Migrants’ perilous journeys motivated by dreams of better lives
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Closing Roxham Rd., where asylum seekers received help, will result in refugees being forced to use smuggling networks, one expert predicts.
Police and firemen searched the marshland in Akwesasne last month and found the bodies of eight people who were trying to cross the border into the U.S. Photo by John Mahoney /Montreal Gazette
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The two migrant families that perished in the frigid waters of the St. Lawrence River trying to cross into the U.S.[2] differed from the majority of the refugees who traverse the border every year, in that they were headed south.
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In 2022, nearly 40,000 migrants passed from the United States into Canada and Quebec at the unofficial border crossing at Roxham Road. In the same period, U.S. Border Patrol apprehended fewer than 3,000 people who crossed illegally from Canada into the United States, although figures show that number had risen sharply since last October.
Of those, about half were Mexicans, who do not need a visa to travel to Canada.
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Since January, police said they had intercepted 80 people trying to go to the U.S. by crossing through the Mohawk territory of Akwesasne that straddles the Canada-U.S. border. Most, like the eight migrants who died in late March, were of Indian and Romanian descent.
When people from the same region are trying to cross in similar ways, it's probably because they have heard of it through family and friends, said Abdulla Daoud, executive director of the Refugee Centre based in Montreal.
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"It's usually patterns that occur because of word of mouth, with individuals telling others about crossing at this pathway," he said. "Mostly it's from somebody who has tried it before." Regardless of the direction in which they cross, migrants are generally motivated by similar incentives, said Megan Bradley, associate professor of political science at McGill University and author of The International Organization for Migration: Commitments, Challenges, Complexities.
It's often related to concerns about family reunification, or denied asylum claims, or gaining access to work permits. "It's often livelihood issues -- people think they can make a better go of it in the United States or Canada," she said.
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Florin and Cristina Iordache, who died with their two young children in Akwesasne, had been ordered to be deported back to Romania on March 31 after living nearly five years in Canada.
It's believed that in order to avoid persecution they feared as part of the Roma minority back in Romania, they chose to board a small boat on a black market smuggling trip to the United States. Florin Iordache had two brothers who lived in Florida. The unofficial border crossing at Roxham Road has been criticized as a legal loophole illegal migrants have been using to enter into Canada and then apply for asylum status, as opposed to going through the official routes of either applying for sponsorship or flying into an inland port and making a claim.
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Bradley calls that a disingenuous argument used globally to justify shutting out refugees. "That argument comes up all over the world -- that refugees should stay put and just wait it out, and trust the system will work," she said. "But there is no line you can sign up for and wait till your time comes. That's just not how this system works."
Sponsorship applications can take years, and Canada has visa requirements for almost 150 countries, meaning most refugees can't fly in to Vancouver or Montreal to apply for asylum. The fact that close to 50 per cent of asylum seekers who came through Roxham Road were eventually granted asylum status shows many are legitimate refugees, Bradley said. "Clearly there's something wrong in our system because there are people who need access to that protection but can't get it."
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Canada's announcement that it plans to allow 500,000 immigrants a year by 2025 to fill labour needs, up from the 405,000 admitted in 2021 are promising, Bradley said. But she notes more than half are economic migrants, chosen based on their work skills or experience. "It would be great to channel it more toward people or groups who really need protection because of human rights concerns," she said. "The system is created in many ways to discriminate, so it produces these types of cruel outcomes."
Canada does a good job overall in welcoming migrants, said Francois Crepeau, professor at McGill University's Faculty of Law, and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants from 2011 to 2017.
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But its modification of the Safe Third Country Agreement that led to the closing of Roxham Road[3] and stipulated anyone (with some exceptions) who crossed at an unofficial border crossing between Canada and the U.S. would be sent back, was a failure, he said. "We know why it's being done -- it's electorally motivated, because the Liberal government wants to take away the one good weapon the Conservatives could have in the next electoral cycle," he said. "Because of the anger of a small part of the electorate, which is ideologically driven by identity politics, we decided to close something that works and create something that doesn't."
Closing Roxham Road, where a system was in place to funnel asylum seekers to official channels to have their cases heard, will result in refugees being forced to use smuggling networks run by criminal groups and hazardous means to enter the country, Crepeau predicted.
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Refugees are drawn to Canada because they know they can find jobs here, often in the underground economy in sectors like agriculture, construction and child care, Crepeau said. In turn, Canada and its employers have become "addicted" to the low-wage labour that allows prices for things like raspberries and furniture and child care to stay artificially reduced.
Canada needs to employ labour inspectors to ensure migrants are being paid fair wages with benefits, which would decimate the underground labour market and dissuade migrants from coming, he said. Ultimately, he says, Canada needs to create a plan looking 20 to 30 years in the future to decide how it wants to handle its long-term migration. It could include subsidizing fair wages so that prices remain low for consumers, and granting permanent status to temporary foreign workers who rarely obtain it to ensure labour needs are filled.
"We should facilitate mobility to make it safer, cheaper, faster and simpler for everyone," he said. "But that requires political courage, and perhaps a new generation."
Eight dead in Akwesasne were trying to cross border, police say
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Canada and U.S. closing Roxham Road and other unofficial border crossings
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References
- ^ Local News (montrealgazette.com)
- ^ perished in the frigid waters of the St.
Lawrence River trying to cross into the U.S.
(montrealgazette.com) - ^ the Safe Third Country Agreement that led to the closing of Roxham Road (montrealgazette.com)
- ^ [email protected] (montrealgazette.com)
- ^ Eight dead in Akwesasne were trying to cross border, police say (montrealgazette.com)
- ^ Canada and U.S. closing Roxham Road and other unofficial border crossings (montrealgazette.com)
- ^ Community Guidelines (montrealgazette.com)
- ^ email settings (montrealgazette.com)