Asylum seekers warned by police they could be sent back continued to walk into Canada through the Roxham Road crossing into Quebec.
CTV News Canada reports that U.S. President Joe Biden and Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced changes to the 20-year-old Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) on Friday.
The act was signed in 2002 and came into effect on December 29, 2004. It originally meant asylum seekers crossing into either Canada or the United States at formal border crossings were turned back and told to apply for asylum in the first “safe” country they arrived in.
As of February 2017, increasing numbers of refugee claimants began to cross the Canadian border at locations other than official border checkpoints to avoid the effects of the agreement, knowing any refugees presenting at a legal border crossing would be automatically turned back to the United States under the STCA provisions.
Here is the loophole in the original STCA that was changed by Biden and Trudeau on Friday:
“Canada is a signatory to the UN Convention on Refugees. Under international law, this means a refugee claimant cannot be punished for the way they enter into a country to seek asylum. Canada’s immigration law does not make it illegal to enter Canada using informal border crossings, as long as a person reports to border services without delay.”
Immagration Services Association of Nova Scotia
So this is why so many migrants were choosing the unofficial Roxham Road crossing outside Champlain, N.Y.
Under the provisions of the revised pact, anyone who crosses into either country anywhere along the 6,416 km (3,987-mile) land border and who applies for asylum within 14 days will be turned back.
The revised pact was set to take effect a minute after midnight Saturday, a quick implementation aimed at avoiding a surge of refugee claimants trying to cross, according to Canadian officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the deal in advance, according to CTV News.
Canada also agreed to allow 15,000 migrants to apply “on a humanitarian basis from the Western Hemisphere over the course of the year, with a path to economic opportunities to address forced displacement, as an alternative to irregular migration.”
