As asylum-seekers continue to cross into Canada from the United States, their arrival has become a hot political issue. Partisan fingers are being pointed and angry questions are being asked. Who are these people and why are they coming? What, if any, obligation do we have to accept them? What is the “safe third country” agreement and how does it affect any of this?
Let's start with the basics. As signatories to the 1951 Refugee Convention and Protocol, both Canada and the United States must grant protection to those seeking asylum due to well-founded fears of persecution or death in their country of origin. Under Canadian and international law, anyone is legally entitled to cross our border seeking asylum. Impartial adjudicators then assess the legitimacy of the asylum claim: Are their fears well founded? Would they really face persecution or worse if sent home? If so, they are allowed to stay.
Canada and the United States added a new dimension in 2004 by agreeing to regard each other as, in effect, safe havens. Each barred asylum-seekers arriving from the other at official points of entry, reasoning that no credible claim of persecution could be made in either.
But things have changed. Donald Trump's administration's harsh approach to migrants has created fear and uncertainty among asylum-seekers in the United States. Sadly, the United States no longer offers them a safe haven. Beyond demonizing migrants, Mr. Trump's appointees have adopted inhumane practices.
Asylum-seekers are being detained at astonishing rates in the United States, often in deplorable conditions. Despite having no criminal record, many are jailed while their applications for asylum are pending, mostly in private prisons. Human Rights First reports that three-quarters of asylum-seekers in U.S. immigration proceedings are detained at some point, compared to 16 per cent of refugee claimants in Canada. Recent reports about the treatment of migrant children, in particular, demonstrate just how unsafe the U.S. immigration system has become: U.S. officials recently admitted that they “lost track” of nearly 20 per cent of the children formerly in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
