The federal government is reimposing some visa requirements on Mexican nationals visiting Canada, a senior government sources tell Radio-Canada and CBC News.
The new rules will take effect on 11:30 p.m. ET on Thursday.
Quebec Premier François Legault has been calling on the federal government to do more to slow the influx of asylum seekers into his province. Last week, he said Ottawa should bring back the visa requirement for Mexican travellers.
The U.S. government also has been asking Ottawa to bring back the visa requirement to curb a sharp increase in illegal crossings from Canada into the United States.
Mexicans currently don’t need a visa to travel to Canada, but they do have to obtain visas to enter the U.S. American border officials say some Mexican nationals are using Canada’s visa-free rule to fly into the country and then cross illegally into the United States.
The new visa requirement is expected to affect roughly 40 per cent of all Mexican travellers to Canada, a government source told Radio-Canada.
The Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper imposed a visa requirement on Mexico in 2009 to stem the flow of asylum claims. The Trudeau government relaxed it in 2016.
The new rules won’t amount to a complete return to the pre-2016 rules. Mexican nationals with certain types of U.S. visas and those coming to Canada on study or work permits won’t have to obtain Canadian visas.
Mexican nationals who received valid visas under the previous system at any point within the last ten years won’t have to reapply under the new requirements.
The new visas will apply for a ten-year period and will allow a traveller to enter Canada multiple times and stay for up to six months at a time. Customs officers will have discretionary power to limit the duration of the visa or the number of visits, one source said.
U.S. President Joe Biden, Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speak at the conclusion of the North American Leaders’ Summit in Mexico City, Mexico, January 10, 2023. López Obrador has threatened not to attend the next summit if he feels Mexico is not being treated fairly. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
The government isn’t expected to announce the new visa requirements until Thursday.
But on Wednesday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador accused Canada of attempting to act unilaterally on immigration measures.
“They are in negotiations to reach an agreement so that we can control migratory flows from Canada,” he said in Spanish during a press conference.
“We have acted generously with them, with the government of Prime Minister Trudeau, but they were already on the verge of applying unilateral measures.”
López Obrador also said he may not attend the next North American Leaders summit — set to take place in Canada — if he feels Canada and the U.S. aren’t treating his country fairly.
“If there’s no respectful treatment, I won’t go,” he said.
Quebec Premier François Legault has been calling on the federal government do more to slow the influx of asylum seekers into his province. (Sylvain Roy Roussel/Radio-Canada)
Legault has said asylum seekers are putting heavy pressure on Quebec’s social services and finances.
“Asylum seekers have trouble finding a place to live, which contributes to accentuating the housing crisis,” the premier said in his letter to Trudeau. “Many end up in homeless shelters, which are overflowing.”
He said organizations that help asylum seekers can’t keep up with the demand. Legault said the children of asylum seekers are also straining the resources of schools already facing shortages of teachers and space.
Legault’s letter said asylum seekers who are waiting for work permits receive financial assistance from Quebec. Last October, he said, roughly 43,200 asylum seekers received $33 million in aid from the province.
Quebec Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette welcomed the news but said Ottawa must still do more.
“It’s an important step forward, but it won’t solve everything. The number of asylum seekers accepted by Quebec is far too high and our services are beyond capacity,” she told reporters Thursday in French.
“The federal government must distribute the asylum seekers across Canada. Quebec bears a disproportionate share of the responsibility for receiving them.”
One source told CBC News that domestic issues were the main motivation for the change in policy, but U.S. pressure also played a role. Many migrants were being transported by criminal cartels with the objective of getting them into the U.S., the source said.
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, seen here in an interview with CBC News chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton on Friday, has said the Biden administration has been asking Canada to consider putting back in place the visa requirements for Mexican nationals. (Mathieu Thériault/CBC)
U.S. officials have suggested that people who can’t get into the U.S. lawfully have an incentive to travel to Canada to try entering illegally. Human smuggling networks are cashing in, moving people who are fleeing poverty and violence in Mexico and using Canada as a pitstop on the way to the U.S.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data shows a spike in migrants entering the U.S. from Canada after Trudeau lifted the visa requirement in December 2016. There were 1,169 apprehensions of Mexicans the year before the requirements were lifted; the number nearly doubled to 2,245 in 2018, a year after the requirements were lifted.
Last year, the CBP recorded 4,868 apprehensions. Nearly 2,000 Mexicans have been apprehended at the Canada-U.S. border in the first four months of this fiscal year.
Those numbers are a tiny fraction of the number of apprehensions along the U.S.-Mexico border — nearly 580,000 last year. But the rise in apprehensions at the Canada-U.S. border was enough for U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to raise the issue during his visit to Ottawa last spring.
“We talk about this issue and many issues that impact the migration of people,” Mayorkas said in an interview with CBC News Network’s Rosemary Barton Live at the time.
“I think that’s a decision that the Canadian officials are going to make,” Mayorkas told host Rosemary Barton when asked about the prospect of Ottawa reinstating the visa program.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A linebacker at Division II West Virginia State was fatally shot during what the university said Thursday is being investigated by police as a home invasion.
