Canada braces for surge of immigrants hoping to move from US

Canada is bracing for a surge of immigrants to cross the United States' northern border as President-elect Donald Trump continues to press for the largest domestic deportation in American history after he takes office in January.

Canadian officials are preparing to add more border patrols and vehicles and plan to set up emergency reception facilities along the border of New York state and the province of Quebec in anticipation of the large number of new arrivals, The New York Times reported.

The plans come amid Trump’s pledge to use U.S. military assets and state and local law enforcement to locate and apprehend immigrants with criminal convictions. Meanwhile, Tom Homan, Trump’s appointed “border czar" and the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has claimed that the northern border may be vulnerable because of insufficient checks that are made on people attempting to enter the U.S.

During Trump’s first term in the White House, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau conveyed that his country would be friendly to asylum-seekers at a time when Trump pushed to tighten security along the southern border and threatened to separate families.

However, Trudeau recently announced that Canada will significantly reduce the number of immigrants it allows into the country. The Associated Press reported that Trudeau’s Liberal government had come under fire for plans to allow up to 500,000 new permanent residents to enter Canada in each of the next two years.

Last week, however, Trudeau said that the figure would drop to 396,000 new permanent residents in 2025 and 380,000 in 2026, according to the AP. In 2027, the number of new permanent residents will drop to 365,000, the prime minister vowed.

“In the tumultuous times as we emerged from the pandemic, between addressing labor needs and maintaining population growth, we didn’t get the balance right,” Trudeau told reporters in Toronto, according to the AP. “Immigration is essential for Canada’s future, but it must be controlled, and it must be sustainable.”

Trump responded to Trudeau’s new plans to limit new permanent residents on social media.

“Even Justin Trudeau wants to close Canada’s Borders,” Trump wrote, the AP reported.

Despite the limits announced by the prime minister last week, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have announced plans to bolster the number of agents and vehicles it has along the Canadian border. The agency anticipates a spike in new arrivals into Canada even before Trump is sworn into office on January 20, a spokesman for the agency told the New York Times.

“We knew that if Mr. Trump came into power, the status quo at the border would change,” Sgt. Charles Poirier said.

In addition to the RCMP, other national security agencies have been preparing for an influx of immigrants moving north in anticipation of Trump’s plan to begin the mass deportation efforts, The New York Times reported. Canadian authorities are also planning to draw up an agreement between Canada and the U.S. to send people seeking asylum back across the border after they cross over, the report said.

The newspaper reported that the pact designates both countries as “safe third countries” so that when asylum-seekers travel from one country to the other, they can be sent back.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.