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A day after U.S. President Joe Biden and Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced changes to the Safe Third Country Agreement after a record number of asylum seekers arrived in Canada via unofficial border crossings, Canada began sending asylum seekers back to the U.S. after some tried crossing into Quebec from Roxham Road in Champlain, N.Y.

The Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the United States is part of the U.S.–Canada Smart Border Action Plan. The Agreement, signed in 2002 and made effective in 2004, originally meant asylum seekers crossing into either Canada or the United States at formal border crossings were turned back and told to apply for asylum in the first “safe” country they arrived in. 

The Additional Protocol to the STCA, which came into effect on March 25, 2023, follows completion of regulatory amendments across the entire land border of 6,416 km (3,987 miles), including internal waterways. 

The expansion took effect as of 12:01 a.m. EDT on March 25, 2023. If a migrant crosses the border into Canada from the U.S. to make an asylum (refugee) claim and does not meet one of the Agreement’s exceptions, they will be returned to the U.S. 

Roxham Road, which had become a notorious unofficial crossing for asylum seekers into Canada, closed at midnight on Saturday, March 25, but dozens of migrants from Africa, Haiti, and Latin and South America crossed anyway just after midnight, including one group with a baby and a toddler. Police took them into custody, warning them they could be turned around.

Police also unveiled a new sign near the dirt path linking New York State with the province of Quebec, informing people they could be arrested and returned to the United States if they crossed. 

Reuters reported that confusion reigned at a bus station early on Saturday, where about 25 people from Venezuela, Haiti, Ecuador, and Peru milled about, wondering what to do next.

Under the revised Agreement, refugee claimants are required to request refugee protection in the first safe country they arrive in, unless they qualify for an exception to the Agreement. Asylum seekers make a refugee claim in Canada at a port of entry or online.

The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act requires that every person seeking to enter Canada must appear for an examination at a port of entry to determine whether they have a right to enter Canada or may become authorized to enter and remain in Canada.

Exceptions to the Agreement consider the importance of family unity, best interests of children, and public interest.

There are four types of exceptions:

1. Family member 
2. Unaccompanied minors 
3. Document holder 
4. Public interest 

Family member exceptions

Refugee claimants may qualify under this category of exceptions if they have a family member who:

• is a Canadian citizen
• is a permanent resident of Canada
• is a protected person under Canadian immigration legislation
• has made a claim for refugee status in Canada that has been accepted by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB)
• has had their removal order stayed on humanitarian and compassionate grounds
• holds a valid Canadian work permit
• holds a valid Canadian study permit, or
• is over 18 years old and has a claim for refugee protection that has been referred to the IRB for determination (This claim must not have been withdrawn by the family member, declared abandoned or rejected by the IRB, or found ineligible for referral to the IRB.)

Unaccompanied Minors Exception

Refugee claimants may qualify under this category of exceptions if they are minors (under the age of 18) who:

• are not accompanied by their mother, father, or legal guardian
• have neither a spouse nor a common-law partner, and
• do not have a mother, father, or legal guardian in Canada or the United States

Document Holder Exceptions

Refugee claimants may qualify under this category of exceptions if they:

• hold a valid Canadian visa (other than a transit visa)
• hold a valid work permit
• hold a valid study permit
• hold a travel document (for permanent residents or refugees) or other valid admission document issued by Canada, or
• are not required (exempt) to get a temporary resident visa to enter Canada but require a U.S.–issued visa to enter the U.S.

Public Interest Exceptions

Refugee claimants may qualify under this category of exceptions if:

They have been charged with or convicted of an offense that could subject them to the death penalty in the U.S. or a third country. 

However, a refugee claimant is ineligible if they have been found inadmissible in Canada on the grounds of security, for violating human or international rights, or for serious criminality, or if the minister finds the person to be a danger to the public.

The writer is publisher of NewsAmericasNow.com – The Black Immigrant Daily News.

The post The U.S.-Canada border deal and what it really means appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

As a renter and New Yorker for 35 years, I have firsthand experience with the struggles and insecurities that come with finding an affordable place to live in our city. As a minister, I witness these same struggles with my neighbors and parishioners.

New Yorkers across all ideologies can agree we are in the midst of a housing crisis. A combination of limited space, zoning regulations, rent control laws, and high construction costs have made it difficult — if not impossible — to keep up with housing demands.

Many of our elected leaders have taken these challenges seriously, offering proposals such as up-zoning, building more affordable housing units, and providing housing vouchers to assist those struggling to pay rent. However, a subset of city and state lawmakers, driven by socialist ideology, are propagating ideas that would only exacerbate our housing crisis. Chief among these problematic policies is Good Cause Eviction.

The title of the bill may sound reasonable, but it’s important to understand that so-called ‘Good Cause Eviction’ does nothing to address the housing supply shortage and would make the process of finding an affordable place to live even more difficult and expensive.

More damning, however, is the fact that Good Cause Eviction does nothing to help tenants facing eviction for non-payment, which has accounted for over 80% of all eviction filings over the past five years, on average. Instead, Good Cause Eviction is about rent control, which virtually every economist agrees reduces the supply and quality of housing. 

According to a recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, rent regulation “leads to reduced property values, misallocation of housing, reduced housing supply, and reduced housing quality.” The Brookings Institute has also noted that rent control “decreases affordability, fuels gentrification, and creates negative spillovers” in the long term.

The reason for this, as economists often stress, is because rent control measures like Good Cause Eviction fail to address the root cause that explains why housing is so expensive: lack of supply. And this is what makes Good Cause Eviction such a dangerous idea – it would make attracting investment capital for development nearly impossible, hindering the creation of desperately needed affordable housing.

