Advocates concerned about asylum seekers using dangerous paths after Roxham Road closure – Montreal | 24CA News
Franz André is continually on the telephone responding to calls from asylum seekers on each side of the Canada-U.S. border.
“Currently we have people who are really distressed right now,” the refugee advocate who runs Action Committee for People with out Status, instructed Global News.
That’s as a result of a loophole within the border deal between the 2 nations, which allowed folks to hunt asylum through the use of irregular crossings just like the one at Roxham Road close to Lacolle, Que., was closed Saturday.
Since then, he mentioned, these looking for refuge right here through the United States, thought-about a secure nation by Canada, at the moment are chopping via the forest alongside the border to get into this nation.
“Yes,” mentioned André. “Actually I have people that have called me and they are currently in Canada.”
It’s one thing refugee advocates, against the renegotiated border settlement, had warned about, saying that now folks will merely go underground.
“The news is spreading very quickly with Whatsapp,” André famous, “so one person that comes in will quickly tell others how they got in.”
It’s worrisome, he and others level out, as a result of it’s straightforward for folks to get misplaced within the woods, one thing that may be probably harmful at evening in sub-zero temperatures.
There are additionally fears the migrants will fall prey to traffickers.
On Wednesday, group teams protested in opposition to the settlement exterior Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Montreal workplace.
“I think that Canada should rescind the third safe country agreement and allow refugee claimants to cross into Canada, and claim asylum at regular border crossings,” insisted Claire Trottier, board chair for Welcome Collective which works with asylum seekers and is a part of a community of such teams on each side of the border.
Under the settlement, if anybody from a 3rd nation crosses into Canada from the U.S. to hunt asylum, they are going to be despatched again to the United States, except they meet exemptions.
Those working with migrants argue that the deal can also be creating a possible humanitarian drawback on the opposite aspect of the border.
“This morning on the call we heard stories of at least three or four families from Venezuela, Pakistan, Namibia, who were sent back to the U.S. after they had travelled for months to get to Canada,” mentioned Melissa Claisse, Welcome Collective’s communications coordinator on the protest.
They have been discovered at a gasoline station with nowhere to go and little cash left, she mentioned.
She mentioned different migrants have been discovered wandering the again roads exterior Plattsburgh, N.Y., misplaced.
Claisse and different advocates concern the worst remains to be to return.
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
