Opinion | America is not safe for refugees. Canada must pause the Safe Third Country Agreement - Toronto Star
The situation is clear. Prime Minister Carney must pause the Safe Third Country Agreement until the United States is truly “safe” for asylum seekers.
Concerned citizens join a rally for refugee rights outside a court hearing in Toronto challenging the Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States. The Federal Court began a four-day hearing, starting on Monday.
Anna MacLennan is a Canadian-American refugee advocate with the Refugee Advocacy Lab, Refugees International and the Human Impact Project. Dr. Yael Schacher is an historian of U.S. immigration law and Director for the Americas and Europe at Refugees International.
This summer, a Haitian family in the United States attempted to seek asylum in Canada. They had been stripped of their Temporary Protected Status by the Trump administration and feared they would be detained by ICE and deported to Haiti.
Instead of allowing them to seek safety, Canadian authorities made their greatest fears a reality. In an interview with Human Rights Watch, the father, Marc, recounted, “We went to Canada to seek asylum. Three days later, Canadian authorities sent us back to the United States and handed us over to ICE.”
On Aug. 27, the family was deported to Haiti, including their two sons, ages 5 and 3, one of whom is a U.S. citizen.
Canada turned this family away under the Safe Third Country Agreement, which allows Canada to, with some exceptions, turn away asylum-seekers at the Canada-U.S. border without hearing their cases. The policy is premised on the United States being a safe country for refugees and committed to sharing responsibility for protecting them.
Queen’s University law professor Sharry Aiken speaks at a rally outside Federal Court in Toronto on Monday.
This week, as Canada’s Federal Court hears arguments on the legality of the Safe Third Country Agreement, more than 130 U.S.-based immigrant-serving organizations and experts issued a rare joint statement: The United States is not safe for asylum seekers.
The situation is clear. Prime Minister Carney must pause the Safe Third Country Agreement until the United States is truly “safe” for asylum seekers.
Our organizations maintain databases that catalogue U.S. human rights abuses against people seeking safety. One such database tracks third country deportations: the Trump administration’s cruel policy that deports asylum seekers and refugees to unsafe countries where they have never been, including the Central African Republic and Honduras.
The other database tracks brutality and neglect in ICE detention, where deaths have nearly doubled in the past year. This includes Johnny Noviello, a Canadian citizen with U.S. permanent residency who died in ICE custody in a manner experts say was preventable.
The Canadian government claims that conditions in the United States are continually monitored and “only countries that respect human rights and offer a “high degree of protection to asylum-seekers” may be designated as safe third countries.”
When Canada’s highest court considered the legality of the Safe Third Country Agreement three years ago, it found that “a degree of difference as between the legal schemes applicable in the two countries can be tolerated, so long as the American system is not fundamentally unfair.”
However, the overall U.S. asylum grant rate has reached a record low of below 6 per cent (in contrast to Canada’s over 60 per cent) and the U.S. Attorney General has declared most people seeking asylum because of gender violence “generally” ineligible.
We are relying on the safe country agreement, built on a false premise about the U.S., and legislating in the same direction
