Migrants Left to Themselves

Last Friday, Washington and Ottawa announced that refugees arriving at their borders would be automatically turned back. It was expected that Donald Trump, whose position on the coronavirus is as ambiguous and disorganized as all of his other positions, would find it useful to use the virus to enforce the xenophobic policies that brought him to power. Less expected was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to do the same by announcing that migrants would be returned to the United States — as if, under the current president, it could be considered a “safe third country.”

If the crisis is so great that borders must be closed to all “non-essential” crossings, so be it.

However, extending that policy to immigrants who are not in the country legally is, in fact, an attack on human rights, here as elsewhere on the planet, given that the number of displaced persons and refugees, without access to shelter, papers, and, most of the time, recourse, amounts to 70 million people worldwide.

Suspending procedures relating to the right of asylum, a right he was already working to demolish in every possible way, Trump thus finds himself making dangerously selective use of the coronavirus pandemic. His anti-immigrant instrumentalization of the health crisis on Monday did not stop him from suggesting that measures applied by the United States to curb the spread of the virus were putting undue pressure on the economy. At the same time, we should not, according to the disinformer-in-chief, “have the cure be worse than the problem,” even though, let’s remember, American health authorities are stressing that the contagion has not yet been stopped, and that the health system is not up to the task; even though many Americans still do not seem to be taking the risk very seriously; and even though New York city, which is seven hours from Montreal and now the American epicenter of the pandemic, is crying out for help.

Still, however guilty he is of being indolent about the pandemic, Trump does not have an absolute monopoly on it. The virus from the other side of the world has profited from Europe’s unpreparedness before it landed here. There is some truth in saying that the virus has foundered on the shores of our insular recklessness.

Mexico has had little choice but to comply with Trump’s wishes. The situation on Mexico’s border with the United States will inevitably deteriorate in overcrowded camps and makeshift housing where those claiming refugee status are piled up in poor hygienic conditions. Add the coronavirus to the mix, which has not yet happened, and it will be a disaster. On Saturday, the media reported that the Mexican government was urging migrants to leave a camp situated near the international bridge in the border town of Matamoros, where 2,000 people, mostly from Central America, are living with nothing but water from the Rio Grande. But where can they go?

The fact is that Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is not taking the health threat very seriously either, that is, barely more seriously than Trump. “No to authoritarianism and to haste,” he repeats, as a good left-wing populist. He states that “everything is under control” and brandishes amulets. Either he does not see, or he does not want to see. Mexico has registered some 165 cases of the virus and one death to date. Models predict a peak of contagion by the end of April, for which the health care system is not prepared. However, it took until yesterday, Monday, for Mexico to launch its first prevention campaign in the form of “social distancing,” asking Mexicans to stay home. Again, AMLO is less worried about the coronavirus than about the economy in a country where half the population is poor and lives day to day.

The Canadian Council for Refugees said it was “shocked and deeply disappointed” with Ottawa’s decision to turn back migrants who are in the country illegally. The decision is indeed cruel. And destructive to freedom. The CCR maintains that the number of asylum seekers is decreasing (about 50 arrive every day by Roxham Road, in Lacolle), and that governments have the means to admit and isolate them without jeopardizing public health. However, we are in no position to answer the following question, which begs another: Is the crisis and the fear blinding us to our humanitarian responsibilities? And if a developed country like Canada is not able to welcome these migrants, who will be?