A new agreement between the U.S and Canada designed to curb irregular border crossings could, according to some immigration advocacy groups, make cross-border journeys more dangerous for those attempting to seek asylum in both countries.
The deal, announced last week by President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, expands a measure called the Safe Third Country Agreement across the entire U.S.-Canada border — beyond official land border crossing stations.
The underlying agreement states that people must make an asylum claim in the first “safe country” they reach, whether that’s the U.S. or Canada. If an asylee crosses the border and applies for protection on the other side, officials could send them back.
There are some exceptions to that rule, including for unaccompanied children and for people with a family member who has already been allowed to cross the border.
But the recent update closes a loophole that allowed people to effectively skirt the 2004 agreement by seeking asylum when crossing the border at locations other than official ports of entry, such as the well-known crossing at Roxham Road in Champlain, New York.
Nearly 40,000 people crossed into Canada via Roxham Road last year, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. The crossing — which is about a 20-minute drive west of Vermont — was shuttered on the morning the new deal took effect, March 25.
As part of the deal, Canada has also agreed to provide “access to legal pathways” for an additional 15,000 migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Leaders in the U.S. and Canada said the updated agreement makes both country’s immigration policies more consistent and would improve the safety of border crossings. The deal “will protect the integrity of the asylum process, discourage dangerous crossings between ports of entry, and encourage lawful pathways for migration,” said Alejandro Mayorkas, the U.S. homeland security secretary, in the statement.
The agreement also comes as U.S. Border Patrol at the agency’s Swanton sector — which encompasses Vermont’s northern border as well as New Hampshire’s and parts of New York’s — says border crossings are up tenfold. Additional border patrol agents were recently transferred to the Swanton sector to help with the influx of immigrants, NBC News reported.
But some immigration advocacy groups say placing new restrictions on where people can seek asylum will not curb the number of people crossing the border irregularly.
“There will be no reduction in flow. That’s not going to happen,” said Kate Paarlberg-Kvam, who is the unofficial leader of a statewide network helping asylees in Vermont. “People find a way to save their own lives, because that’s what people do.”
The American Civil Liberties Union has long spoken out against the idea of using safe third country agreements to try to manage migration, including a proposal by former President Donald Trump to create such agreements with Guatemala and Mexico.
And to the north, organizations such as the Canadian Council for Refugees said the new changes would not have the effect that government officials have claimed.
“We can expect to see an increased number of people hurt or even dying as they attempt risky routes across the border, including in deep winter,” the council said in a statement, adding that “unscrupulous smugglers will take advantage of the opportunity to make money out of people’s desperation.”
Paarlberg-Kvam said the agreement is still too new for her to be able to say what effect it would have on Vermont, specifically, though she and other people who assist asylum seekers in the state are concerned about what will happen to people who try to apply for protection in Canada after crossing the border, but get sent back out into the U.S.
U.S. Border Patrol agents may want to help but cannot reliably act as social services providers, Paarlberg-Kvam said, pointing to a situation earlier this month in which federal officials dropped off three migrant families at the welcome center in St. Johnsbury.
Because there are limited government resources in the U.S. to support migrants, much of the work to help them falls to coordinated groups of citizens, such as hers. Such groups, which are located across Vermont, rely on volunteers and donations to support asylum seekers who often lack housing, work permits and access to social services.
In many cases, asylum seekers are “entirely at the mercy of the community, and if they can find a good-hearted, well-intentioned person” to help them,” Paarlberg-Kvam said. “Because there’s a real risk if they don’t find somebody.”
Rachel Feldman, a spokesperson for the Vermont Agency of Human Services, declined to discuss details on what the state could expect as a result of the change, though she said that state officials have been “preparing for any situation that may come.”