Canada should accept illegal immigrants from the United States as an act of humanitarian leadership, Amnesty International said, urging Ottawa to reject deportation agreements and recognize the U.S. as unsafe for many asylum seekers.“We are calling on Canada to be a leader in the international global system,” said Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International. “That includes of course the Refugee Convention.” Callamard said the country must uphold the agreement’s principle that people should not be returned to places where their lives are at risk. “We are calling on Canada to respect that principle by agreeing, at the moment, the United States is not a safe country to which asylum seekers should be sent back to. It’s that simple.”.Blacklock's Reporter said the remarks come as U.S. authorities report nearly 11 million illegal immigrants nationwide, including 410,000 in New York and 340,000 in Washington state — both sharing borders with Canada — according to a 2024 report by the Office of Homeland Security Statistics. The report found that Mexico remains the top country of origin for undocumented residents.Despite this, Canadian immigration policy currently bars most illegal border crossers from claiming asylum if they arrive from the United States. A 2004 treaty, the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement, allows both countries to reject refugee claims from migrants who passed through the other first. The Supreme Court upheld the agreement as legal in a 2023 decision..Cabinet has defended the policy. “They need to make sure that any migration that may occur in an unplanned way to Canada doesn’t occur,” then-Immigration Minister Marc Miller said on January 15. “Those folks are not welcome to Canada if they are doing so in an irregular fashion.”The issue surfaced during the April 28 general election campaign. Only the New Democratic Party backed calls to accept illegal immigrants fleeing deportation threats in the U.S. “I just want to acknowledge how scary that must be for people,” said NDP leader Jagmeet Singh on January 22. “Who feel really alone, who feel really afraid.”
