Syrians and Haitians facing deportation from the United States after a Supreme Court decision on Thursday won’t find a smooth route to safety in the neighboring country typically associated with welcoming refugees.
Canada’s immigration system is less generous than it was in 2015, when Justin Trudeau, then the prime minister, personally welcomed Syrian refugees at the airport.
A combination of a souring public mood toward newcomers and a botched economic-immigration system after the pandemic have led to a drastic tightening of Canada’s borders. The new immigration policies affect all types of migrants, including asylum seekers, international students and economic migrants, and have resulted in the population of Canada shrinking for the first time after years of expansion.
Canada’s border and immigration agreement with the United States, known as the Safe Third Country Agreement, means that the two nations routinely return people coming from the one attempting to seek asylum in the other.
The premise of the agreement is because both nations are equally safe for people seeking international protection, asylum seekers should apply in the first country they enter. But that premise has come into question since the Trump administration has suspended most refugee pathways to the United States and implemented sweeping deportation policies.
The agreement was upheld and strengthened after the 2023 arrival of thousands of migrants from the United States stirred frustration in Canada. Most were Haitian, and most arrived through Roxham Road, an illegal border crossing in rural Quebec.
It has a small number of exceptions to respond to specific, closely scrutinized, humanitarian considerations. Those include children traveling without an adult, and people seeking to be reunified with a close relative.
Haitian and other asylum seekers from the United States with relatives in Canada have sought to use the family exception.
But anecdotal evidence suggests Canadian border and immigration authorities have changed their approach in the second Trump administration, as groups of asylum seekers, economic migrants and other undocumented migrants have been pushed to find a new home.
Two New York Times investigations last year into Canadian practices toward asylum seekers fleeing the United States for Canada show how much stricter the border has become.
Reporting, supported by the observations of lawyers, nongovernmental organizations and other groups working with asylum seekers around the U.S.-Canada border, found that people leaving the United States are routinely returned by Canadian authorities and placed into ICE custody within hours of their arrival in Canada.
Lawyers who work with Canadian families seeking to help their relatives come join them in Canada from the United States under the exception to the safe third country agreement say that Canadian border authorities often reject even strong evidence like DNA tests from authorized labs or original birth certificates.
“We know that even in very strong cases, officers make mistakes, or do not review all the documents put forward, or do not even interview the Canadian relatives,” said Heather Neufeld, a senior immigration lawyer based in Ottawa who works on such cases.
“As someone who has represented numerous families wrongly denied refugee eligibility at the Canadian border when they actually did qualify, and having seen them sent to detention, and in one case even deportation, I am terrified that many individuals will come to the border seeking safety and protection, only to find that either they do not meet a technical exception, or are unable to present sufficient documents, or are wrongly denied because the review of their case is not sufficiently thorough,” she added.
Spokespeople for the Canadian immigration and border authorities did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether the U.S. Supreme Court ruling would prompt a response from Canada, or affect agents’ practices at the border.
This month, a group of families who were returned to the United States by Canadian border authorities filed a legal challenge to the entire Safe Third Country Agreement, arguing it violates Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Joining the families in the suit are two human-rights groups, Amnesty International Canada and the Canadian Council for Refugees.
The two human-rights groups unsuccessfully challenged the agreement in 2023 before Canada’s Supreme Court.
“Asylum seekers are not only unsafe in the U.S.; their rights are under full-scale attack. It is untenable for Canada to remain implicated, through the Safe Third Country Agreement, in the Trump administration’s cruel and racist campaign of mass detention and deportation of migrants and refugees,” Ketty Nivyabandi, a leader at Amnesty International Canada, said in an emailed statement on Thursday.
“We urge Canada to recognize the heartbreak, devastation and fear caused by the U.S.’s refugee policies and withdraw from the agreement today,” she added.
