Follow the North Star to freedom.
That was the mantra of escaped African ancestored American slaves more than one hundred and fifty years ago as they struggled to reach first northern states and later, especially after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 took hold, Canada in search of freedom.
Now a similar drama is being played out as undocumented Mexican migrants travel to Canada from the United States in search of a place where they may work and live without fear of deportation. Most such travelers are fueled by the belief that Canada will grant them political asylum. According to a New York Times article, the move northward began a few weeks ago when just a few Mexican families began traveling by car to Windsor, Ontario, and to other land crossings between the United States and Canada and by plane to Toronto. According to many, the journey was suggested by a Florida immigrants’ advocacy group whose core constituency consists of Haitians. In recent weeks, however, the organization has attracted a number of Mexican immigrants.
In order to obtain political asylum in Canada, applicants must show, as they must also show in the United States, that they are unable to return to their home countries due to a well-founded fear of persecution based on one or more of several enumerated grounds, such as political belief, religion, or race. While a large number of Haitians have been granted political asylum in Canada over the years, far fewer Mexicans have succeeded in such applications. Even where Haitians have failed in their claims, they have very often been granted stays of deportation from Canada because of the social, political and economic chaos that has endured in Haiti. (Side note: finally, Haitians catch a break somewhere! Haitians in the United States have long decried the differential treatment of Haitian and Cuban political asylum seekers, with Cubans being given far more favorable treatment than Haitians. Many argue that the difference has to do with race. In the case of Haitians and Mexicans in Canada, the relatively favorable treatment received by Haitians likely has most to do with the large Haitian exile community in Montreal and with Canadian friendliness to fellow francophones in need. ) This has not been the case for Mexicans. Mexican applicants are further hindered by the fact that many persons who proceed to Canada from the United States seeking political asylum may be barred from doing so notwithstanding the merits of their cases because of the operation of safe third country rules which require asylum seekers in most cases to apply for asylum in the first “safe country” which they enter. In short, for Mexicans traveling to Canada in search of freedom via political asylum, the trip is more likely to be bust than boom.
The idea that Canada offers a safer haven than the United States for Latin migrants is not a new one. A documentary by filmmaker Arturo Perez Torres titled Wetback: The Undocumented Documentary, chronicles the journey of five people from Central America and Mexico who seek to travel over multiple national borders in order to reach Canada. Although the typically profiled undocumented alien in North America enters the United States and remains there, the post 9/11 climate in the United States has made the United States even more hostile than it had previously been to such entrants. Canada, in contrast, is often viewed as a bastion of racial tolerance, and is perceived as having a greater number of jobs. Canada has thus become a destination of choice for many persons from various Latin countries. However, such notions are all too often not supported by reality.
Canada will, very likely, staunch the flow of Mexican migrants seeking political asylum, at least for the short term. But the larger problem, that of the very real human rights implications of forbidding our neighbors to the south from accessing jobs, health care and other basic human needs, remains unsolved. If, as W.E.B. Du Bois stated, the problem of the twentieth century was the problem of the color line, then the problem of the twenty-first century is the problem of the borderline, or rather, of multiple borders.
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