Nearly 70 people seeking asylum in Canada were arrested over the weekend, adding to the small but growing number of refugees who are braving bitterly cold winter conditions to cross the border after Donald Trump’s executive order temporarily barring people from seven Muslim-majority countries.

A spokesman for the Canada Border Services Agency said that 21 people were intercepted in Manitoba, while 46 others made claims at border crossings in Québec.

Migrants must apply for asylum in whichever is the first country they arrive in, according to a 2004 deal between Canada and the US known as the Safe Third Country Agreement.

The agreement means that unsuccessful applicants for asylum in Canada can be sent back to the US, and since Trump’s executive order, migration advocates have called for the agreement to be repealed.



“The United States is not safe for all refugees,” said Janet Dench, the executive director of the Canadian Council of Refugees. “The situation was bad before, but it’s even worse now and there’s huge uncertainty in terms of how people will be treated and whether Canada can respect its obligation to respect refugees if it sends them back to the US.”



Dench said that the other problem with the agreement is that it encourages people who fear they will be turned back to “sneak” into Canada – which ultimately puts them at risk, too, she said.

Last month, after Seidu Mohammed, 24, was denied asylum in the US he set out on the arduous journey across the border. Mohammed, who is bisexual, feared prosecution if he were deported to his native Ghana.

Mohammed and Razak Iyal, also from Ghana, lost all their fingers to frostbite after a 10-hour trek through deep snow in sub-zero temperatures. Despite their injuries, they told reporters they were happy to have reached Canada.



“God blessed Canada with good people,” Mohammed told the Associated Press. “I see the difference between Canada and the United States.”

The red tape surrounding the Safe Third Country Agreement is causing enormous pressures for people like Mohammed, said Dench.



“It would be best to have the agreement suspended,” she said. “That way people could present themselves at point of entry and be processed in an orderly and efficient way.”



Another problem is that children can end up separated from their families, regardless of whether they have relatives in Canada.



“The agreement generally works on the basis of maintaining family unity,” said Janet. “However, the parents are unable to enter because the family unity rule doesn’t apply while the children are refugee claimants. You have these very distressing situations where you’ve got children on one side of the border already traumatized having had to flee persecution and the situation is even worse because they aren’t with their parents.”



When people enter Canada illegally, it boils down to locating credible third-party identification documents, said Max Chaudhary, a Toronto-based immigration lawyer.



“When that’s not forthcoming, they’re almost inevitably detained,” he said. “If they have necessary documents, they could be released in 48 hours, seven days or 30 days.”



They could effectively circumvent the Safe Third Country Agreement component of the refugee system by being smuggled in and then making a claim afterward, he said.

