In a nutshell, if a refugee from a country other than the USA gets into the USA, and then comes knocking on Canada’s door wanting admission, the agreement directs that the person be turned back, and instead have his or her refugee claim processed in the USA under USA law.
I realize that this can save Canada from a lot of bother should people from Mexico come knocking at its door in any great number, but on the other side of the coin, the USA’s position and practice with respect to basic human rights is so dismal (e.g. torture by rendition to the mid-east, illegal long-term detention in Cuba, and discrimination against gays), that I would much prefer that people who seek refugee protection in Canada be processed in Canada, rather than be processed in the USA. In short, I don’t think the USA is a safe third country.
While I’m not convinced that Gitmo is a particularly good idea, it is hardly representative of the USA’s treatment of people that are seeking asylum - or trying to immigrate through the back door.
Being from the UK, I would rather like us to sweep up so called asylum seekers and ship them straight back to Sangatte ( the place in France where they congregate before getting into the UK ).
Incidentally ‘torture by rendition’ is a very strange concept - akin to ‘torture by arrest and transportation’. I think you might have got your terminology mixed up.
Torture by rendition means that the USA takes people from the USA to other nations, where those people are then tortured so as to extract information for the USA. That way the USA can claim that it does not torture people. Consider the Arar matter.
One major problem, to my way of thinking, is the fact that so many airlines go through the United States that it might be next to impossible or prohibitively expensive for many refugees not to go through the United States. To me it smells like a cynical attempt to continue to shirk our refugee responsibilities.
Typically countries don’t much care about ‘asylum seekers’ if they are passing through, Morocco was a case until Spain had a quiet word with them. A cynic would suspect that France takes the same view of Anglophones.
@Muffin, I see, you mean’t rendition followed by torture.
Actually I rather suspect that many of the victims of rendition would not be alive now, they tend to be picked up in unsavoury areas - and to their captors their only value is what the CIA will pay for them if they are alive and in reasonably good condition.
I’ve a suspicion that rendition, torture, waterboarding at Gitmo and Gitmo itself has been played up deliberately to discourage young ‘heroes’.
I really can’t see the USA herding up economic migrants from South America and bundling them off to Gitmo.
Prior to the agreement, if a refugee from a country other than the USA came to Canada by way of the USA, then Canada would process that refugee’s claim, and if proven, would permit the refugee to stay in Canada and eventually become a citizen.
Under the agreement, if a refugee from a country other than the USA came to Canada by way of the USA, then Canada would return that refugee to the USA, then the USA would process that refugee’s claim, and if proven, would permit the refugee to stay in the USA and eventually become a citizen.
The OP wasn’t asking about “typically” - he/she was asking about the Safe Third Country Agreement, which is a specific agreement between Canada and the US.
In answer to the original question, I’d like to see a bit of a compromise; if you explicitly seek asylum in one country (Canada or US) and are denied, then you probably shouldn’t get to seek asylum in the other; however if you just pass through one without seeking asylum, then you should be able to seek it in the other. That to some degree covers the problem of trying to get from Central America to Canada without entering the US.
You seem rather confused about the difference between refugees, asylees, legal immigrants, and immigrants. Refugee status is not “protection”, it is simply a visa that allows someone who fled their own country to make a life in a new country. The US resettlement quota is higher than every other country and 5 times higher than Canada’s. There never seem to be enough resources for refugee resettlement; if Canada chose to back up its human rights posturing by accepting more refugees, the world would certainly welcome it.
If you don’t think that being admitted into a country as a refugee is a from of protection, then we will have to disagree on that one.
Must a refugee become an immigrant? No, a refugee is a refugee. Please note, however, that when it comes to refugees in Canada, I expect that most continue on to eventually apply for citizenship, rather than move back to their original country.
Of course, Canada has only one tenth the population. Per capita, Canada in fact brings in more refugees per year.
That said, MGibson raises an interesting question that nobody has tried to answer; what responsibility does a sovereign nation have to accept refugees? **matt_mcl ** implies such a responsibility exists, but doesn’t define it. Do we have a resppnsibility to accept all refugees? Do we havea responsibility to only accept a certain number? Do we have a responsibility to accept them without question, or is it balanced against other responsibilities? Do we share this responsibility with other nations or not?
To my mind, the purpose of Canada allowing immigrants in at all is, first and foremost, to benefit Canada. Now, I happen to be of the belief that the more immigrants we get, the better: if I were Prime Minister I’d be raising the quotas every year. I’d bus 'em up from Mexico if the Americans don’t want them. To my mind, the needs of the immigrants comes second. I think a free and decent nation has a moral responsibility to try to help, but I don’t think we have any particular responsibility to allow a minimum number of people to settle here; if it would benefit Canada to reduce immigration I’d be all for it, although I cannot see that condition existing anytime soon, inasmuch as the country is mostly empty and the best resource you can have is human beings.
I was asking the question from an ethical perspective, Muffin, as I think that’s what Matt meant when he brought up Canada’s responsibility. However, my question was certainly vague and I appreciate your reply.
I’m not sure I understand. For me, a refugee is someone fleeing from a country, not fleeing to a country. In other words, once a safe haven is reached the refugee then asks for refuge. The US is no less safe than Canada making the needs to flee further moot.
That’s the core of the issue in debate. Is the USA less safe than Canada for refugees? Check out the concerns raised in the second cite of my first post.
Does it matter that it might be less safe if it’s safe enough? Is there some specified level of “safeness” a country must meet to qualify as refugee hosting nation?
It matters a lot, when “less safe” means less chance of being accepted as a refugee and instead being tossed back from whence the refugee came.
For example, if a refugee from Haiti were to transit through the USA to Canada today, the odds are that such a person would be returned from Canada to the USA, and then from the USA to Haiti. (BTW, Canada’s Governor General is a Haitian refugee from a period prior to the present Agreement.) Check out what Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have to say about the USA’s practices with respect to Haitian refugees.
BTW, in Canada only about half of the people who come knocking claiming to be refugees eventually succeed in their claim. The other half who fail in their claim are returned to the countries from which they initially fled.