Snowy northern winters tend to see a drop in asylum seekers passing from the United States to Canada on Roxham Road in Quebec. Not last winter.
In December, the number of asylum seekers entering Canada outside official land border crossings reached its highest point since August 2017, government statistics show.
The growing volume of cases is extending the waiting time for admissibility hearings, leaving plaintiffs waiting months for social assistance before obtaining work permits, a lawyer said.
The increase comes after the revocation of the order from the pandemic era in December. Since March 2020, border police have denied entry to all asylum seekers to limit the spread of Covid.
“It seems to me that the ministry is caught unprepared,” said Montreal lawyer Pierre-Luc Bouchard, who has 70 refugee cases in two years with almost zero new clients. “They are completely confused.”
A spokesman for Canadian immigration, refugees and citizenship said the increase was expected and said the agency was working to speed up applications and shorten the waiting time for a hearing.
In December, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police caught 2,811 asylum seekers crossing the border outside official land ports of entry, with the vast majority crossing into Quebec.
In January and February, they caught 2382 and 2164, respectively – compared to 888 and 808 in January and February 2019.
These asylum seekers can enter Canada because they do not enter official border crossings. Under the Safe Third Party Agreement – to be challenged in the Supreme Court of Canada – Canada and the United States may return asylum seekers in both directions to official land border crossings.
Volunteers who come to the border with bottles of water or gloves and are trying to ensure that the rights of those crossing the border are respected have resumed their weekly trips to Roxam Road after being stopped during the pandemic, said Francis Ravensbergen, coordinator of the group. Migrant Advocacy Bridges Not Borders.
Some asylum seekers “somehow waited for the borders to reopen,” Bouchard said.
Roxham Road, north of Plattsberg, Vermont, is not an official border crossing, although so many asylum seekers use it that police are often stationed there to intercept migrants.
Some potential refugees have waited in the United States, others in Latin America or Kenya until they feel they can travel to Canada via the United States, Bouchard said. Canadian refugee applicants come from a number of countries, including Mexico, Colombia, India and Iran.
Many are keeping up with Canada’s changing regulations, “sometimes with some confusion,” Bouchard said.
But Bouchard believes there is more to it than lifting the closure of Canada’s border. “People are desperate,” he said.
He said the increase was also an indication that “under Joe Biden, immigration policies (US) have not really changed, really”, especially with regard to gender-based refugee claims, which are considered less likely to succeed. in the United States.
U.S. arrests of migrants crossing from Mexico reached a 20-year high last year, and the Biden administration was reluctant to overturn all measures imposed by Donald Trump.
The US government did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
A Nicaraguan asylum seeker described flying to the southern United States, where he reunited with his wife and children, who were traveling separately. They flew to New York, where they boarded a bus to Plattsburgh in upstate New York and then took a taxi to the Canadian border.
Canadian police have been friendly, he said. He and his family now live in an apartment in Montreal. His children are at school and he hopes to find a job soon.
“It was a difficult journey – it’s all in Nicaragua,” he said. “But my opinion is positive and I expect that we will do well here.”
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