Statement after the 2024 US elections
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 living in the US who have true reason to be afraid, and some will risk their lives trying to seek safety in Canada. Our group, Bridges not Borders, is not afraid of them but for them. Since 2017 we have met hundreds of asylum seekers. We have heard their stories and read what is happening in their countries. Nearly 60% 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, 1104 people were intercepted by RCMP across Canada, mainly in British Columbia (449), Quebec (541) and Manitoba (90). Ontario now receives 56% more total refugee claimants than Quebec (Jan – Oct 2024: Ontario 77,404; Quebec 49,635), while numbers in BC and Alberta have climbed. Some 21,000 people have been arrested in the US coming from Canada. Unlike people seeking asylum here, they are mostly seeking economic opportunities or family reunion in the US, often aided by traffickers.
Refugees arriving in Canada via air and land (including irregular asylum seekers who are intercepted by police) 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 US. Canada has a robust screening process that excludes asylum seekers for reasons of serious criminality, organized crime, security issues and human rights crimes. To our knowledge, there has not been any documented cases of irregular asylum seekers doing harm to Canadians at the border.
We understand concerns about people fleeing the US in greater numbers. But Roxham Road, which was a safe irregular entry point from 2017 to 2023, is closed. Now there are great risks and costs in crossing irregularly. Whether people have money to pay smugglers to help them cross or not, they risk being found, arrested, and returned to the US. They also risk their lives in treacherous terrains. After having made their way into Canada and, if they are not detected, they have to find some way of hiding for two weeks before being able to make a refugee claim (because of the 14 day rule under the 2023 SCTA protocol). We don’t have a crystal ball, but we must ask how many can or will attempt this?
The crossing of refugees through the woods personally affects many of us who live near the border. People find clothes and backpacks on their property. These personal objects make us feel the vulnerability of the person who came through. We see RCMP stopping vehicles and interrogating passengers or people appearing on our property. We're no longer dealing with a statistic, but with people in distress.
A local farmer commented, 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, thus forcing them into risky journeys. These contribute significantly to the 68,139 documented deaths in migration since 2014; each one a loved person. Many thousands more are missing.
The refugee crisis is real, but it is not here. It is everywhere people have to flee organized violence, war, persecution, femicide, gang control and 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 US?
There are many roadblocks in the way of mass deportations from the US, 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 US southern border in 2018? 1400 of these children remain separated from their parents 6 years on. And despite the rhetoric, the numbers of people entering the US from Mexico is now only 15% 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 US 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.
Notes
According to an analysis by the American Immigration Council, there are 13+ million undocumented people in the United States.
The Missing Migrants Project tracks the deaths of people in migration.
According to the Washington Post, of the 4,600 children forcibly separated from their parents at the U.S. southern border in 2018, 1,400 are still separated from their parents six years later. See also our July 6, 2018 letter to Prime Minister Trudeau on this subject.
Pew Research Centre - Data on people crossing the U.S. southern border.
With Trump announcing mass deportations, it’s the 13+ million undocumented people living in the US who have true reason to be afraid, and some will risk their lives trying to seek safety in Canada. Our group, Bridges not Borders, is not afraid of them but for them. Since 2017 we have met hundreds of asylum seekers. We have heard their stories and read what is happening in their countries. Nearly 60% 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, 1104 people were intercepted by RCMP across Canada, mainly in British Columbia (449), Quebec (541) and Manitoba (90). Ontario now receives 56% more total refugee claimants than Quebec (Jan – Oct 2024: Ontario 77,404; Quebec 49,635), while numbers in BC and Alberta have climbed. Some 21,000 people have been arrested in the US coming from Canada. Unlike people seeking asylum here, they are mostly seeking economic opportunities or family reunion in the US, often aided by traffickers.
Refugees arriving in Canada via air and land (including irregular asylum seekers who are intercepted by police) 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 US. Canada has a robust screening process that excludes asylum seekers for reasons of serious criminality, organized crime, security issues and human rights crimes. To our knowledge, there has not been any documented cases of irregular asylum seekers doing harm to Canadians at the border.
We understand concerns about people fleeing the US in greater numbers. But Roxham Road, which was a safe irregular entry point from 2017 to 2023, is closed. Now there are great risks and costs in crossing irregularly. Whether people have money to pay smugglers to help them cross or not, they risk being found, arrested, and returned to the US. They also risk their lives in treacherous terrains. After having made their way into Canada and, if they are not detected, they have to find some way of hiding for two weeks before being able to make a refugee claim (because of the 14 day rule under the 2023 SCTA protocol). We don’t have a crystal ball, but we must ask how many can or will attempt this?
The crossing of refugees through the woods personally affects many of us who live near the border. People find clothes and backpacks on their property. These personal objects make us feel the vulnerability of the person who came through. We see RCMP stopping vehicles and interrogating passengers or people appearing on our property. We're no longer dealing with a statistic, but with people in distress.
A local farmer commented, 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, thus forcing them into risky journeys. These contribute significantly to the 68,139 documented deaths in migration since 2014; each one a loved person. Many thousands more are missing.
The refugee crisis is real, but it is not here. It is everywhere people have to flee organized violence, war, persecution, femicide, gang control and 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 US?
There are many roadblocks in the way of mass deportations from the US, 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 US southern border in 2018? 1400 of these children remain separated from their parents 6 years on. And despite the rhetoric, the numbers of people entering the US from Mexico is now only 15% 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 US 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.
Notes
According to an analysis by the American Immigration Council, there are 13+ million undocumented people in the United States.
The Missing Migrants Project tracks the deaths of people in migration.
According to the Washington Post, of the 4,600 children forcibly separated from their parents at the U.S. southern border in 2018, 1,400 are still separated from their parents six years later. See also our July 6, 2018 letter to Prime Minister Trudeau on this subject.
Pew Research Centre - Data on people crossing the U.S. southern border.