In July, Maxen, a Haitian man living in Hamilton drove to the Canada-U.S. border in Quebec where he’d arranged to pick up his two sisters coming from Miami, but the reunion didn’t happen as planned.
The sisters, who fled Haiti last year due to violence, had hoped to settle in the U.S., but when President Donald Trump’s administration ended a humanitarian program for people from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti, they decided to come to Canada where Maxen already lived. Having a relative here meant they could claim asylum.
They got to the border after a two-day bus trip, but Paulna, the younger sister, who was travelling with her husband and three children ages 12, eight and two, wasn’t there when Maxen arrived.
He soon learned she’d been rejected by the Canadian border agents because of an irregularity with her paperwork, which he suspects is due to an extra name on her documents that her parents gave her at birth.
The family of five was taken to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centre in southern Texas, where they have been since. Maxen says they’ve been held in two separate cells and have been taken to hospital at least twice. A recent lawsuit alleges that families at the centre in Dilley, Texas, including children, face a lack of clean water and inadequate medical care.
CBC News is not publishing the last names of Maxen and his family members because they fear it could jeopardize their immigration case or result in reprisals in Haiti if they are deported. The elder sister, who has claimed asylum in Canada, did not want to be identified.
Lawyers working with the family told CBC that Maxen’s case is part of a worrying trend of asylum claimants who are wrongly rejected by Canada, then ensnared in an increasingly opaque American immigration detention system where they can’t easily access legal counsel.
“It’s almost certain that anyone who’s turned back into the U.S. is going to be … handed over to ICE,” said Heather Neufeld, an Ottawa-based immigration and refugee lawyer who’s been working to have the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) redetermine the Haitian family’s case.
A 2023 Supreme Court of Canada decision called on border agents to consider options it called “safety valves” that should prevent people from being sent back to dangerous situations, but Neufeld has never seen them applied.
Agents are also supposed to interview relatives to clarify inconsistencies with paperwork, but Neufeld says that doesn’t always happen, and if it does, it isn’t very thorough.
“On the one hand, we decry what the U.S. is doing and on the other hand, we don’t apply safeguards to ensure that we are not sending back people who are incredibly vulnerable to being detained and deported,” she said.
Hana Marku, a Toronto-based immigration and refugee lawyer, represented a Cuban man trying to join his wife in Quebec this summer. He was turned away at the border and detained by ICE for a month, only to have Canadian Justice Department officials broker a deal to have his case reconsidered and later approved in what she says felt like an arbitrary fashion.
Marku said the experience spotlighted just how much has changed south of the border and how difficult it’s become for people to claim asylum in Canada.
“What we’re doing by pushing people back is throwing them into this black hole where the law is not on steady ground,” she said, adding that while her client was lucky, she still struggled to communicate with him.
“I don’t know how to navigate a system that is so punitive and unpredictable.”
Maxen says his sister and her family have had a host of health problems since being detained.
Paulna has developed high blood pressure and fainted several times. The couple’s eldest son, 12, has been having nightly nose bleeds.
Maxen only hears from Paulna when she is able to call relatives in Florida who put her through on speaker phone. She often stops herself or Maxen from saying certain things because she was told by ICE that guards monitor phone calls.
Paulna and the children are in a different cell than her husband, Edy, and Maxen says they usually only see each other during meals.
“Any time we talk to them, the kids or the husband or my sister, they’re often taken to hospital,” said Maxen, who is a health-care worker studying to become a nurse. “We don’t even know exactly why.”
CBC News has reached out to ICE for comment, but did not hear back in time for publication.
Saba and Abdul Raqeeb came to the U.S. from Pakistan with their toddler, Haider, on Jan. 14. Saba says they left Pakistan after Abdul received death threats for helping a man he didn’t know flee violence.
They came on a business and tourism visa and hoped to stay, but once the Trump administration enacted its immigration policies, they decided to try claiming asylum in Canada.
The family attempted to cross into Canada on July 13 at the Peace Bridge port of entry between Buffalo and Niagara Falls, Ont. They planned to reunite with Abdul’s uncle on his late father’s side, then apply for refugee status.
Saba says Canadian border agents told them they needed more documentation proving the relation. The next thing she knew, they were being driven to the nearby CBP offices in Buffalo.
CBP’s website says it “tries not to hold individuals in custody for longer than 72 hours,” but there have been reports of increasingly long stays as immigration detention in the U.S. becomes the norm.
Saba says they were held at Peace Bridge CBP for 11 days. During that time, she says she struggled to get food and milk for her son.
“I kept asking them, ‘At least give me one bottle of milk for my son,’ ” Saba said. “They said, ‘This is not a kitchen or cafeteria.’ “
On July 31, Saba and her son were released, but CBP handed Abdul over to ICE. The experience was so traumatic Saba says Abdul collapsed and was taken to hospital in Buffalo where he was treated before being brought to an ICE facility in Batavia, N.Y., where he remains. Saba and her son are staying at Vive, a shelter in Buffalo.
Saba says since being detained, her husband has lost about 65 pounds and has been diagnosed with diabetes. She also says Abdul, who suffered a heart attack in Pakistan, had been denied his heart medication for five days while in ICE custody.
Yohannes Hiluf, who runs Vive shelter’s legal services, is trying to get CBSA to hear their case again, but says he needs notes from their first interview, which he can’t get without Abdul’s signature — something he hasn’t been able to obtain while Abdul is in custody.
Hiluf says CBSA appears to be more rigorous in vetting asylum seekers at the border than they were before Trump was re-elected.
“They are demanding evidence that is extremely difficult to satisfy,” he said.
‘That place breaks you’: Canadian woman describes 11 days in ICE custody
In an emailed statement, CBSA spokesperson Luke Reimer said officers consider all relevant information, including the claimant’s own statements and documentary evidence. He also said that if a claimant is unable to understand or communicate fully in English or French, the agency will provide an interpreter.
Reimer noted that under Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, “there is no formal right of appeal on eligibility determination.” Though people can seek judicial review before the Federal Court, he said this does not prevent them from being removed.
U.S. CBP said in a statement that people turned away by Canada “return to the status they had before,” which means that they may be removed.
At Abdul’s most recent U.S. immigration hearing in late August he opted to self deport to Pakistan — which is expected to take place imminently.
Saba says she feels her husband was pushed to self deport because of how badly he was treated while in ICE detention, and says he received his heart medication half an hour after that hearing.
She says he told her, “it’s better to die in my home country rather than to die in a cell.”
