In a decision hailed as a win for refugee rights, a federal judge in Canada ruled Tuesday that the “Safe Third Country Agreement” between Canada and the U.S. is invalid because it fails to guarantee migrants’ rights to liberty and security, in effect an admission that the U.S. is not a safe country for those seeking refugee protection.
Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East called the ruling “a victory for asylum seekers.”
The bilateral agreement known as STCA, which went into effect in 2004, requires migrants presenting themselves at official Canada-U.S. border points of entry to be returned to the country where they first arrived to present their claims under the assumption that claimants “could have found effective protection” in either of the two countries.
The Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR), Amnesty International, and the Canadian Council of Churches brought forth the challenge along with refugee claimants including Nedira Mustefa, an Ethiopian national.
Mustefa tried in 2017 to enter Canada from the U.S. but was returned to American soil where she was immediately imprisoned and held in solitary confinement for one week—a time she told the court was “a terrifying, isolating, and psychologically traumatic experience.” She was then detained with others who had criminal convictions and “did not know when [she] would be released, if at all.”
Dorota Blumczynska
In a statement welcoming the ruling, CCR president Dorota Blumczynska said:
“The court could hardly fail to be moved by the testimonies of the appalling experiences of people in the U.S. immigration detention system, after Canada closed the doors on them. Their experiences show us—and convinced the court — that the U.S. cannot be considered a safe country for refugees.”
Just a little over three years ago, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a now infamous in-your-face tweet to challenge the newly sworn-in President of the United States.
Now here comes the news about the border closures that all sensible countries are putting in place in an effort to slow the momentum of the virus crisis.
It is a long story, probably not worth reading, by a Canadian professor clearly unhappy with the turn of events. The Open Borders Lefties are generally treading lightly because citizens are in no mood to have their liberties restricted (and health threatened) while migrants have free movement around the world.
Coronavirus: Racism and the long-term impacts of emergency measures in Canada
The dangers to public health during the COVID-19 pandemic are terrifying, so it’s not surprising governments around the world are taking extraordinary measures to curb its spread, including closing borders to non-nationals.
Canada has become one of many countries to either partially or completely close their borders and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has also announced that Canada will no longer consider asylum claims.
[….]
One of many PR events when Trudeau welcomed Syrians to Canada by the thousands.
Canada has won international praise over the last few years for its commitment to refugee resettlement in particular, as evidenced by the arrival of 25,000 Syrian refugees in a few short months.
But Trudeau has announced that due to these “exceptional times,” a new agreement has been signed with the United States that would see asylum-seekers crossing the border on foot returned to the U.S.
This exceptional reaction goes against Canada’s commitments under the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and a 1985 Supreme Court ruling that says refugee claimants have a right to a fair hearing (the Singh decision).
Okay, we agree! All of the tens of thousands of supposed ‘refugees’ who flowed north claiming they fear our President have permission to stay in the safer country—Canada.
Trudeau and Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen get four more years to work their magic and transform Canada!
In fact, Canada is now especially safe as it has re-elected Mr. Welcome himself, Justin Trudeau, for another four year term as prime minister.
(Reminder: An asylum seeker is not yet a refugee and the words should not be used interchangeably.)
U.S. not ‘safe’ for refugees, rights groups argue in Canadian court
TORONTO (Reuters) – The United States is unsafe for would-be refugees and a Canada-U.S. agreement that compels asylum seekers to first apply for U.S. sanctuary ought to be ripped up, lawyers for refugees and rights groups argued in a Canadian federal court on Monday.
Under the Safe Third Country Agreement, asylum seekers at a formal Canada-U.S. border crossing traveling in either direction are turned back and told to apply for asylum in the country they first arrived in.
Lawyers for unnamed refugees who had been turned away are challenging the agreement, saying the United States does not qualify as a “safe” country under President Donald Trump. Human rights groups, including Amnesty International and the Canadian Council for Refugees, have also joined the case, which could change the way the two countries cooperate on refugee issues.
