Roxham Road sees record number of asylum seekers

Roxham Road has never seen so many migrants at this time of year.

Despite the cold, snow and often freezing temperatures, thousands of migrants have crossed the Canada-US border irregularly since the start of the year.

According to new public data, more than 4,500 people applied for asylum in January and February, using this passage located between the cities of Champlain (U.S.) and St-Bernard-de-Lacolle (Canada)., a few hundred metres from the border post.

Since Roxham Road reopened at the end of November, there have been a total of around 8,000 asylum seekers.

Similar data had never been recorded in winter, even when impressive waves of migrants arrived in Montreal in 2017 and 2018. At that time, between 18,000 and 19,000 asylum seekers passed through this now well-known crossing each year.

Canadian law enforcement outside Quebec has only made 25 other interceptions since the start of the year.

Busy shelters

Although official figures for the month of March are not yet available, dozens of migrants continue to cross this small piece of land irregularly daily, before being intercepted by officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

According to Radio-Canada, there are sometimes more than a hundred people a day.

Faced with this new increase in asylum seekers, accommodation is becoming scarce. Shelters in Montreal have almost reached their maximum capacity.

Nearly all 1,200 beds from the Regional Program for the Settlement and Integration of Asylum Seekers (PRAIDA) are occupied. They are spread out between a YMCA in downtown Montreal and the Place Dupuis hotel, which has made an agreement with the organization managed by the CIUSSS du Centre-Ouest-de-l'Île-de-Montréal to offer hundreds of places for migrants until the summer.

The federal government has also increased its resources. To house unvaccinated and asymptomatic asylum seekers entering Canada who do not have a proper quarantine plan in place, Ottawa has reserved more than a thousand hotel rooms, mostly in the greater Montreal area.

To date, 35 per cent are currently occupied, says a spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).

Overwhelmed organizations and extended deadlines

On the ground, the organizations helping asylum seekers are overwhelmed.

"Since the reopening of the borders, we have had more and more people contacting us," said Claudine Uwingabiye, director of settlement and integration for the Accueil Liaison pour Arrivants (ALPA) in Montreal. "Finding accommodation right now, even with a job, is already difficult. So imagine for a family of asylum seekers, who do not always speak French."

Uwingabiye says although her group was expecting a large number of arrivals, she wasn't expecting this many people. "We are seeing the same pace, the same flow as in 2017, when we are only in March. It's worrying."

Stephan Reichhold, director of the Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes (TCRI), says he's seeing similar trends.

"Many people arrive, they are lost," he said.

Experts also point out processing times have lengthened considerably.

Before knowing if their file will be admissible, asylum seekers must wait several months.

"Without a brown paper [the term used in the community for asylum-seeker documentation], they don't have a work permit," Stéphanie Valois, an immigration lawyer said. "It's complicated. There is an administrative problem."

As the weather gets warmer, several thousand asylum seekers are expected to arrive via Roxham Road. But the Trudeau government says it doesn't want to "speculate." 

"The number of asylum applications is difficult to predict and can depend on many factors," Béatrice Fénelon, of the IRCC, said.

At the same time, Ottawa says it will continue talks with "American officials on various issues related to our common border, including the modernization of the Safe Third Country Agreement." In December 2021, the Supreme Court of Canada decided it would hear arguments about its constitutionality.