Daily Times

Asylum seekers warned by police they could be sent back continued to walk into Canada through the unofficial United States border crossing into Quebec at Roxham Road a day after the two countries amended a 20-year-old asylum pact trying to stem the influx.

U.S. President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced changes to the Safe Third Country Agreement on Friday after a record number of asylum seekers arrived in Canada via unofficial border crossings, putting pressure on Trudeau to address it. The Safe Third Country Agreement, signed in 2002 and which came into effect in 2004, originally meant asylum seekers crossing into either Canada or the United States at formal border crossings were turned back and told to apply for asylum in the first “safe” country they arrived in.

Now it applies to the entire 6,416-km (3,987-mile) land border. Under the revised pact, anyone who crosses into either country anywhere along the land border and who applies for asylum within 14 days will be turned back. Roxham Road, which had become a notorious unofficial crossing for asylum seekers into Canada, closed at midnight Saturday. But dozens crossed anyway, including one group with a baby and a toddler just after midnight.