As Canada’s Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States goes back before the Supreme Court of Canada Oct. 6, Ottawa has revealed a surge of 23,358 asylum seekers at irregular border crossings in the first eight months of 2022.

For the foreseeable future, asylum seekers at official Canada-U.S. border crossings will be turned back to try their luck in the U.S. 

The decision on whether to overturn a July 2020 court decision rendering the Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the United States invalid is now in the hands of three judges of the Federal Court of Appeal.

With an Oct. 26 ruling that keeps the status quo at the U.S.-Canada border, asylum seekers will continue to be sent back into indefinite detention in American jails before eventually being deported back to the countries they are fleeing.

A caravan of up to 7,000 migrants heading north through Mexico toward a possible showdown at the American border are highlighting an urgent issue in Canadian refugee policy. 

For the first time, Canada is seeing more people claim refugee status after hopping the U.S. border on back roads than make a claim at regular, official ports of entry. At the same time the total number of refugee claims has more than doubled in just one year.

The Canadian Council of Churches, Amnesty International and Canadian Council for Refugees are one step closer to arguing in court that Canada’s Safe Third Country agreement with the United States is illegal.

Canada’s major churches, the Canadian Council for Refugees and Amnesty International Canada are taking the federal government to court, hoping to strike down a 13-year-old agreement between the United States and Canada on treatment of refugees.

As the flood of refugees slipping across the Canada-U.S. border continues, churches are stepping up their calls for the government to suspend Canada’s Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States.

OTTAWA – Church groups calling for the scrapping of the Safe Third Country agreement in response to U.S. President Trump’s refugee policies are likely to remain disappointed.

As the storm over the fate of refugees intensifies in the United States, Canada’s churches are deliberating whether or not to take the federal government to court to pull Canada out of its Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S.