Feds eye closing border loophole

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This article was published 18/03/2019 (2438 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Opposition MPs are raising questions about a Liberal proposal to send border-crossing asylum-seekers back to the United States.

“Both countries must be realizing the current agreement isn’t working,” said Conservative MP Larry Maguire.

At Monday’s House immigration committee, Maguire and his colleagues questioned bureaucrats about ongoing negotiations with the United States revealed by Border Security Minister Bill Blair.

Blair said he’s making some headway in convincing American officials to revise the Canada-United States Safe Third Country Agreement, which bars most people from making an asylum claim at either side of the border.

Under a loophole in the existing agreement, people who cross into Canada outside of a formal border station can evade prosecution if they immediately report to authorities and file an asylum claim.

Blair’s idea would see officials gather such claimants, bring them to the formal border crossing and process them under the regular rules, which would mean sending most asylum claimants back to the United States.

“We think there are opportunities to approve and amend this agreement to modernize (it),” Blair told reporters Monday. He said he raised the issue over the past three weeks with U.S. senators and congressmen, as well as American federal officials.

Maguire noted the idea echoes what the federal Tories had proposed in summer 2017.

“They’re coming up with the same solutions that we offered,” he said. “I just can’t believe it took them this long to figure this out.”

Yet, NDP MP Daniel Blaikie panned the proposal as a way to incentivize illegal immigration, because people crossing near the Manitoba border community of Emerson would try evading the RCMP instead of following the requirement to immediately report to them.

He said that would put pressure on Winnipeg refugee-support groups to turn a blind eye on immigration status.

“What this so-called solution means is that people are going to be hiding from Canadian officials,” he said, likening it to a never-ending American crackdown on people living without official status.

“We should not be duplicating the failed immigration policies of the United States.”

Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel told the Free Press she’s wondering if the Liberals’ are simply shifting their tone seven months before the federal election without actually changing policy.

“To me this feels like them trying to cauterize some of the public response,” she said. “Their lack of action on this has really polarized the immigration debate in this country. So there’s a cost to their inaction.”

Winnipeg immigration lawyer Alastair Clarke has called for Canada to suspend the agreement, noting it has not been formally revised despite a clause calling for a regular assessment of how each country upholds human rights.

He said the proposed change would likely be hard to enforce, and it’s unclear whether American officials would accept people Canada turns back, especially those with expired U.S. visas.

“The system is clearly broken and Ottawa is recognizing hat the status quo is neither serving national interests nor the interest of those refugee claimants who are fleeing the United States,” he said.

He said Ottawa ought to instead focus on the backlog for asylum hearings. People who crossed at Emerson wait in Winnipeg for 12 to 18 months to learn whether they’ll be able to stay in Canada.

“There’s a lot of anxiety in the community about the backlogs and the long wait times,” he said.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca