Canada is experiencing significant difficulties with refugees from the United States crossing the border. America is the world’s center of migration, and therefore a large number of migrants residing in the country are there illegally. Many people go to the States for jobs or more comfortable living conditions, but they cannot legally extend their stay in the country after a certain period. The problem is not the refugees but legislation between the two countries requiring Canada to send refugees back to the United States. Because of this agreement, many refugees who do not want to be deported or face other consequences of being detected by US immigration police try to cross the border into Canada illegally and stay here illegally.
The complex problem results from the fact that people’s desire to live within democratic developed societies is difficult to stop. Refugees continue crossing the border into Canada, putting them in inhuman conditions of survival, where they have to wade through rugged terrain, freeze with cold and starve for long periods (Labman, 2019). Moreover, the existence of an agreement between the countries obliges the Canadian authorities to send the refugees back if they are found, forcing them to hide in another country.
Currently, there is a request in the country’s political discourse to stop the agreement between the countries because, according to human rights organizations, the United States is no longer a safe place to send refugees. It is due to the tightening of America’s migration policy under Donald Trump. Ending the arrangement could allow the Canadian government to establish a system for accepting and rehabilitating refugees that would be consistent with the country’s migration policy, ensure its long-term goals of finding a workforce, and be humane to refugees.
References
Godley, J. (2018). Everyday discrimination in Canada. The Canadian Journal of Sociology/Cahiers Canadiens de Sociologie, 43(2), 111-142. Web.
Labman, S., & Liew, J. C. Y. (2019). Law and moral licensing in Canada: the making of illegality and illegitimacy along the border. International Journal of Migration and Border Studies, 5(3), 188-211. Web.
Vang, Z. M., & Chang, Y. (2019). Immigrants’ experiences of everyday discrimination in Canada: Unpacking the contributions of assimilation, race, and early socialization. International Migration Review, 53(2), 602-631. Web.