Canada’s Supreme Court will for the first time hear a Canada-US asylum pact case that will weigh whether the country can consider its southern neighbour “safe” for those seeking refugee status.
The outcome of Thursday’s hearing could determine whether Canada can trust that the US treats migrants properly, and could answer whether Canada holds any responsibility for migrants turned back at its border.
At the heart of the matter is the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) – a pact between the two countries that has been in place since 2004 and that requires refugee claimants to request protection in the first “safe” country they reach.
Campaigners in Canada have long argued that the STCA should be struck down because migrants are at risk of mistreatment in the US and that the agreement violates their constitutional rights.
Refugee lawyers and advocates say some of migrants that were sent back were imprisoned in “freezing cold” detention centres or subject to solitary confinement.
Experts say the case could also determine the future of “irregular” land crossings into Canada, which reached a record high this year.
Canada and the US share a 5,525 mile (8,891 km) border – the longest between two countries in the world.
What is the Safe Third Country Agreement?
The STCA was put in place to better manage refugee claims at the US-Canada land border and to avoid asylum seekers making claims in multiple countries, or so-called “asylum shopping”.
