Canada must prepare for a new wave of asylum seekers if Americans choose Donald Trump in the presidential election. The Trudeau government says it is ready for any eventuality.
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“It is certain that if Donald Trump does what he said he was going to do, that is to say launch a massive deportation campaign, it will certainly cause migratory flows,” says Catherine Xhardez, expert in immigration at the Department of Political Science at the University of Montreal.
The leader of the Bloc Québécois, Yves-François Blanchet, believes that the scenario is “plausible”. “I would understand people who are on American territory who, without further ado, are threatened with being expelled under the authority of a president who has made it one of his most demagogic arguments,” he said. he declared Tuesday.
The federal Minister of Immigration, Marc Miller, assures that the government has developed a plan in the event of the election of Donald Trump, but has remained short of details.
“I believe it is in the interest of our two countries to have a well-managed border,” he said simply.
The wave of the Trump years
If he wins, Donald Trump has promised to undertake the largest deportation plan in history, returning at least 10 million undocumented immigrants to their countries of origin.
During his first term, the Republican candidate and former president imposed anti-immigration decrees which, in 2017 and subsequent years, caused an unprecedented wave of asylum seekers in Canada.
Between 2017 and 2020 inclusive, 60,000 people from the United States requested asylum at the border with Canada, almost all of them having taken the famous Roxham Road, in Quebec, according to a study published in 2022 in theInternational Migration Review.
With the Joe Biden government years later, the Trudeau government renegotiated and extended the Safe Third Country Agreement in 2023, partially reducing the influx of asylum seekers into Canada.
A new Roxham Road?
Despite this potential wave of migrants, the context is no longer the same as during the Trump administration, according to Professor Xhardez.
“Since the extension of the Safe Third Country Agreement, it is no longer possible to request asylum if you have passed through the United States with certain exceptions, for example, if you have family in Canada or if we have an accompanied minor,” she explains.
In other words, the ability to seek asylum isn’t what it used to be, and Canada may have to send people back to the United States. “It wasn’t a given at the time either, but it will be much less possible. […] That doesn’t mean that people won’t come, that they won’t try.”
