The Canadian authorities’s announcement of the enlargement of border safety and surveillance measures might place extra asylum seekers in danger.
At a press convention on Dec. 17, the Canadian federal authorities introduced proposed new measures to broaden its administration of Canada’s border with america. These measures have been supposed to appease the incoming Trump administration and to keep away from a threatened 25 per cent import tariff.
The proposal contains expansions of border applied sciences, together with RCMP counterintelligence, 24/7 surveillance between ports of entry, helicopters, drones and cellular towers. However what’s going to this imply for individuals looking for asylum?
If the U.S.-Mexico border is any indication, it can imply extra demise.
Criminalizing migration
On the press convention, Dominic LeBlanc, the minister of finance and intergovernmental affairs, reaffirmed Canada’s relationship with the incoming Trump administration. Framed round politics of distinction, and counting on the fearmongering trope of migration as a “crisis,” Canada’s new border plan can even price taxpayers $1.3 billion.
In the course of the press convention, LeBlanc’s remarks conflated migration with trafficking and crime, counting on “crimmigration,” or the usage of criminalization to self-discipline, exclude, or expel migrants or others seen as not entitled to be in a rustic. LeBlanc additionally made direct reference to stopping fraud within the asylum system, with the driving forces behind this new border plan being “minimizing border volumes” and “removing irritants” to the U.S.
Nevertheless, these framings weaken the worldwide proper to asylum, which is an internationally protected proper assured by the 1951 Refugee Conference and sections 96 and 97 of Canada’s personal Immigration and Refugee Safety Safety Act.
Canada’s personal courts have additionally discovered that the U.S. shouldn’t be a protected nation for some refugees.
Lethal borders
Since 2018, I’ve been researching know-how and migration. I’ve labored at and studied varied borders all over the world, beginning in Canada, shifting south to the U.S.-Mexico border and together with varied international locations in Europe and East Africa, in addition to the Palestinian territories. Through the years, I’ve labored with lots of of individuals looking for security and witnessed the horrific circumstances they should survive.
The Sonoran Desert containing the U.S.-Mexico border has change into what anthropologist Jason de Leon calls “the land of open graves.” Researchers have proven that deaths have elevated yearly because of rising surveillance and deterrence mechanisms. I’ve witnessed these areas of demise within the Sonoran Desert and European borders, with individuals on the transfer succumbing to those sharpening borders.
Canadian borders aren’t devoid of demise. Households have frozen and drowned trying to enter Canada. Others, like Seidu Mohammed and Razak Iyal, practically froze to demise and misplaced limbs because of frostbite; they later obtained refugee standing and have become Canadian residents in 2023.
‘Extreme vulnerability’
All through the press convention, a transparent theme emerged many times: Canada’s border plan will “expand and deepen the relationship” between Canada and U.S. by border administration, together with each information sharing and operational assist. The border administration plan will embody an aerial intelligence activity pressure to offer continuous surveillance. The mandate of the Canada Border Companies Company can even broaden, and embody a joint operational strike pressure.
In November, president-elect Donald Trump named former Immigration and Customs Enforcement director Tom Homan as his administration’s “border czar.” Homan explicitly known as out Canada after his appointment, calling the Canadian border “an extreme vulnerability.”
Trump has additionally made pointed feedback directed at Justin Trudeau, referring to him as “governor” and to Canada because the 51st state. And with Trump’s aggressive “America First” insurance policies and the 25 per cent tariff risk, appeasing the incoming administration by strengthening border surveillance on the Canada-U.S. border is the bottom hanging fruit for the Trudeau administration to strengthen its hand.
Creeping surveillance
Border surveillance applied sciences do not stay on the border. In 2021, communities in Vermont and New York have already raised considerations about potential privateness infringements with the set up of surveillance towers.
There are additionally fears of rising surveillance and repression of journalists and the migrant justice sector as an entire.
And surveillance applied sciences used on the border have additionally been repurposed: for instance, robo-dogs first employed on the U.S.-Mexico border have appeared in New York Metropolis and facial recognition applied sciences ubiquitous at airports are additionally getting used on sports activities followers in stadiums.
The massive enterprise of borders
Taxpayers will foot the invoice of this new border technique to the hefty tune of $1.3 billion. This quantity is a part of a rising and profitable border industrial advanced that’s now price a staggering US$68 billion {dollars} and projected to develop exponentially to almost a trillion {dollars} by 2031.
However taxpayers don’t profit. As an alternative, the non-public sector makes up the market place of technical options to the so-called “problem” of migration. On this profitable ecosystem constructed on concern of “the migrant other,” it’s the non-public sector actors and never taxpayers who profit.
As an alternative of succumbing to the exclusionary politics of the incoming U.S. administration, we must always name for transparency and accountability within the growth and deployment of recent applied sciences. There’s additionally a necessity for extra governance and legal guidelines to curtail these high-risk tech experiments earlier than extra individuals die at Canada’s borders.
As an alternative of spending $1.3 billion {dollars} on surveillance applied sciences that infringe upon individuals’s rights, Canada ought to strengthen its asylum system and civil society assist. Canada must also keep in mind its worldwide human rights obligations, and resist the U.S. political rhetoric of dehumanizing people who find themselves looking for security and safety.
Petra Molnar receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Analysis Council.
