As the U.S. ends COVID-19 border and immigration rules, Canada is concerned
Customs and Border Protection would not say on May 11 how many of its agents had been diverted from northern sectors, but said it does not anticipate any impact on operations at the Canadian border.
The imminent overnight end of the COVID-19 public health emergency felt more like a crisis than cause for celebration on May 11 as Homeland Security agents and officials braced for an onslaught of asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border.
More than three years after the arrival of the virus on North American soil, pandemic-era border regulations were to be lifted at midnight on May 11, ending a tragic and ugly chapter of history while marking the start of an uncertain new era.
Even President Joe Biden had to admit things at the southern border would be “chaotic for a while” as the public health measure known as Title 42 gives way to a rigid new regime aimed at blunting a tidal wave of human migration.
Homeland Security, the Pentagon and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have been “surging personnel” to the southern border to deal with the influx, he added, including more than 24,000 U.S. Border Patrol agents and officers, as well as thousands of soldiers, contractors, asylum officers and immigration judges.
The surge also includes some 1,400 Homeland Security personnel, 1,000 processing co-ordinators and 1,500 additional Department of Defense officials.
It’s a far cry from the scene at the Canada-U.S. border, where the end of the public health emergency means border agents will no longer be asking travellers to show proof of their COVID-19 vaccination status.
But there, too, there’s more apprehension than elation.
Those southbound Border Patrol officers and customs agents had to come from somewhere, said New York Rep. Brian Higgins, the Democratic congressman whose efforts to combat pandemic-era travel restrictions has become a personal crusade.
Whenever the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border demands it, “there’s a compulsory movement of Customs and Border Protection agents from the northern border to the southern border,” Higgins said.
“That’s been a problem, not only because it takes resources from the northern border, but a lot of those people end up saying, ‘Screw it, I can’t move my family down to the southern border.'”
Higgins said he worries that if the pattern continues, chronic understaffing at land border crossings could lead to longer delays and apathy on the part of travellers who decide it’s not worth the hassle, or who opt to fly instead of drive.
Customs and Border Protection would not say on May 11 how many of its agents had been diverted from northern sectors, but said it does not anticipate any impact on operations at the Canadian border.
In a statement, it said CBP “will continue to carry out its primary responsibilities to protect the American people, safeguard our borders, and enhance the nation’s economic prosperity” through trade and travel.
The Canada Border Services Agency would not comment on Title 42 except to say the two countries are “working together to respond to the shared challenge of irregular migration, the exploitation of migrants and forced displacement in the Americas.”
