Migrants on the Mexican side of the border wait for nightfall before attempting to cross into the United States from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico a day after dozens of migrants died in a fire at a migrant detention centre in the city.
(AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Here’s why the newly amended Safe Third Country Agreement will inevitably lead to more deaths for migrants in hazardous conditions in both official and non-official migration pathways.
RCMP officers approach a woman as she enters Canada via Roxham Road near Hemmingford, Que., on March 25, 2023. Asylum-seekers at the unofficial crossing will now be turned away following amendments to the Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the U.S.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
The renegotiated Safe Third Country Agreement was politically expedient for Justin Trudeau’s government, but poses real policy and programming challenges.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Rwandan minister for foreign affairs, Vincent Biruta, sign an enhanced partnership deal in Kigali, during her visit to Rwanda in March 2023.
PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo
People don’t give up their right to be mobile or their right to make decisions about their lives simply because they are forced to flee untenable circumstances.
Priti Patel and Rwandan Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta agreed the migration partnership in April 2022.
Eugene Uwimana / EPA-EFE
The court blocked the UK from deporting asylum-seekers to Rwanda until after cases in the UK are decided.
Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Fury personally greets Angelika, the first Ukrainian refugee off the plane at St. John’s, NL, on May 9, 2022.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Greg Locke
The disparate treatment of Ukrainians compared with other refugees to Canada suggests to some an unfairness in our immigration process at best — and systemic racism at worst.
A Haitian family poses for a photograph after after taking the oath of citizenship on Parliament Hill in 2019.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
Newcomers need settlement services to learn about life in Canada. Settlement agencies need to use online channels and communicate existing online services to help newcomers before they arrive.
People who fled the war in Ukraine rest inside an indoor gymnasium being used as a refugee centre in the village of Medyka, a border crossing between Poland and Ukraine, on March 15, 2022.
(AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
The European Union is once again faced with the danger of destabilization. Putin’s cyberwar on free societies using the migration crisis went well in 2015. He must not succeed now in Poland or beyond.
A train with refugees fleeing Ukraine crosses the border in Medyka, Poland, on March 7, 2022.
(AP Photo/Visar Kryeziu)
Canada’s temporary protection measures to Ukrainians fleeing the war ensure they’re brought to safety faster. But will this kind of response become the preferred method for all future refugees?
Bolder action is needed if the African Union and the European Union are to find common ground on migration.
Most countries closed their borders, at least partially, at some point last year. But the world is starting to reopen.
COVID Border Accountability Project
Last year, 189 countries – home to roughly 65% of the global population – cut themselves off from the world at some point. Borders are now reopening and travel resuming, but normal is a ways off.
The first group of asylum-seekers allowed to cross from a migrant camp in Mexico into the United States following Biden’s repeal of the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy arrives to Brownsville, Texas, Feb. 25, 2021.
John Moore/Getty Images
Luck and tenacity paid off for some 15,000 migrants who may now pursue their asylum cases in the US But nearly 42,000 cases filed from Mexico under a Trump-era rule were already rejected.
An undocumented immigrant who has lived in the U.S. for 28 years shows a picture of her grandchild and son, who was deported under Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy in 2017.
John Moore/Getty Images
Trump made three anti-immigration pledges in 2016: ban Muslims, build a wall and enforce all immigration laws. Four years on, a migration scholar examines his record – and its effect on the country.
The pandemic and anti-immigration policies haven’t stopped migration from Central America – they’ve just made conditions at the border more hazardous.
Herika Martinez/AFP via Getty Images
COVID-19 has created new hardships for migrants while giving the Trump administration an excuse to further restrict asylum as public attention focuses on the pandemic.
People march towards Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland’s office in Toronto during a rally led by current and former international students calling for changes to immigration rules during COVID-19 on Sept. 12, 2020.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Tijana Martin
Pandemic fears could permanently harden Canadian attitudes toward immigration, and generate pressure to reduce the number of yearly arrivals.
Protesters attend a demonstration in support of migrant worker in front of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada in Toronto in August 2020.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov
The federal government must make good on its throne speech language about making it easier for migrant workers to formally become Canadian by instituting a comprehensive regularization plan.
In this August 2017 photo, Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers greet migrants as they enter into Canada at an unofficial border crossing at the end of Roxham Road in Champlain, N.Y., on the Québec border. A federal court has invalidated Canada’s Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States.
(AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
The Canadian government should send a clear signal that it cares about constitutional and international law, heed a Federal Court ruling and take steps to immediately suspend the STCA.
Protesters stand outside the Federal Court of Canada building for a hearing of the designation of the U.S. as a safe third country for refugees in Toronto in November 2019.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette
Many of us would probably like to watch some professional sports right now. But wouldn’t we rather Canada live up to its international legal responsibilities to respect the rights of asylum-seekers?
Protesters in Hong Kong during demonstrations against China’s draft bill to impose national security laws on the semi-autonomous territory.
Ivan Abreu/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
The cherished legal rights that Beijing seeks to suppress in Hong Kong were established, in part, by Vietnamese asylum-seekers who fought for their freedom in court in the 1980s.
In this March 2018 photo, Venezuelan children wait for a meal at a migrant shelter set up in Boa Vista, Roraima state, Brazil.
(AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
If Brazil can find an efficient, pragmatic way to welcome, protect and integrate hundreds of thousands of forced migrants arriving at its border, so can more affluent states.