After strict rent control measures controls passed in St. Paul, Minnesota in November 2021, there was a staggering 80% decline in issued building permits within the subsequent three months. In contrast, just across the river in Minneapolis, where rent control regulations are absent, the construction industry experienced a notable upswing. New York’s Good Cause Eviction bill bears a striking resemblance to St. Paul’s rent control policies, and if enacted here in the Empire State, we’re in for a harsh reality check. 

Time and time again, we’ve seen socialist ideology thwart progress in our communities, particularly in majority Black and brown neighborhoods. Last year, one Democratic Socialist Councilmember in Harlem single-handedly killed a project that would have created over 450 units of affordable housing. The developer built a truck stop instead.

Even more concerning, just last fall, Democratic Socialist sponsors of Good Cause Eviction — accompanied by their left-wing lobbyist friends — took a trip to Vienna, Austria, to visit the Karl Marx Houses, a “social housing system” based on communist principles that was created by the socialist Austrian government in the 1920s. During and after their trip, they touted these houses as an aspirational model for New York.

Good Cause Eviction is just another bad idea rooted in this dystopian, backward-thinking ideology — and it’s the last thing we need in New York.

The problem is low housing inventory, and the long-term solution is to build more housing. In the short term, we should protect struggling tenants by providing them with vouchers to keep them housed.

It’s time for our elected representatives in Albany to put aside ideological fallacies and focus on common-sense solutions to address the housing crisis. That’s something every New Yorker should agree on.

Reverend Conrad Tillard is a Baptist and Congregational Minister in Brooklyn and an Adjunct Professor at The City University of New York

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* This article was originally published here

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A female shooter wielding two “assault-style” rifles and a pistol killed three students and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville on Monday in the latest in a series of mass shootings in a country growing increasingly unnerved by bloodshed in schools.

Police said they believe the 28-year-old female shooter was a former student at The Covenant School, a Presbyterian school founded in 2001. Police shot and killed her. Investigators were searching her Nashville-area home.

The attack at The Covenant School — which has about 200 students from preschool through sixth grade, as well as roughly 50 staff members — comes as communities around the nation are reeling from a spate of school violence, including the massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, last year; a first grader who shot his teacher in Virginia; and a shooting last week in Denver that wounded two administrators.

“I was literally moved to tears to see this and the kids as they were being ushered out of the building,” Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said at an afternoon news conference.

The identities of the deceased and the suspect have not been released. The shooter’s motive was also not immediately clear.

President Joe Biden, speaking at an unrelated event at the White House on Monday, called the shooting a “family’s worst nightmare” and implored Congress again to pass a ban on certain semi-automatic weapons.

“It’s ripping at the soul of this nation, ripping at the very soul of this nation,” Biden said.

The suspect’s identity as a woman surprised experts on mass shootings. Female shooters make up only about 5% to 8% of all mass shooters, said Adam Lankford, a criminal justice professor at the University of Alabama who has closely studied the psychology and behavior of mass shooters.

Researchers believe there are three main explanations for why men commit more shootings than women, according to Jonathan Metzl, a professor of sociology and psychiatry at Vanderbilt University who has studied mass shootings for more than a decade.

Metzl listed those explanations as: Men have more testosterone, are socialized to be engaged in violence and own more guns than women.

“There is some story we don’t know here,” Metzl said of the suspected female shooter in Nashville. “From school shootings historically, very often we think that people have some historical connection or emotional connection to the school. There’s an untold story here.”

Monday’s tragedy unfolded over roughly 14 minutes. Police received the initial call about an active shooter at 10:13 a.m.

Officers began clearing the first story of the school when they heard gunshots coming from the second level, police spokesperson Don Aaron said during a news briefing.

Two officers from a five-member team opened fire in response, fatally shooting the suspect at 10:27 a.m., Aaron said. He said there were no police officers present or assigned to the school at the time of the shooting because it is a church-run school.

The Covenant School’s victims were pronounced dead at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. One officer had a hand wound from cut glass.

Other students walked to safety Monday, holding hands as they left their school surrounded by police cars, to a nearby church to be reunited with their parents.

Rachel Dibble, who was at the church as families reunited in the nearby church, described the scene as everyone being in “complete shock.”

“People were involuntarily trembling,” said Dibble, whose children attend a different private school in Nashville. “The children … started their morning in their cute little uniforms they probably had some Froot Loops and now their whole lives changed today.”

Dr. Shamendar Talwar, a social psychologist from the United Kingdom who is working on an unrelated mental health project in Nashville, raced to the church as soon as he heard news of the shooting to offer help. He said he was one of several chaplains, psychologists, life coaches and clergy inside supporting the families.

“All you can show is that the human spirit that basically that we are all hear together … and hold their hand more than anything else,” he said.

Jozen Reodica heard the police sirens and fire trucks blaring from outside her office building nearby. As her building was placed under lockdown, she took out her phone and recorded the chaos.

“I thought I would just see this on TV,” she said. “And right now, it’s real.”

The Covenant School was founded as a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church, according to the school’s website. The school is located in the affluent Green Hills neighborhood just south of downtown Nashville, situated close to the city’s top universities and home to the famed Bluebird Café – a beloved spot for musicians and song writers.

Top legislative leaders announced Monday that the GOP-dominant Statehouse would meet briefly later in the evening and delay taking up any legislation.

“In a tragic morning, Nashville joined the dreaded, long list of communities to experience a school shooting,” Mayor John Cooper wrote on Twitter.

Nashville has seen its share of mass violence in recent years, including a Christmas Day 2020 attack where a recreational vehicle was intentionally detonated in the heart of Music City’s historic downtown, killing the bomber, injuring three others and forcing more than 60 businesses to close.

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* This article was originally published here