Canada bringing back visa requirements for Mexican nationals to curb asylum seekers

The federal government is reimposing some visa re‐ quirements on Mexican na‐ tionals visiting Canada, se‐ nior government sources tell Radio-Canada and CBC News.

The new rules will take ef‐ fect on 11:30 p.m. ET on Thursday.

Quebec Premier François Legault has been calling on the federal government to do more to slow the influx of asylum seekers into his province. Last week, he said Ottawa should bring back the visa requirement for Mexican travellers.

"The possibility of enter‐ ing Canada from Mexico without a visa certainly ex‐ plains part of the influx of asylum seekers," the premier wrote in a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

More than 25,000 Mexi‐ cans applied for asylum in Canada last year, making Mexico the top source of asy‐ lum claims, according to sta‐ tistics from the Immigration and Refugee Board of Cana‐ da. The number of back‐ logged claims from Mexico currently filed with the board sits at more than 28,000.

The U.S. government also has been asking Ottawa to bring back the visa require‐ ment to curb a sharp in‐ crease in illegal crossings from Canada into the United States.

Mexicans currently don't need a visa to travel to Cana‐ da, but they do have to ob‐ tain visas to enter the U.S. American border officials say some Mexican nationals are using Canada's visa-free rule to fly into the country and then cross illegally into the United States.

The new visa requirement is expected to affect roughly 40 per cent of all Mexican travellers to Canada, a gov‐ ernment source told RadioCanada.

The Conservative govern‐ ment of Prime Minister Stephen Harper imposed a visa requirement on Mexico in 2009 to stem the flow of asylum claims. The Trudeau government relaxed it in 2016.

WATCH | Canada's new Mexico visa policies threat‐ en refugees' rights, advo‐ cate says:

The new rules won't amount to a complete return to the pre-2016 rules. Mexi‐ can nationals with certain types of U.S. visas and those coming to Canada on study or work permits won't have to obtain Canadian visas.

Mexican nationals who re‐ ceived valid visas under the previous system at any point within the last ten years won't have to reapply under the new requirements.

The new visas will apply for a ten-year period and will allow a traveller to enter Canada multiple times and stay for up to six months at a time. Customs officers will have discretionary power to limit the duration of the visa or the number of visits, one source said.

The government isn't ex‐ pected to announce the new visa requirements until Thursday.

But on Wednesday, Mexi‐ can President Andrés Manuel López Obrador accused Canada of attempting to act unilaterally on immigration measures.

"They are in negotiations to reach an agreement so that we can control migratory flows from Canada," he said in Spanish during a press conference.

"We have acted generous‐ ly with them, with the gov‐ ernment of Prime Minister Trudeau, but they were al‐ ready on the verge of apply‐ ing unilateral measures."

López Obrador also said he may not attend the next North American Leaders summit - set to take place in Canada - if he feels Canada and the U.S. aren't treating his country fairly.

"If there's no respectful treatment, I won't go," he said.

A source told Radio-Cana‐ da that in an effort to ease tensions with the Mexican government over the visa re‐ quirements, Ottawa has agreed to expand the num‐ ber of sectors in which Mexi‐ can nationals can work in Canada. Negotiations are on‐ going, the source said.

Legault has said asylum seekers are putting heavy pressure on Quebec's social services and finances.

"Asylum seekers have trouble finding a place to live, which contributes to accentu‐ ating the housing crisis," the premier said in his letter to Trudeau. "Many end up in homeless shelters, which are overflowing."

He said organizations that help asylum seekers can't keep up with the demand. Legault said the children of asylum seekers are also straining the resources of schools already facing short‐ ages of teachers and space.

Legault's letter said asy‐ lum seekers who are waiting for work permits receive fi‐ nancial assistance from Que‐ bec. Last October, he said, roughly 43,200 asylum seek‐ ers received $33 million in aid from the province.

Quebec Immigration Min‐ ister Christine Fréchette wel‐ comed the news but said Ot‐ tawa must still do more.

"It's an important step for‐ ward, but it won't solve everything. The number of asylum seekers accepted by Quebec is far too high and our services are beyond ca‐ pacity," she told reporters Thursday in French.

"The federal government must distribute the asylum seekers across Canada. Que‐ bec bears a disproportionate share of the responsibility for receiving them."

One source told CBC News that domestic issues were the main motivation for the change in policy, but U.S. pressure also played a role. Many migrants were being transported by criminal cartels with the objective of getting them into the U.S., the source said.

U.S. officials have sug‐ gested that people who can't get into the U.S. lawfully have an incentive to travel to Canada to try entering illegal‐ ly. Human smuggling net‐ works are cashing in, moving people who are fleeing poverty and violence in Mexi‐ co and using Canada as a pit‐ stop on the way to the U.S.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data shows a spike in migrants entering the U.S. from Canada after Trudeau lifted the visa re‐ quirement in December 2016. There were 1,169 ap‐ prehensions of Mexicans the year before the requirements were lifted; the number near‐ ly doubled to 2,245 in 2018, a year after the requirements were lifted.

Last year, the CBP recorded 4,868 apprehen‐ sions. Nearly 2,000 Mexicans have been apprehended at the Canada-U.S. border in the first four months of this fiscal year.

Those numbers are a tiny fraction of the number of ap‐ prehensions along the U.S.Mexico border - nearly 580,000 last year. But the rise in apprehensions at the Canada-U.S. border was enough for U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to raise the issue during his visit to Ottawa last spring.

"We talk about this issue and many issues that impact the migration of people," Mayorkas said in an interview with CBC News Network's Rosemary Barton Live at the time.

"I think that's a decision that the Canadian officials are going to make," May‐ orkas told host Rosemary Barton when asked about the prospect of Ottawa reinstat‐ ing the visa program.