Feds float use of biometrics at U.S. border
‘Line-of-sight’ dated, new technologies give greater enforcement
OTTAWA — Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen says he has approached the American government with ideas for modernizing a 14-year-old agreement on refugee claimants who attempt to cross the border between Canada and the United States.
One idea he is floating is to use biometrics to allow border officials to better track the movements of individuals at official ports of entry to determine if they are eligible to make a refugee claim in Canada.
“When the agreement first came into force, the agreement was predicated on line-of-sight,” Hussen told The Canadian Press on Tuesday. “You could return someone back to the U.S. or the U.S. could return someone back to Canada if they’re crossing at an official port of entry and you can see they’re coming from the other side.”
Hussen says new technologies like biometrics could give greater enforcement powers to border security officers and help modernize the agreement.
“Now it’s easier to establish ‘country of first presence’ without the need of line-of-sight. You can do that with biometrics, you can do that other ways, so the agreement could incorporate those new developments,” said Hussen.
But this change would do nothing to stop the flow of irregular migrants coming to Canada through unofficial entry points like the one at Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Que., since the safe third country agreement doesn’t apply at non-official border crossings, said Conservative Immigration critic Michelle Rempel.
That’s why the government needs to fully renegotiate the agreement or apply it to the full length of the border, she said.
She and other MPs questioned Hussen and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale on Tuesday at a meeting of the Commons immigration committee, where exchanges between the ministers and Opposition members often became testy.