More Haitians will try to come to Canada after U.S. court decision, advocate says

MONTREAL — A Montreal-based advocate for asylum seekers says Canada should expect a new wave of Haitians trying to enter from the United States after a court decision allowing the Trump administration to end legal protections for migrants fleeing violence and natural disasters in Haiti and Syria.

“People are moving toward Canada right now as we speak,” says Frantz André, spokesman for the Comité d’action des personnes sans statut.

André says he’s personally spoken to several people of Haitian origin who are making the journey north from the United States after learning of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that exposes hundreds of thousands of people to potential detention and deportation.

Some of the people he’s spoken with will be allowed to stay and file an asylum claim because they have close family in Canada, he said.

But the rest will likely be turned over to U.S. authorities where they could be detained and deported back to countries where they face danger, he believes.

Thursday’s court decision applies to about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians who are in the U.S. on Temporary Protected Status, which is a program put in place by in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters or civil strife.

The country’s highest court decided to allow President Donald Trump’s administration to end those protections.

In recent years, Canada has tightened rules that has made it increasingly difficult for asylum seekers to make a claim, especially those coming from the United States.

Under the existing Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement, asylum seekers must apply for refugee status in whichever of the two countries they arrive in first, meaning someone in the U.S. can’t cross into Canada to seek refugee status.

In 2023, the two governments reached a deal to close a loophole that had allowed people who entered Canada outside official ports of entry to make asylum claims.

A new law passed earlier this year ended a provision that allowed migrants who entered irregularly to still have their asylum cases heard as long as they’d been in the country for 14 days.

There are only a few remaining exceptions that allow people coming from the U.S. to make an asylum claim, including for unaccompanied minors or those with close family in Canada.

But André says people will still try to come, even if their chances of success are low.

“They say, ‘I’d rather die somewhere rather than going back to Haiti,'” he said. “…So they’re going to take a chance.”

A lawyer with Amnesty International Canada says the court decision “adds to the mounting evidence of why the U.S. should not be considered a safe third country” for asylum seekers.

Julia Sande says Canada should withdraw from the Safe Third Country Agreement to allow people to claim asylum in a safe and orderly manner.

She says the United States in recent years has been carrying out what amounts to a “mass deportation and detention campaign” that should prompt Canada to change its view of the U.S. as a safe country.

“I don’t know how they could possibly be reviewing these things and coming to the conclusion that the U.S. Is still a safe country for asylum seekers,” she said.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said in a statement that the Safe Third Country Agreement continues to apply.

“Designation as a Safe Third Country is continually assessed, per our obligations for countries designated under s.102 of IRPA,” a spokesperson wrote in an email.

“Those seeking asylum in Canada should do so at regular points of entry, where their claim will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.”

Like André, Sande says the U.S. decision will likely push some people to try their luck at the border, as previous U.S. immigration restrictions have done, even if the consequences of rejection are “severe and extreme” and could lead to faster deportation.

André also believes Canada should pull out of the Safe Third Country Agreement, but feels instead that the country is following the U.S. lead and hardening its approach.

“We are not going in the right direction,” he said. “We are becoming more and more like the 51st state of the United States and I’m very angry at that.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 27, 2026.

— with files from The Associated Press

Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press