the Agreement on safe third country (STCA), in effect since 2004, requires that the applicants or the refugees sought protection in the first safe country to which they came. However, on Wednesday a Federal judge declared the deal unconstitutional due to the fact that the United States imprisoned immigrants who came to this country from Canada. From 2017, when the President, Donald trump took office, promising to curb illegal migration, about 58 thousand people moved to Canada from the United States, in order to apply for granting them refugee status. The canadian authorities processed their applications to pandemic coronavirus, however, in March, official in Ottawa stated that the migrants will be returned to the United States.
Federal court Judge Anne Marie MacDonald decided that the agreement is a violation of the 7th section of the “Charter of rights of Canada”, which forbids the government to interfere in citizens ‘ right to life, liberty and security. His decision it justified by the presence of a large amount of evidence that asylum seekers in Canada returning to the U.S. canadian officials, where “they are immediately and automatically placed in prison by the decision of the American authorities.”
according to the experts, the court’s decision means a big win for canadian immigration activists. He protects the refugees, who were detained at the us-canadian border and sent to jail. Social activists repeatedly challenged the agreement, claiming that the United States cannot be considered a “safe country” for asylum-seekers. Border between USA and Canada length of 8891 kilometers is the longest border between the two countries in the world.
Nadira Jemal Mustafa, one of these refugees, forced to go back to the United States, told the court that her stay in solitary confinement in America was “terrifying, isolated and psychologically traumatic experience”. “We are all too familiar with the case that the United States apply to asylum seekers,” he told Reuters Maureen Silcoff, President of the Canadian Association for refugees.
According to canadian law, within six months, the canadian Parliament and the U.S. Congress can appeal against this decision. U.S. immigration authorities have not yet commented on this decision.
