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Montreal, Canada – Donald Trump was at the White House for less than three weeks, but the President of the United States has already launched what many say it was a concerted attack on the rights of migrants and refugees.
The Republican Leader sent immigrants to the notorious detention facility in the Gulf of Guantanamo, Cuba; I paid for more deportation. The effective asylum is effective. The refugee resettlement program stopped.
Trump also used the threat of definitions to pressure his country’s neighbors – Canada and Mexico – to be tough measures on their borders to move to irregular migration to the United States.
For Canadian rights advocates, the Trump administration’s policies to combat immigrants are a cause of warning, and they called on Canada to stop sending most asylum seekers who reach the Canadian border in search of protection to the United States.
“The United States government has become itself as an agent of persecution of people within its borders,” said Windy Ayot, the co-founder of the bridges of not borders, a group that supports refugees and asylum seekers on the borders of Quebec-Nia York.
“When we return people to the United States as we are currently doing, this makes us deal with an anti -hope system,” said Iot, who lives in the small city of Haffllock, on the island.
“It makes us use with the possibility that this person suffers from detention in a bad condition or is sent to their mother country.”
Canada’s border agreement and the United States
This week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the Trump administration has agreed to a 30 -day freeze on the planned customs tariffs after he made promises to tighten border security.
Trudeau said in a Social media yet.
Canada agreed to make sure that we have a safe northern border, Trump Add On the social truth platform.
The Canadian government had already announced a plan to enhance border security in late last year, shortly after Trump’s threat for the first time to impose definitions. This is a system of $ 910 million (1.3 billion Kurdish dollars) It included Investments in drones, helicopters and other surveillance equipment.
The deportation on the borders of Canada and the United States is already subject to strict rules.
In 2023, the two countries expanded what is known as the Security Country Three Agreement (STCA).
According to the agreement, which came into effect for the first time in 2024, asylum seekers must seek protection in any of the two countries who arrive first. This means that a person already in the United States cannot make asylum in Canada unless they meet specific exemptions.
The agreement was previously applied only to asylum claims in the official entry ports, which means that people who crossed to Canada can hear their claims once on Canadian lands.
But in March 2023, Trudeau and then President Joe Biden expanded STCA to the overall border, including between entry ports. This made it difficult for people to reach the Canadian asylum system.
Although there are a few prominent cases of people trying to enter the United States from Canada, the numbers are still low compared to those on the US -Mexican border.
In the fiscal year 2024, US Customs Protection and Borders I mentioned Less than 200,000 meetings with people trying to cross the country irregularly from Canada. On the American border with Mexico, more than 2.1 million meetings were registered during the same period.
I received a good call with President Trump. Canada is implementing our border plan of $ 1.3 billion – strengthening borders with new helicopters, technology and employees, enhancing coordination with our American partners, and increasing resources to stop the flow of fentanel. almost …
Justctrudeau February 3, 2025
The Canadian government defended STA as an “important tool” that helps both Canada and the United States to manage refugee claims effectively.
“Canada and the United States continue to benefit from STA to manage asylum claims within our common borders, and we expect this to continue,” said a spokesman for immigration, refugees and citizens in Canada.
“The Canada government does not strongly encourage irregular border crossings,” the spokesman said.
It is illegal, risky and dangerous. We continue to work with our counterparts in the United States to respond to the illegal crossings heading to the north and south along the border as part of our long cooperative efforts and mutual interests to preserve our societies safe. “
However, rights advocates said that the agreement does not stop irregular migration, but only pays desirable asylum seekers to take more dangerous ways to search for safety.
Gauri Sreenivasan is the CEO of the Canadian Refugee Council (CCR), a group involved in a legal challenge against STA. For years, the organization argued that the United States is not a safe place for those looking for asylum.
“Certainly, the series of executive orders and measures that we now see, President Trump, is seriously manufactured by the United States, dangerously for those looking for protection,” Sarenvasan told Al -Jazeera.
CCR, Amnesty International in Canada and the Canadian Council of Churches, has challenged Stca on the basis that it violates the rights of life, freedom and security as well as the right to protection equality as it is devoted to Canadian rights and freedoms charter.
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in the argument of the right to life in 2023, saying that although asylum seekers had faced potential violations of rights in the United States, STCA has contained sufficient safety mechanisms to exempt people who may be in danger if they are sent again .
But the judges sent the case to the lower federal court to judge the argument of equal protection. Serenivasan said this year’s hearing is expected, but no date has been set.
She added that Canada does not need to wait for the courts to judge STA.
““They should be able to assess what is happening now under a series of executive orders (Trump),” it clearly determined that the conditions are no longer safe, that there is no effective right to asylum in the United States. “
“What do we stop?”
Ann Daton, the higher advisors at the CGRS at the University of California’s Law Faculty, San Francisco, said it’s “more time to asylum” in the United States.
“It is clear that the Trump administration came with an agenda to restrict rights and protection for immigrants and asylum seekers,” she told Al -Jazeera Island.
CGRS is one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed this week against the actual prohibition of the Trump administration on asylum claims. The ban was put in a Republican president Executive procedures On the first day of his term, January 20.
“The matter is used” to close the southern border of all immigrants, including asylum seekers, “Dutton told Al -Jazeera.
In the face of this, Dutton similarly expressed doubts that the United States is a safe place for asylum seekers.
“The fact that the United States is to eliminate the right to access the process of resorting to people who need protection is a very disturbing sign that the United States is not in fact the safe haven that the Third Security State Convention imagines,” she said.
She added that there are also fears that the Trump administration can enacted tougher bases and restrictions for people already in the United States and want to reach protection.
“We have seen merely a comprehensive increase in hostility towards asylum seekers and support our obligations to provide protection to people who need a shelter,” Datton said.
“It is certain that the fear is that the second Trump administration will not only continue this path, but also make it much worse.”
Returning to Canada, Auto said at Bridges Not Borders that immigration was used as “political football” by lawmakers north of the border as well – and this is unlikely to change before the federal elections this year.
However, she said that the Canadian politicians and voters alike are facing a critical moment.
“As Canadians, we have to ask ourselves, do we want to agree with this? To what extent we are ready to go to comply … (with) the fatwa and racism that does not care about human life?” She said, referring to Trump.
“I think we must look at ourselves in our face and ask ourselves,” What do we defend? “
