Canada Considers US Unsafe for Immigrants Due to Human Rights Violations

The federal court of Canada has branded the United States as being dangerous to asylum seekers looking to travel to the country despite having an asylum agreement between the two nations due to the rampant violations of human rights against refugees.

Asylum seekers

According to BBC, the Safe Third Country Agreement (TSCA) that was signed in 2004 would require refugee claimants to request for personal protection upon reaching the first safe country they travel to.

On Wednesday, however, a Canadian judge declared that the agreement was unconstitutional due to the US potentially detaining the immigrants that go inside the country. The decision is considered a significant victory for Canadian immigration activists.

The agreement has been challenged by lawyers of refugees who have been refused by personnel at the Canadian border, stating that the United States was not qualified to be safe for immigrants seeking asylum.

A refugee that was forced to live within the US, Nedira Jemal Mustefa, told the court that the time she spent in US solitary confinement was an absolutely terrifying and psychologically traumatizing moment in her life.

The president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, Maureen Silcoff, told reporters that they knew how the US government treated individuals looking for a safe haven.

Over the past three years, more than 50,000 people traveled across the Canada-US border illegally to file refugee claims. The immigrants walked over ditches and traveled empty roads to get across, as reported by Reuters.

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Several immigrants have expressed their desire to stay in the US had it not been for President Donald Trump's harsh immigration policies.

The Canadian government defended the agreement and expressed its desire to expand its scope. The government has been working since 2018 to have the agreement apply to the entire border to include those who are traveling outside of formal and regulated routes.

Treatment of immigrants

According to AP News, the United States' critical viewpoint of immigrants has caused some children as young as one to be detained inside hotels for as long as several weeks before being returned to their home countries.

Trump's policies have effectively shut down the system that allowed asylum seekers to find a safe haven amid the coronavirus pandemic that has terrorized the whole world.

Documents showed that a private contractor for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is detaining young children to three hotels owned by Hampton Inn & Suites, which are located in Arizona and at the border between Texas and Mexico.

The records also show the immigrants are held for several days inside hotels that have been widely used while government shelters are filled with more than 10,000 empty beds for children.

The La Palma Correctional Center found near Eloy, Arizona, was also filled with immigrants who were detained by the US government. The detainees have become severely desperate to get out due to the rise in coronavirus cases in the facility becoming one of the worst-stricken in the country.

There have been at least 76 undocumented immigrants coronavirus positive cases detained at the facility that housed 3,060 beds. The numbers mark the sixth-largest COVID-19 outbreak at an immigration facility in the US.