President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agreed on a commitment to stem the tide of illegal immigrants crossing into Canada from the U.S., Breitbart reported. Each nation will deny migrants entry into their respective nations from the other.
On paper, this is meant to curb illegal immigration while still accepting a limited number of legal border crossers. In practice, it will likely do very little to stop the influx on either side of the northern border.
Part of Canada's agreement will involve accepting an additional 15,000 immigrants per year from the U.S., Fox News reported. Also, the deal provides an update to the Safe Third County Agreement from 2004.
This means asylum seekers who make it through to either U.S. or Canada must stay in the first country they are safe rather than moving on to a third. However, this only applies to people showing up at manned border crossings and not those who sneak through undetected.
Both nations are facing an illegal immigration crisis. Biden's administration has seen record numbers of illegal aliens enter the U.S. from the southern border since taking office in 2021.
The problem has gotten so out of hand that the Border Patrol was asking for volunteers to rectify the problem largely due to "Mexican migrants with no legal documents." One area of the border experienced an 846% increase in the number of illegal immigrants.
The agreement with Canada will have little to no impact on the overall crisis despite the backslapping Biden and Trudeau shared. Biden praised his Canadian counterpart for participating in this agreement during his remarks.
"At the same time, the United States and Canada will work together to discourage unlawful border crossings and fully implement the updated Safe Third Country agreement," Biden said during a speech Friday at the Canadian Parliament. "Finally, as we advance our shared prosperity and security must never lose sight of our shared values, because our values are the linchpin holding everything else together," he continued.
"Welcoming refugees and seeking asylum seekers is a part of who Canadians and Americans are," Biden added. Last year, Biden made another overture with the Los Angeles Declaration announced during the Summit of the Americas.
"We know that safe, orderly, and legal migration is good for all our economies," Biden claimed at the meeting with other Western Hemisphere leaders in June. "But we need to halt the dangerous and unlawful ways people are migrating and the dangerous ways."
"Unlawful migration is not acceptable, and we'll secure our borders, including through innovative, coordinated actions with our regional partners." The problem is more than just an influx of newcomers, however.
There is a burgeoning crisis with the dangerous drug fentanyl flooding into the U.S. largely through the porous southern border. Biden pointed out that the drug is stronger and more lethal than others on the streets and kills thousands, but hopes this agreement will stop the flow.
"And almost everyone knows someone who has been affected by this, lost a child or lost a friend," Biden said in his speech. "Canada and the United States are working closely with our partner Mexico to attack this problem at every stage and the precursor chemicals shipped from overseas to the powders to the pills to the traffickers moving into all of our countries."
The problem of illegal immigration won't be solved by signing agreements and making speeches. However, it's encouraging that Biden and Trudeau are at least making some moves in the right direction, even if both are mostly useless leaders.
