4
August 2005
FIRST SIX MONTHS OF SAFE THIRD COUNTRY AGREEMENT
Montreal.
The Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR) today released a report, Closing the Front Door on Refugees: Report on
Safe Third Country Agreement, showing
that many of the worst fears about the Canada-US agreement are being
realized. With the Canadian border
largely closed, far fewer refugees are able to find protection in
Canada:
instead, some are detained and deported from the US; some are forced to
live
without status in the US, in fear of arrest; some turn to smugglers to
help
them find a way to safety.
“It
is no exaggeration to describe this Agreement as a silent killer,” said
Nick
Summers, CCR President. “Out of sight
of Canadians, asylum seekers are paying the price of Canada’s ‘Not in
My
Backyard’ approach to refugee protection.
The fact is that the US is not safe for all refugees and Canada
is
failing refugees who need our protection.
We call on the Canadian Government to cancel the Agreement
immediately.”
The
report shows that the number of people who claimed refuge in Canada in
2005 is
lower than at any time since the mid-1980s.
The drop in claims made at the border is especially dramatic,
with only
50% as many claims as last year.
Colombians have been particularly badly affected, with claims
down by
70% in 2005. Based on the much lower
acceptance rates for Colombians in the US compared to Canada, the
report
calculates that in the first year of the Agreement alone, 916
Colombians will
be left without protection in either country.
The report also highlights anecdotal evidence that, as
predicted, the
Agreement is leading to an increase in smuggling at the US-Canada
border.
“We
support this report and the Canadian Council for Refugee’s indomitable
commitment to the protection of vulnerable refugees and asylum
seekers,” said
Anne P. Wilson, Executive Vice President for Service Programs for
Lutheran
Immigration and Refugee Service (USA). “We continue to urge US
leaders to
stop policies that undermine our nation’s long term commitment to
refugee
protection and human rights.”
US
policy changes needed include abolishing the one-year deadline for
filing an
asylum claim, terminating the policy of detaining asylum seekers,
increasing
access to counsel for all detainees, ending unfair enforcement policies
against
Haitian asylum seekers and addressing the shortcomings in protection
mechanisms
for gender-based asylum claims. “Unless
these and other concerns are addressed and remedied,” Wilson concluded,
“we
join the Canadian Council for Refugees in calling for cancellation of
this
Agreement.”
“On a daily
basis we witness a tragedy unfold as we inform vulnerable
individuals and
families that they will be denied access to protection in Canada. The impact of this agreement on the lives
of
threatened refugees is devastating,” said Patrick Giantonio, Executive
Director
of Vermont Refugee Assistance, an organization that works with US and
Canadian
asylum seekers, including those in detention.
The
report, Closing the Front Door on
Refugees: Report on Safe Third Country Agreement, can be found on
the CCR
web site at www.web.ca/ccr/closingdooraug05.pdf
Nick Summers, President (709) 682-9329
Janet Dench, Executive Director (514) 277-7223 (ext. 2)