More than 50,000 people have illegally crossed the Canada-U.S. border to file refugee claims over the past three years, walking over ditches and on empty roads along the world’s longest undefended border. Some asylum seekers have told Reuters they might have stayed in the United States had it not been for Trump’s immigration rhetoric and policies.
[….]
On Monday, the plaintiff’s lawyers said Canada had failed to adequately review the United States’ status as a safe country.
Refugee lawyer Andrew Brouwer cited examples of asylum seekers being returned to the United States and subject to incarceration and solitary confinement for weeks, with little access to counsel.
Don’t assume that everyone in the ‘caring class’ is on the same page when it comes to the idea of permanent refugee resettlement into the first world.
Here is a piece from the Vancouver Sun (thanks to ‘pungentpeppers’) that will give you something to think about (when I say you, I mean all of those US refugee resettlement employees and volunteers working day and night to fill the US with needy migrants, who will stay here permanently, all in the name of humanitarian compassion for the downtrodden).
(I am assuming you are legitimately concerned for the world’s poorand not just flooding America with future Leftwing voters, or in the case of Republican RINOs with cheap foreign laborers, or want to keep your job.)
This is the caption from under a photo of Syrian refugees (emphasis is mine):
“The purpose of asylum in conflict situations is not to confer a permanently transformed life onto the fortunate minority who are able to get out,” Paul Collier says, “but to preserve the country’s critically important skilled and politically engaged people until it is safe for them to return to rebuild their society.”
Here is Douglas Todd writing at the Vancouver Sun about ten days ago:
Many Canadians make the case for compassion when they maintain the country should retain one of the world’s most generous rates for welcoming immigrants and refugees.
Canadians’ hearts go out when they hear about people struggling in countries like Guatemala, the Philippines, India and Lebanon. We tend to believe Canada has a duty to offer a better life.
Many Canadians want to be especially kind when they read about conflict-ravaged countries like Syria, Iraq, Burma, Sudan and Libya. Surely richer countries can embrace more of these suffering people?
It’s an understandable feeling. Compassion is key to virtually every spiritual world view and most secular philosophies. And there is no doubt many people are facing unimaginable hardship — particularly the roughly one billion at the bottom of the global economy.
But informed voices are warning that rich countries’ policies regarding immigration and asylum seekers are not nearly as compassionate as many want to think they are. Indeed, our migration policies may be doing more harm than good, especially for the most desperate.
This is by no means an issue just for Canadians. Europeans are engaged in a frank debate about the conflict between compassion and social realism in regards to asylum seekers from the Middle East and North Africa. Thousands are arriving each week, in dangerously fragile boats, onto Europe’s shores, trying particularly to get to the north where there are more job opportunities and better welfare.
In the U.S., according to a July Gallup poll, immigration has also recently surged to become the leading issue as a flood of children from Latin America illegally cross the U.S. border, trying to escape economic dysfunction, a dearth of social services and crime.
Like in Canada, it is often open-hearted American church*** and other religious leaders who join liberals to press for the U.S. to open its borders and welcome virtually all these young asylum seekers, and eventually their parents.
***Todd apparently doesn’t know that the “open-hearted American church” is paid to resettle refugees permanently, but we should forgive him that because the mainstream media never mentions how much money is involved.
There is much more, read it all. The gist of it is this—-the third-world will continue to decline as long as western countries give asylum (refugee status) PERMANENTLY, so there is no incentive ever for people to go back and fix their homeland.
I’m sorry to say, this view (temporary refuge only) will never catch on because there is way too much money at stake now in the ‘humanitarian industrial complex’ for voices like Todd’s and Collier’s to be heard.
A family escapes Muslim persecution in Pakistan and arrives in Canada. This is the sort of case western asylum was initially intended for—before the whole system became corrupted. Watch it here (8 minutes), hat tip: Janet.
