Migrants Fleeing to Canada Learn Even a Liberal Nation Has Limits<br />Ms. Beauville was one of a surge of thousands of Haitian migrants who crossed over the border from the United States to Quebec last summer, spurred by a May announcement by the Trump administration<br />that Haitians could lose their temporary protected status in the United States, granted after the 2010 earthquake that devastated their country.<br />On an earlier trip there, he sought to counter false media reports in the Latin American press<br />that he said were suggesting that migrants could travel to Canada, "walk in and stay forever." Earlier this summer, the government also sent Emmanuel Dubourg, a Liberal Haitian-Canadian member of Parliament from Montreal, to Miami’s "Little Haiti" to spread the word that getting asylum in Canada was difficult.<br />Haiti said that I won’t — I can’t — go back to Haiti,<br />Many of those who travel to Canada avoid the official border, so they can circumvent the Safe Third Party Agreement between Canada<br />and the United States, which requires asylum seekers to apply for refuge in the country where they first arrived.<br />In August, the number of asylum seekers who illegally crossed the United States border into Quebec swelled<br />to 5,530, a majority of them Haitians, according to Canadian government data published that month.<br />That loophole has created a political headache for the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, prompting criticism<br />that it is encouraging illegal immigration, even as refugee advocates warn that Haitian migrants could face poverty, violence or worse if they are sent back to Haiti.<br />Mr. Hussen emphasized that Canada was obliged to honor its international commitments under the 1951 United Nations refugee convention, which makes clear<br />that asylum claims should be considered even if those applying use irregular means to enter a country because refugees are, by definition, fleeing persecution.
