How Canada’s asylum border has hollowed out refugee protection
Development summary
Efrat Arbel traces how Canada’s asylum reforms between 2020 and 2026 transformed its refugee-protection system and affected its legal obligations towards asylum seekers. The analysis covers the Covid-19 border closure, the 2023 Additional Protocol to the Safe Third Country Agreement and the reforms enacted through Bill C-12 in 2026.
The article argues that the pandemic-era direct-back policy deferred protection, displaced legal responsibility and obscured the effects on racialized asylum seekers, particularly those from the Global South. Drawing on an in-depth interview with an asylum seeker, it criticises the conversion of temporary measures into permanent law and policy and calls for closer scrutiny of the legal fictions sustaining the system.
Research note
Issue
Canada’s refugee-protection obligations toward asylum seekers subject to border closure, direct-back measures, and Safe Third Country arrangements
Why does it matter?
The article shows how Canada’s border-closure and Safe Third Country arrangements reconfigured protection and responsibility in relation to asylum claims, including their disparate effects on racialized asylum seekers. It thereby connects the shift from temporary border measures to permanent law and policy with the continuing question of Canada’s refugee-protection obligations.
Concepts
Academic details
“Bordering by sleight of hand: rights, race, and the unmaking of Canada’s refugee protection system”
International Journal of Refugee Law · 2026
DOI 10.1093/ijrl/eeag025