In 2017, a Canadian was arrested at an unmarked border crossing near Hemingford, Quebec. Abnormally high number Illegal crossing on foot.
Scores of Haitians, many of them families lugging heavy suitcases, flew from Florida and New York City to Plattsburgh in upstate New York, then caught taxis to the small farming town of Moores, New York.
Wroxham Road quickly became a major news and political issue.
Last March, Canada and the United States agreed to the first major changes in 20 years to the Security Third Country Arrangement (STCA), expanding its provisions to the entire land border rather than just formal border crossings.
This STCA expansion has effectively eliminated Roxham Road’s usefulness to migrants as a way to circumvent the system.
But one lesson from the Loxham Road experience remains crucial and concerning, given former U.S. President Donald Trump’s promise to deport millions of immigrants if re-elected: changes in the status of undocumented immigrants in the United States can have immediate consequences at the Canadian border.
Small changes cause congestion on Wroxham Road
The influx into Roxham Road was triggered by the end of a little-known provision in the U.S. immigration system that extended Temporary Protected Status (TPS) – exemption from deportation – to Haitians in the wake of the 2010 Port-au-Prince earthquake.
TPS was also terminated for protected Central American migrants because it was deemed unreasonable to return them to areas devastated by Hurricane Mitch.
They too have begun to appear on the New York-Quebec border.
While the revocation of TPS only affected 2-3% of illegal immigrants in the United States, it was enough to trigger an influx into Canada, forcing governments to scramble to respond, with Montreal opening up its Olympic Stadium as a temporary shelter.
President Trump has promised to go after all illegal immigrants in the United States.
The U.S. government puts the total at about 11 million, but President Trump himself put the figure at 18 million during a debate with President Joe Biden, and some in his team have put the figure as high as 30 million.
By contrast, fewer than 1 million people have been deported under the Trump administration.
Information spread through social media and community radio
Amid the rush to cancel TPS, a dead-end turnaround at the end of Roxham Road on the New York side of the border was littered with bus ticket stubs and airline boarding passes from cities across the country.
CBC News met with people who came from as far away as San Diego.
Information about Roxham Road, some of which was false, was shared on social media and by Creole-language radio stations in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The Canadian government also Turned to social media To Countering those messagesCreole and Spanish-speaking government officials traveled to Miami to try to stop the crossing.
“I think mobile phones, particularly smart phones and social media, have the power to drive migration in ways that many countries haven’t anticipated, which is why we’re seeing this in the Western Hemisphere,” said Laura Collins, a migration expert at the George W. Bush Center in Dallas.
Collins told CBC News in an interview that crackdowns in one jurisdiction often end up pushing immigrants into other jurisdictions.
“Of course, some people will try to do that. In Europe, when the UK implemented tougher controls, people Crossing the border from Northern Ireland “To the Republic of Ireland,” she told CBC News.
“There will be people trying to come to Canada. We just don’t know what the scale will be.”
“The largest deportation this country has ever seen.”
Tom Homan, who served as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during the Trump administration’s first term, is seen as a possible candidate to become secretary of Homeland Security if Trump returns to power.
“They ain’t seen nothing yet.” He spoke about the deportation efforts. During President Trump’s first term.
“Trump will return in January and I will be following close behind him, leading the largest deportation force in the history of our country.”
Unlike many of President Trump’s policies, Mass deportation proposal receives strong support Even outside his base.
A Harris Poll survey of 6,251 adults conducted online in April with a 95% confidence level and margin of error of plus or minus 1.5 percentage points found that 51% of Americans support the idea, including 42% of Democrats.
(The same survey found that many Americans are confused about basic facts about illegal immigration: About two-thirds believe immigrants get more in welfare and benefits than they pay in taxes. In fact, most illegal immigrants in the U.S. pay taxes but are not eligible for benefits.)
The deportation plan would actually bring the United States in line with the practices of Canada and Mexico, both of which routinely deport all foreign nationals found to be in the country illegally.
But neither Canada nor Mexico has anything comparable to the United States’ massive illegal immigrant population.
Promises unlikely to be fulfilled
Even though mass deportations are fairly popular among the American public, many experts don’t believe the promise is achievable.
“The first thing I always say when asked about Trump’s campaign promise of mass deportations is that it would be incredibly expensive, would cause enormous disruption to the U.S. economy, would take decades and would be nearly impossible to implement,” Collins said.
“Right now, we don’t have enough judges in our immigration system. We don’t have enough ICE agents. We don’t have enough detention facilities to hold the people we arrest. And before we deport them, we have to work with the countries these people come from to establish relationships that allow us to send them back to their home countries,” Collins explained.
Collins said many of those who support the proposal have not fully considered the practical implications of the proposal, including the fact that more than 1 million Americans are married to illegal immigrants and that many U.S. children have one or both parents who could be subject to deportation.
Rumors and fears
But while the reality of Trump’s mass deportation plans may fall short of the sales pitch, much like his 2016 promise of a wall on the southern border, Collins said that doesn’t mean it won’t cause panic and potential stampedes.
“As someone who studies policy, it’s one thing to look at this policy and say this is nearly impossible and people should calm down a little bit. But the actual families that are affected by this policy is another story. And if you’re a child of a U.S. citizen and your parents are undocumented immigrants, or if you’re a Dreamer and you know your status is always going to be precarious because there’s no permanent legislative solution at this point, I think it’s really hard to fathom how scared you must be,” Collins said.
“These things have real effects on real people and will shape people’s behaviour for years to come, and the fear is hard to quantify. And it’s always worth remembering that just because a policy seems nearly impossible doesn’t mean it’s any less real and terrifying to real people.”
There are some questions about how Ottawa and Washington would respond if a flood of immigrants who escaped the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) dragnet flooded into Canada.
It is unclear how the Trump administration would respond if Canada were to invoke the SCTA and exercise its right to return all border crossers to the United States. Under the Treaty.
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Would the U.S. accept them? Especially if they come from a country like Venezuela? Historically it has been difficult Will we have to deport migrants due to a lack of cooperation from national governments?
Will the Canadian government face backlash at home for handing over immigrants to the Trump administration’s deportation forces?
If the influx is large enough, a significant number of immigrants are expected to fall into one of the STCA’s four exemptions. How will Canada accommodate them?
The United States has seen a sharp increase in the number of unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S.-Mexico border to take advantage of exceptions to U.S. policy that allow them to stay.
The STCA provides a similar exemption for unaccompanied children. Could the same phenomenon occur in Canada?
