Heading into an election, Canada looks to limit ‘irregular’ overland crossings.
By Selena Ross and Emily Rauhala Emily Rauhala Staff writer covering Canada and foreign affairs Email Bio Follow April 17 at 6:00 AM CHAMPLAIN, N.Y. — There’s no wall or checkpoint or regular guard at the end of Roxham Road — just a footpath to the border. In recent years, this trail has been the busiest unauthorized crossing into Canada, a well-known back door for tens of thousands of people seeking asylum in a country that projects itself as a haven for refugees.
“I suspect that President Trump will be inclined to make Trudeau sweat over this,” said Christopher Sands, director of the Center for Canadian Studies at the Johns Hopkins University in Washington. A spokeswoman for Bill Blair, Canada’s minister of border security and organized crime reduction, said he hopes a renegotiated treaty will “encourage people to cross at regular points of entry to maintain the security and the integrity of our borders.”“It would not be appropriate to negotiate the terms of a bilateral treaty through the media,” she said.
Advocates for asylum seekers say changing the policy won’t stop them from walking across the long, mostly empty, frontier. It will simply encourage them to find more remote, more dangerous places to enter — possibly with the help of criminal networks. They are Haitians, Nigerians and, increasingly, Venezuelans and Colombians. Many enter the United States on tourist visas with plans to come to Roxham Road and cross into Canada.
Canada holds its federal election in October. Trudeau and his Liberal Party, once considered favorites, have seen their approval ratings fall amid a leadership scandal. In the lawsuit, a woman from El Salvador says she and her daughters received rape and extortion threats from gang members back home but were turned away from Canada under the terms of the Safe Third Country Agreement.
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