Refugees Welcome? Family-based humanitarian program (Colombia, Venezuela & Haiti)

In March 2023, Canada & the US amended the Safe Third Country Agreement regarding asylum seekers The change disallowed asylum claims for those who entered Canada at unofficial crossings such as Roxham Road, which was becoming a big political headache for Trudeau.

You may remember #RefugeesWelcome: Trudeau was once upon a time very welcoming towards refugees.

That was before it become politically uncomfortable for him.

After tightening Canada’s borders amidst a global crisis of 110 million displaced people, IRCC looked for a way to mitigate its image: when the Safe Third Country Agreement was updated, Canada announced a dedicated humanitarian pathway for welcome 15,000 migrants on a humanitarian basis from the Western Hemisphere.

The details were released last week. Applications are now open: https://lnkd.in/gm9pV8AW

The new family-based pathway will provide permanent residence to foreign nationals from Colombia, Haiti & Venezuela. Applicants must be a child (regardless of age), grandchild, spouse, common-law partner, parent, grandparent or sibling of a Canadian citizen or permanent resident who agrees to support them and their family members as an anchor for one year.

This pathway looks paltry to me in the face of the many displaced people in the Americas. I do, however, see it as a wonderful extended family reunification program for Columbian-, Haitian- and Venezuelan-Canadian PRs and citizens with family.

It’s an innovative policy solution to bring vulnerable people to safety and to reduce the very dangerous pathways of irregular migration. I’d love to see more like it.

We need to see more such programs, especially give IRCC’s plans to support fewer refugees in 2024-2026.