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The Biden Administration has asked Ottawa to reimpose visa requirements on Mexicans entering Canada in order to prevent a surge of illegal crossings at its northern border. But Canadas minister of immigration Sean Fraser said he has no plans to do so.

Canada works closely with the both United States and Mexico on shared challenges, including border security. In collaboration with these partners, Canada has been monitoring migration trends from Mexico and has no plans to reimpose the visa requirement at this time, said a spokesman for Fraser, the CBC reported.

This is unacceptable. There should be absolutely no hesitation in halting visa-free travel by Mexicans to help the Americans deal with their chronic and enormous illegal immigration problem. Currently, anyone can board a plane in Mexico, fly to Canada, enter the country, then sneak into the United States. And Mexicans arent the only ones taking advantage of this loophole: Asians, Russians, Central and South Americans, Middle Easterners and others get into Mexico in order use the Canada route to get into America.

In fact Trudeau should never have lifted the visa requirement in 2016, but did after it had been put in place in 2009 by Stephen Harpers Conservative government. This was the first indication that Trudeau intended to open the floodgates to immigration, which he has ever since, causing a housing and health care crisis in Vancouver and Toronto, the two biggest immigration destinations.

Now Americans are asking for help, but getting pushback from Ottawa as well as from Mexico. Total migration encounters this year at the U.S.-Mexico border have reached record highs, according to government figures. These illegal entrants are not only Mexican nationals, but come from all over the world from Central or South America to Europe or Asia then transit through Mexico (and Canada to a lesser extent) with the help of traffickers.

This imposes a huge burden for American taxpayers in the form of policing costs as well as support for those who seek asylum or for children abandoned at the border. One recent estimate is that the immigration crisis south of the border in 2022 cost federal, state, and local levels at least US$150.7 billion (CAD $203 billion), or more than the Canadian governments entire budget in 2022 of C$190.3 billion.

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Last week, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said that Canadas visa requirement was needed again as people seek a way to bypass American rules along the Mexican border. Some Canadian security officials agree and are also concerned because open-ended entry may be facilitating the entry of contraband such as guns or opioids hidden in luggage or containers.

In March, the U.S. and Canada signed new Safe Third Country Agreement to crack down on illegal migrants making asylum claims at unofficial points of entry by land or sea. The Agreement is designed to prevent claimants from using one of the two countries to gain entry into the other. Asylum seekers cannot apply for admission to a safe country from another safe country.

Mayorkas last week met with his Canadian counterpart at the 2023 Canada-United States Cross-Border Crime Forum in Ottawa. The Americans claim that the number of Mexican migrants entering the U.S. from Canada has steadily increased since Trudeau lifted the visa requirement in 2016. The number apprehended remains small: So far in the first six months of this fiscal year, 1,999 Mexicans were caught compared to 882 the previous year. But the number may be higher and theres also concern that as America cracks down on its huge illegal immigration problem at the Mexican border, the number of people using Canada as a backdoor entry will increase dramatically until there are visa requirements.

Were seeing an unprecedented level of migration around the world and in our region The challenge of migration is a hemispheric one, and hemispheric challenges require hemispheric solutions, said Mayorkas.

Hes right. Canada must help the Americans or it will become part of the problem.

Financial Post

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