The body of Jyilek Zyiare Harrington, 21, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was found inside an apartment Wednesday night in Charleston, police Lt. Tony Hazelett said in a statement.
Hazelett said several gunshots were fired during a disturbance in a hallway and inside the apartment. The statement said Harrington had multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said they had no information on a possible suspect.
West Virginia State said counselors were available to students and faculty on campus.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Jyilek’s family as they mourn the loss of this incredible young man,” West Virginia State President Ericke S. Cage said in a letter to students and faculty.
Harrington, a senior, had eight total tackles, including a sack, in a 27-24 win at Barton College last week.
“Jyilek truly embodied what it means to be a student-athlete and was a leader not only on campus but in the community,” West Virginia State Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Nate Burton said. “Jyilek was a young man that, during Christmas, would create a GoFundMe to help less fortunate families.”
Burton said donations to a fund established by the athletic department in Harrington’s memory will be distributed to an organization in Charlotte to continue his charity work.
West Virginia State’s home opener against Carson-Newman, originally scheduled for Thursday night, has been rescheduled to Friday, and a private vigil involving both teams was set for Thursday night. Harrington previously attended Carson-Newman, where he made seven tackles in six games last season. He began his college career at Division II Erskine College.
“Carson-Newman joins West Virginia State in mourning the untimely passing of former student-athlete Jyilek Harrington,” Carson-Newman Vice President of Athletics Matt Pope said in a statement. “The Harrington family and the Yellow Jackets’ campus community is in our prayers. News like this is sad to hear anytime, but today it feels worse with two teams who knew him coming together to play.”
DETROIT (AP) — Joe Schmidt, the Hall of Fame linebacker who helped the Detroit Lions win NFL championships in 1953 and 1957 and later coached the team, has died. He was 92.
The Lions said family informed the team Schmidt died Wednesday. A cause of death was not provided.
One of pro football’s first great middle linebackers, Schmidt played his entire NFL career with the Lions from 1953-65. An eight-time All-Pro, he was enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973 and the college football version in 2000.
“Joe likes to say that at one point in his career, he was 6-3, but he had tackled so many fullbacks that it drove his neck into his shoulders and now he is 6-foot,” said the late Lions owner William Clay Ford, Schmidt’s presenter at his Hall of Fame induction in 1973. “At any rate, he was listed at 6-feet and as I say was marginal for that position. There are, however, qualities that certainly scouts or anybody who is drafting a ballplayer cannot measure.”
Born in Pittsburgh, Schmidt played college football in his hometown at Pitt, beginning his stint there as a fullback and guard before coach Len Casanova switched him to linebacker.
“Pitt provided me with the opportunity to do what I’ve wanted to do, and further myself through my athletic abilities,” Schmidt said. “Everything I have stemmed from that opportunity.”
Schmidt dealt with injuries throughout his college career and was drafted by the Lions in the seventh round in 1953. As defenses evolved in that era, Schmidt’s speed, savvy and tackling ability made him a valuable part of some of the franchise’s greatest teams.
Schmidt was elected to the Pro Bowl 10 straight years from 1955-64, and after his arrival, the Lions won the last two of their three NFL titles in the 1950s.
In a 1957 playoff game at San Francisco, the Lions trailed 27-7 in the third quarter before rallying to win 31-27. That was the NFL’s largest comeback in postseason history until Buffalo rallied from a 32-point deficit to beat Houston in 1993.
“We just decided to go after them, blitz them almost every down,” Schmidt recalled. “We had nothing to lose. When you’re up against it, you let both barrels fly.”
Schmidt became an assistant coach after wrapping up his career as a player. He was Detroit’s head coach from 1967-72, going 43-35-7.
Schmidt was part of the NFL’s All-Time Team revealed in 2019 to celebrate the league’s centennial season. Of course, he’d gone into the Hall of Fame 46 years earlier.
Not bad for an undersized seventh-round draft pick.
“It was a dream of mine to play football,” Schmidt told the Detroit Free Press in 2017. “I had so many people tell me that I was too small. That I couldn’t play. I had so many negative people say negative things about me … that it makes you feel good inside. I said, ‘OK, I’ll prove it to you.’”
VICTORIA – British Columbia’s Environment Assessment Office has fined Coastal GasLink Pipeline Ltd. $590,000 for “deficiencies” in the construction of its pipeline crossing the province.
The office says in a statement that 10 administrative penalties have been levied against the company for non-compliance with requirements of its environmental assessment certificate.
It says the fines come after problems with erosion and sediment control measures were identified by enforcement officers along the pipeline route across northern B.C. in April and May 2023.
The office says that the latest financial penalties reflect its escalation of enforcement due to repeated non-compliance of its requirements.
Four previous penalties have been issued for failing to control erosion and sediment valued at almost $800,000, while a fifth fine of $6,000 was handed out for providing false or misleading information.
The office says it prioritized its inspections along the 670-kilometre route by air and ground as a result of the continued concerns, leading to 59 warnings and 13 stop-work orders along the pipeline that has now been completed.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
