Canada: Chemin Roxham, the administrative anomaly at the origin of the migration crisis in Quebec
Canadian police arrest migrants on Roxham Road on August 7, 2017. © Charles Krupa / AP
Text by: Pascale Guéricolas
5 mins
In an open letter published in the Quebec daily
La Presse
at the beginning of February, lawyers and immigrant aid organizations wonder about the approach to adopt with regard to Chemin Roxham.
A record number of asylum seekers used this unauthorized passageway between the United States and Canada last year.
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Of the almost 9,000 km of borders that separate the United States and Canada, the few hundred meters
of Roxham Road do
not even represent a semicolon.
However, this country road, located in the Eastern United States, enjoys a real notoriety.
In theory, it is forbidden to all traffic.
Except that its proximity to a road close to a village makes it easily accessible to all those fleeing war and persecution.
When they cannot pass through official border posts due to lack of visas, asylum seekers take the risk of following this forbidden path, and being arrested by the Canadian police waiting for them at the other end.
Canada has an obligation to welcome potential refugees.
In 2022, 40% of the 92,175 asylum seekers who arrived in Canada took this back door, a real record.
Single people, families, who very often have braved all the dangers and traveled from South to North America to seek asylum.
People who come from Mexico, Colombia, Nigeria
and especially from Haiti
, but also from Turkey and Sudan.
Since 2004, an agreement binds the United States and Canada.
It specifies that all asylum seekers must present their request in the first of the two States where they arrive.
This therefore means that Canadian customs officials reject any potential refugee from American territory.
This is why so many people take the Roxham Road, which could be described as an administrative error.
Others rather denounce the hypocrisy of the Canadian government which, without saying so, allows it to circumvent its own system.
►Also read: In Canada, a record number of asylum seekers, but few means
Humanitarian crisis in sight
When using it, immigrants can apply for asylum in Canada, and then arrive in Montreal, located just a 40-minute drive from the US border.
There, the Quebec aid services take charge of them to offer them a roof over their heads and administrative assistance for a few weeks.
Except that the influx of people living the same reality makes the situation chaotic.
In 2022, 40,000 people took Chemin Roxham, compared to 19,000 in 2018, yet a record year.
Theoretically, the Canadian government funds refugee aid, but the money does not follow.
Faced with the housing crisis, in a city where affordable apartments are conspicuous by their absence, and without the possibility of working, as it takes longer to obtain the necessary documents, many asylum seekers find themselves Street.
The meager relief allowance they receive is not enough.
The Refuge des jeunes run by France Labelle welcomes several of them.
“
The workers from our organization try to help them draft the documents to obtain refugee status,
” she explains.
But they are not trained for that
!
Often, these young people arrive here with traumas, because they have experienced very difficult things on the road, or in the country they fled.
It's not our usual clientele...
" Like the Refuge des jeunes, food banks, associations that provide clothing and furniture, face growing demand from those who arrived in Canada dreaming of a better life.
An asylum seeker arrives at a police checkpoint near the Quebec town of Hemmingford, April 24, 2022. © Christinne Muschi / Reuters
How to help the most vulnerable?
"
Every day, I have to refuse families who come knocking on our door,
" says Eva Gracia-Turgeon, coordinator of the Foyer du monde in downtown Montreal.
With only 45 places available, we are only a drop in the ocean of the very many asylum seekers without accommodation
.
At the end of January, the voluntary sector launched a cry from the heart to the government to better help these vulnerable people.
In turn, the organizations have deplored the lack of resources that prevents them from responding to what increasingly looks like a major humanitarian crisis, particularly in the Quebec metropolis, Montreal.
To resolve the situation, the Premier of Quebec, François Legault, asked Canada to close Roxham Road.
A solution that even his immigration minister refuses, because she fears that people will take more dangerous paths.
The Quebec Association of Immigration Lawyers, which has launched an open letter, is calling for a review of the safe third country agreement between the United States and Canada.
“
Asylum seekers could thus present themselves at regular border crossings, as is already the case at airports
,” the lawyers suggest.
This would better distribute their numbers across Canada.
The Canadian central government remains silent on this dossier, having discussed this issue for several years, it seems, with the American authorities.
US President Joe Biden is due to come to Ottawa in March to meet Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
This may be an opportunity to finally clarify how asylum seekers arrive in Canada.
►Also listen: International report - Quebec: asylum seekers faced with a lack of services
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