CHAMPLAIN, New York | Many migrants crossed Roxham Road for the last time on Friday, unaware that the famous irregular passage to Canada was about to be closed.
• Also read: ‘People will just walk through the woods’: Taxi drivers fear Roxham Road closure
• Also read: Road closure at midnight tonight: no rush at Roxham yet
“¡Dios mio! (My God!)” exclaimed a Colombian woman in Spanish when we broke the news to her, just about to walk the last few meters before reaching Canada.
“I didn’t know,” breathed Guerson, a young Haitian father in shock with a baby in his arms.
Like most asylum seekers we met in the United States on Friday, they were unaware that the rules had just changed dramatically.
Because since midnight, an agreement between Justin Trudeau and Joe Biden has prevented refugee applicants from the United States from entering Canada via an irregular border crossing, under threat of rejection at American customs offices.
If irregular migrants are intercepted inside Canada, authorities must now deport them to the United States if they crossed the border less than 14 days ago.
Photo, Nora T. Lamontagne
The sign giving instructions to migrants was covered up on Friday to hide the instructions and the one explaining how to apply for asylum was removed.
To deter migrants
” [On agit ainsi] to prevent irregular immigration while we increase regular immigration,” Trudeau said at a joint news conference late this afternoon.
This leads to the closure of Montérégie’s famous Roxham Road, which was used by nearly 40,000 people last year and a few dozen people on Friday.
In return, Canada has agreed to accept 15,000 additional asylum seekers through “legal channels”.
However, Prime Minister François Legault asked Friday that Quebec not accept any of these migrants. “I think we played our part in that. I think there is still a lot of catching up to do so that there will be more in the other federal states. »
He was nonetheless pleased with the closure of Roxham Road, calling it “a great victory for Quebec”. “What is certain is that we have just solved a large part of the problem,” he believes.
By the end of the afternoon, workers uncovered and removed signs from the street that contained, among other things, information about asylum law in Canada.
All of these changes were so sudden that migrants on their way to the border had to expect a ban on crossing, Le Journal learned.
“As we speak, people are passing through and don’t even know about it,” said Amy Mountcastle, associate professor of anthropology at SUNY Plattsburgh University.
Archive photo, Jules Richer
November
Many observers believe the end of Roxham will not mean the end of irregular entry into Canada.
“People just pay a taxi and walk through the forest. And that will be dangerous,” predicts Tyler Provost, a driver who has escorted hundreds of migrants to the border.
Already this year, two of them died while crossing the forest.
Attraction
“It really encourages illegality,” adds Stéphanie Valois, president of the Quebec Association of Immigration Lawyers.
In the long term, the lawyer believes, the flow of migrants will not dry up, as they face much worse challenges than the Canada-US border before they arrive in Canada.
Before setting off again, Tyler Provost takes one last look at the dirt road that separates the two countries by just a few feet, at the customs officers patrolling it, at the permanent buildings awaiting the arrival of migrants were built.
“Coming here has saved the Canadian police time and money, that’s for sure,” he concludes, before leaving to look for other customers.
– With Olivier Faucher
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