The family pushed the paid smugglers to reunite them after the separation by CBSA on the borders of Quebec

The Haiti family has been separated on the US -Quebec border this spring because of what the immigration lawyer calls a “legal defect” that may become a wider problem as more immigrants from the United States to Canada escape.

The family tried to enter Canada at the Lacole official land crossing, in March, according to immigration documents.

After reviewing their case, CBSA officers only allowed the father because he had a relative near Canada. His seven -year -old pregnant wife and daughter were removed.

Three weeks later, in the face of the complications of pregnancy, the mother paid smugglers for nearly $ 4,000 to obtain herself and her daughter across the border on foot by melting snow that she did not reunite with the father.

“The border agent should not be separated by this family,” said Bouol Rubial, a Montreal immigration lawyer, and who is working on his case.

Defenders and lawyers fear that the family separation will become more common as more immigrants in the United States seek to resort to Canada through exceptions to a bilateral agreement between the United States and Canada, and border services are facing pressure to reduce the number of expatriates.

Smuggling option only, the father says

The father says that the family decided to come to Canada after US President Donald Trump threatened to do so Ending a human program His predecessor Joe Biden created to prevent people from Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua from his deportation due to the turmoil in their countries.

In the context of this program, the man’s wife and daughter arrived in the United States in 2024, three years after asking for asylum there.

CBC agreed not to name the family because of the threats that the couple faced in Haiti related to the condemnation of corruption and sexual violence through their work.

After the mother and her daughter were deported on the Canadian border in March, the Immigrant Rights Organization helped pay the price of a hotel room in Blatburg, New York, where they worked to find legal paths for the family that they did not reunite, according to Franz Andrei, a lawyer for the students who were helping the family.

Ultimately, the father said in an interview, his wife met a person in Blatburg, who told her that she could push the smugglers to reach Canada. If you can evade the authorities for 14 days, it may remain in Canada under the exception of the STCA agreement.

STCA – which was It expanded in the 2023 scope After pressing the Canadian government to reduce asylum-it prevents people from submitting an asylum demand at the Canadian Land crossing. It states that asylum seekers must seek protection in the first country in which they land, or the United States or Canada.

The current exceptions of STCA include The presence of a close family member In Canada, he is a minor who is not accompanied, or is not discovered in the country for 14 days.

On the border, CBSA found that the father could enter Canada because of his uncle in British Columbia, but he also found him not qualified to demand resort because he did this already in the United States, according to a migration document signed by a border agent.

The document says that the father cannot thus be the so -called “anchor” for his wife and child – a decision of two immigration lawyers that CBC met says that he should not lead to family separation.

The father is now only eligible to apply for pre-evacuation risk assessment-where immigration officials determine whether a person is at risk of persecution, the risk of torture and the dangers of life if he is returned to their country. Success rates on this path are much lower than asylum seekers, who have access to the immigration and refugee session.

Outside the Plattsburgh Hotel room, the mother has known detention and deportation at the hands of the United States for Immigration and Customs (ICE) is likely to wait for her and her daughter. She decided to take a walk on foot.

“We realized that it was our only choice,” the father said.

Trying and wasting

The mother and her daughter were transported at night to the edge of the forest near the border in early April, when they started walking with a group of seven or eight other migrants.

The group walked for hours across the forests through small waterways and in the melting of the snow. As soon as it was closed, the migrants were introduced in a car escaped from Montreal, the father narrated. His wife, who is now seven months pregnancy at risk that requires surgery, refused to perform an interview, saying that the transit details were very disturbing to reconsider it.

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CBC watched immigration documents for spouses that match the story that the father shared in an interview.

The father said: “My daughter fell and was covered with scratches. They had to turn away several times,” after they made wrong turns, adding that there was a baby in the group.

The mother and her daughter were shivering and trembling when the father picked them up. The family remained with a 14 -day friend before heading to the British Columbia Valley Fraser to meet the father’s uncle.

The family now has weekly examination with immigration officials, but it finds itself in a kind of forgetfulness. It is protected from deportation to Haiti because Canada has issued an end to the removal of the country, but they are struggling to gain a situation that allows them to work here.

In the United States, the father who obtained a university degree from Haiti worked in social services.

“They are … very weak,” said Rubitel, their lawyer. “Everything is very complicated now.”

Restricting access to asylum

The exact exception of Stca science usually allows families to enter together; “IRB) said.

“The people who have returned to the border in this type of circumstances are subject to what I call a legal defect,” Silkov said, referring to the Haiti family.

It believes that the imbalance is an supervision in the definition of the relative of the anchor shown in the secure third state agreement-which does not include applicants to assess the pre-evacuation risks (PRRA) like the father.

Robithaille and Silcoff say: It is a complex technique that can prevent people with good reasons for the request for protection in Canada from looking at their cases.

Border agents are required according to a 2023 The Supreme Court Decision in Canada To consider options called “safety valves” that can, for example, prevent the family from dividing them.

“There is no rational reason that gives a family member (applicants) (applicants) to enter Canada,” said Silkov.

But Robitalle, a family lawyer, fears that CBSA agents will be defective to heat the number of expatriates on the border at a time when they may be scrutinized amid tensions between the United States and Canada to tighten immigration and control the border.

“Does the agents have more pressure to be tougher because there are more entries? Most likely,” said Rubitel, who is planning to appeal the CBSA agent’s decision.

CBSA did not provide CBC questions by the deadline about whether the agents are encouraged to avoid separating families, or the agency’s actions to prevent this from happening.

Document 2017 entitled National guidance for detention or housing of minors On the CBSA website on the Internet, the agency should not separate families except in very rare cases. It is not clear how this applies when the minor remains with one of the parents, but not both.

There were increasing calls to reconsider its position that the United States is a safe country for refugees because Trump commanded ice agents to make large -scale raids, arrests and deportation, including third countries, such as prison in El Salvador where there was Torture reports.

So far, Canada instead sought to tighten asylum rights on its borders. In June, the government of Prime Minister Mark Carne came Strong border law, A large -scale bill that would restrict asylum claims at the land borders in Canada.