By Anna Mehler Paperny
TORONTO(Reuters) -Canada’s government is sending more asylum-seekers hoping to file claims in Canada back to the U.S. under a bilateral pact, even as the U.S. says it may deport them to third countries.
Some of the people Canada is turning back should be eligible to file refugee claims in Canada, lawyers say, under exemptions to the Safe Third Country Agreement.
The agreement broadly requires asylum-seekers at the Canada-U.S. border to be sent back to the first of the two countries they entered but allows some people – for example those with close family in Canada or stateless persons – to file claims.
Canada turned back 3,282 people under the agreement in the first eight months of 2025, up from 2,481 in the first eight months of 2024, according to data from the Canada Border Services Agency.
It turned back 789 people in July, the highest month of 2025 so far and the highest single month in at least a decade. The agreement was expanded in 2023.
A Canada Border Services Agency spokesperson declined to say why the number of asylum-seekers turned back is rising.
Meanwhile the U.S. Department of Homeland Security says it intends to deport some asylum-seekers Canada turns back to countries not their own if their asylum claims are not successful and their home countries will not accept them.
Another Canadian border agency spokesperson, asked about the risk of third-country removal, said the agency’s involvement ends when asylum-seekers enter the care of U.S. authorities.
Since returning to office in January, U.S. President Donald Trump has sought to speed up deportations, including by sending migrants to third countries.
“If their home country will not take them, we will make arrangements for them to go to another country,” department assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin wrote in an email in response to questions about asylum-seekers turned back from Canada.
Reuters spoke with lawyers and relatives for two people who were turned back by Canada, detained in the U.S. and say they were threatened with removals to third countries.
Their lawyers say both should have immediately qualified to apply for refugee status in Canada – an Eritrean, Rahel Negassi, because she has family in Canada and a Palestinian, because he is stateless. Negassi was later allowed to enter Canada to pursue her claim after her lawyer appealed.
Negassi, 50, had lived in the U.S. for two decades under authorizations the U.S. government provided her to work as a nurse because they could not deport her to Eritrea.
She brought DNA tests to the border proving she had a younger brother in Ontario, only to be turned back and detained for two months in Texas.
“The stakes have become so high,” her lawyer Heather Neufeld said, “because if someone is returned, we know that detention is more likely than not.”
(Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny in Toronto; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Mark Porter)
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