(Bloomberg) -- The leader of a Canadian province that has seen thousands of asylum seekers crossing from the US is calling on the Biden administration to rewrite a pact between the nations to curb the flow, saying good relations hinge on solving the problem.
Ahead of US President Joe Biden’s visit to Canada later this month, Quebec Premier Francois Legault is trying to draw attention to the hundreds of migrants a day coming via a remote dirt path, known as Roxham Road, at the New York border about 40 miles south of Montreal.
He says his province is overwhelmed, and he needs the federal governments to renegotiate the Safe Third Country Agreement, a deal that’s blamed for causing the immigrants to eschew traditional border checkpoints for the unguarded land crossing.
“If we want to keep good relationships between Canada and the US, we have to settle this matter,” Legault said in an interview Wednesday. “It’s urgent.”
The issue stems from rules in the pact that say refugees must claim asylum in the first country they enter, and will be turned back at a Canada-US border station if they try to cross there. But since Roxham Road is not an official port of entry, refugees are able to cross over and then claim asylum within Canada.
In power since 2018, Legault comes from a long line of nationalist Quebec premiers who see the French-speaking province as a distinct society within the broader Canadian confederation — a movement that often clashes with the federal government.
The 65-year-old leader is trying to increase pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to make the issue a priority when Biden visits. He complained that a recent meeting with David Cohen, the US ambassador to Canada, didn’t seem to convince him on the need to fix the pact in order to solve the immigration crisis.
“It looks like he didn’t understand because he said it’s not the problem,” Legault said. “The reality is we’re the only province getting these people and they all go through Roxham Road.”
Quebec’s premier wants the agreement to be enforced everywhere along the border, including at informal crossings.
The Biden administration sees irregular migration as a critical issue throughout the Americas and will work with Canada to prioritize orderly flows at recognized crossings, a spokesperson for the US National Security Council said, adding the matter will be a on the agenda when Biden meets Trudeau. The statement was silent on whether the president is open to renegotiating the pact.
The Canada Border Services Agency reported almost 40,000 asylum claims from people who crossed at Roxham Road last year, and about 4,875 in January. It was one of the busiest months since Trudeau said in 2017 that Canada would welcome people seeking to flee Donald Trump’s anti-migration policies.
Refugee advocates say the current surge stems partly from the end of Covid rules that severely limited the ability of immigrants to seek asylum. When those restrictions were lifted in late 2021, migrants who would have headed to Canada earlier then resumed their journeys.
“Everybody for the past two years who were stuck in a place trying to maneuver are now coming,” said Abdulla Daoud, who heads a group that helps newcomers settle in Montreal. He added that many of the recent arrivals are Latin American, primarily from Venezuela.
Quebec, where French is the official language, is Canada’s second-largest province but can’t cope with the number of asylum seekers living there while they wait for their claims to be settled, the premier said. A push to transport some of the migrants to other provinces hasn’t been enough, he added.
“Honestly, right now, even the ones speaking French, we don’t have place any more,” Legault said, citing overburdened social services in Montreal, where most asylum seekers end up. “We cannot afford to get so many people.”
--With assistance from Josh Wingrove and Brian Platt.
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.
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