Feds Spent Over $128M on Hotels for Roxham Road Migrants Since 2017: Federal Figures
The federal government spent over $128 million between April 2017 and February 2023 on accommodations for asylum seekers who illegally crossed the border at an unofficial entry point on Roxham Road in Quebec, according to federal figures released on May 3.
In an Inquiry of Ministry tabled in the House of Commons, cabinet said over 105,300 irregular asylum claims were made in Quebec in that time period.
The Inquiry did not provide March figures but said that as of March 16, the federal government was paying for over 7,550 asylum claimants staying in interim accommodations in Ontario, Quebec, and several other provinces.
The Inquiry said that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) had paid $128,521,372 “directly to hotels or motels for individuals who have entered at Roxham Road since April 1, 2017.”
Cabinet did not disclose the names or exact locations of the accommodations contracted by IRCC as designated shelters for asylum claimants, citing “safety and security reasons,” but said that a total of 44 had been contracted with the majority being in Ontario and Quebec. There was also one contracted accommodation in Winnipeg, one in Surrey, B.C., and five in east-coast provinces.
Most of the Ontario accommodations were in Niagara Falls, while those in Quebec were mostly in Dorval and Montreal.
Roxham Road
As of March 25, Canada began turning back asylum seekers attempting to enter the country at unofficial entry points due to the renegotiated Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Joe Biden on March 24.
The changes to the agreement were decided a year earlier but were not announced until Biden’s visit to Canada.
The STCA is a bilateral treaty between Canada and the U.S., signed in 2004, that requires migrants to make their asylum claim in the first country of their arrival.
The previous agreement said it was illegal for migrants to make an asylum claim at official border crossings, leaving a loophole for those crossing at unofficial entries.
The loophole was mostly closed under the renegotiated version of the STCA, making it possible only with certain exceptions to claim asylum at any point along the U.S.-Canada border.
Federal statistics show that over 39,000 migrants claimed asylum in Canada while crossing into Quebec in 2022 and being intercepted by the RCMP, compared to just 369 migrants crossing the border into other provinces.
