PLATTSBURGH, NY | Migrants who crossed the border via Roxham Road over the weekend spent three days in detention before being discouraged and turned away empty-handed in the United States.
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“Everything has to start from scratch,” sighed Carmen, a Venezuelan who crossed the border through Roxham at dawn on Saturday.
When we caught up with her, she had just been officially expelled from Canada under a new agreement that went into effect just hours before her visit.
The entire border is now covered by the Safe Third Country Agreement, which de facto prevents migrants from crossing the famous Roxham Road unless there are exceptions. The news was announced during President Joe Biden’s visit last week.
Some twenty asylum seekers, among the first to be rejected, waited for the bus in Plattsburgh yesterday afternoon under the neon lights of a supermarket.
A mixture of desperation and resignation was in the air.
“I’m really confused right now,” said Steven, a 24-year-old Venezuelan who still wore his neon green ID bracelet on his wrist.
Photo Nora T Lamontagne
Peruvian Alan Rivas was hoping to find his wife, who lives in Terrebonne, but was sent back to the United States after three days.
“I don’t know what to do. I have to call my family to get me a referral,” said Alan Rivas, who had already spent more than $4,000 to get there.
Despite the danger to his life there, the 38-year-old is considering returning to his home country of Peru.
Short stay in Canada
As of midnight Saturday, asylum seekers arrested on Roxham Road are being transported to a place where they will be sorted and then to a reception center near the Lacolle border crossing in Montérégie.
Those we spoke to say there are at least 100 people in bunk beds there awaiting a decision.
“I was so nervous I barely slept,” said Nicole, a young Colombian hoping to join her cousins in Montreal.
Three days and three nights later, it was border officials who instead announced his fateful release.
Afterward, they took his fingerprints and made him sign documents.
The young woman was also given an appointment to perform in the US at the end of April.
Nicole then had to find her own way out of the border, paying about $45 for a cab to the Plattsburgh bus station.
“I’ve been wearing the same shirt for four days, we didn’t have access to our luggage,” she apologized in front of a white bread sandwich.
No exemption
The disappointment was particularly great for some migrants, who believed they could be accepted thanks to an exception affecting the immediate family of someone already living in Canada.
However, Brahim (fictional name), a Chadian who claims his wife is Canadian, was deported back to the United States on Tuesday.
The 30-year-old scrolled through photos of their small family on his phone, copies of his passport, his wife’s, their cute little boy who was born in Quebec a few months ago…
He showed this to customs officials and gave the phone numbers of his wife who is in Cameroon and those of relatives who are in Montreal.
But nothing worked.
“I never thought of taking another pass. Now we are crying for it,” said the man, who fled persecution after pro-democracy demonstrations in Chad.
“At least I can work in the United States. Some are here illegally with their children. It hurts my heart,” he added, glancing out of the corner of his eye at a small family sitting next door.
And now?
At around 7:25 p.m., the Greyhound bus bound for New York arrived at the parking lot of the American gas station.
“The same one we took to get here,” remarked Carmen, the Venezuelan, bitterly.
Photo Nora T Lamontagne
Steven, a 24-year-old Venezuelan, didn’t know where his next destination would be.
Steven, his compatriot, hesitated until the last moment before buying his ticket. Did he want to go back to New Jersey? Did he go to Boston instead? In New York? The driver grew impatient.
Finally the young man got in.
And the bus left when it arrived, putting the migrants back on their tracks.
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