this, Dutton similarly expressed skepticism that the United States is a safe place for asylum seekers.
“The fact that the US is eliminating access to the asylum process for those in need of protection is very concerned that the US is not actually a safe third-party agreement to imagine it. It’s a sign that it will happen,” she explained.
She added that there are concerns that the Trump administration could also enact stricter rules and restrictions for those who are already in the US and want to access protections.
“We simply support the overall increase in hostility towards asylum seekers and the obligation to provide protection to those in need of evacuation,” Dutton said.
“The fear is definitely that the second Trump administration will not only continue its trajectory, but will make it significantly worse.”
Back in Canada, Ayotte of Bridges Not Borders said the migration was also used as “political football” by lawmakers north of the border. It is unlikely to change this year before the federal election.
But she said politicians and Canadian voters are also facing important moments.
“As Canadians, we have to ask ourselves, do we want to comply with this? How much is we willing to adhere to… [with] A racist who doesn’t care about bullies and human life? ” she said, referring to Trump.
“I think we have to look ourselves in our faces and ask ourselves, ‘What do we represent?’ ”
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