In a development that will most certainly strengthen the view that the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will do anything appease the Trump administration, Canadian immigration authorities just barred Chelsea Manning from entering Canada.
Efforts in Canada to provide safe passage to asylum seekers crossing into Canada from the United States prove that people power and civil society action can change public policy and save lives.
It’s disingenuous for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to publicly claim that Canada is safe for asylum claimants while the Bush-era Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) prevents refugees coming from the Unites States from seeking safe haven in Canada.
The Canadian Council for Refugees urges Canadians to respond positively to refugee claimants who have been arriving at our borders in increased numbers in recent months.
Since Trump’s election, the future of Daniela Vargas and more than 750,000 recipients of former president Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program has been uncertain. Most of them now endure mental and physical trauma as a result of lingering deportation threats.
Ten members of the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders just resigned in protest of President Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and animosity towards person of colour in the United States.
The fist meeting between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Donald Trump seems to have made it clear that there will be no wall between the 8,891 km Canada-US border.
Harvard Law School Director Deborah Anker’s letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addresses the impact of Trump’s executive orders on asylum seekers. According to Anker, the orders are “based on erroneous assumptions about the criminality and extremist tendency of the immigrant population.”
