US and Canada reached agreement to reject asylum seekers

The US and Canada have reached an agreement to turn away asylum seekers at unofficial border crossings.The accord is expected to allow officials on both sides of the border to turn back such asylum seekers heading in either direction. President Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Friday. Starting early Saturday morning, migrants who cross into Canada between official ports of entry will be quickly returned to the U.S., Trudeau said at a joint press conference in Ottawa. The new agreement will also allow the U.S. to send asylum-seekers who cross the northern border at unofficial crossing points back to Canada, The deal is the latest move by the Biden administration to discourage migrants from crossing the border illegally in order to seek asylum, over the objections of immigrant advocates and some Democrats.

The move is part of efforts to limit an influx of migrants at Roxham Road, an unofficial crossing between New York state and the province of Quebec. The deal is an amendment to the 2004 Safe Third Country Agreement between the two sides, which requires migrants to make an asylum claim in the first "safe" country they reach, whether it is the US or Canada. The new arrangement would close a loophole in the Safe Third Country Agreement that prevented Canada from turning away those crossing the border at unofficial crossing points.  Canada will establish a new refugee programme for 15,000 people escaping persecution and violence in South and Central America as part of the agreement.The new agreement would also close a gap in the Safe Third Country Agreement that allowed Canada to refuse entry to people using unauthorised crossing points. "We will increase the number of asylum-seekers who we accept from the Western Hemisphere to compensate for closing these irregular crossings," Trudeau said in French through an interpreter.

But immigrant advocates criticized the deal for limiting the movement of asylum-seekers. "It's an unfortunate development for asylum seekers seeking protections and basic human dignity," said Elora Mukherjee, the director of Columbia Law School Immigrants' Rights Clinic."Asylum seekers flee violent conditions to build better futures for themselves and their families—they undergo extreme journeys across thousands of miles in search of safety and relief," said Murad Awawdeh, the executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, in a statement. "To now restrict the movement of asylum seekers is to recklessly endanger their lives."