Why the Obama meeting might have been the real help to solve the Mexican visa issue

One of the highlights of the recently completed bilateral and trilateral North American summits in Canada was the agreement on ending the visa requirement for Mexican visitors to Canada. With the visa issue off the table, the Mexican president was able to come to Canada and the long-delayed NAFTA summit could finally take place in Canada instead of being moved to Washington, D.C. But, nothing in the announcement gives any reason to believe that the issue will not rise up again as soon as the visa requirement is lifted. In effect, the issue was kicked down the road, not resolved. Canada’s refugee system, which essentially offers a work visa, health care, and other benefits all in exchange for simply getting to Canada and saying “refugee” almost guarantees that the number of false refugee claimants will rise again. The Canadian government’s footnote to the announcement, that the visa requirement could reappear if the number of false claimants rises again, seems to anticipate this. The damage of this in Canada is twofold. First, as many have noted, with the imposition of a visa for Mexican travellers, false claimants impede the ability to move business people, investors, and tourists seamlessly. This harms the Canada-Mexico business relationship and makes North America less competitive globally against other trade blocs like the Pacific Alliance, which is easing the movement of people within the bloc to prepare to better compete with Asia. Second, false claimants weaken support in Canada for taking legitimate refugees from Mexico. Mexico has a serious and troubling problem with human rights as adequately documented by Amnesty International. There is, however, little that Canada can contribute to directly improve the human rights situation in Mexico beyond offering sanctuary to those in need of protection for political reasons. On the security front, Canada simply lacks appropriate resources to help Mexico confront the types of violence and criminality that it faces. A constant disconnect in Canada-Mexico relations is that Mexican security forces want to talk to the Canadian Armed Forces, not just the RCMP, about domestic security issues. The main vehicle for providing other types of assistance such as on justice reform, strengthening the rule of law, and gender violence issues would be the foreign aid branch of Global Affairs Canada. Yet, Canada spends almost nothing on international development work in Mexico unlike USAID in the United States, which has extensive programming in Mexico. Arguably, the only effective aid that Canada can provide on human rights is to continue to take in refugees such as human rights workers and especially journalists. But support for doing this is imperiled if a narrative of false claimants ripping off Canadian taxpayers, put forth by the previous Canadian government, dominates. A partial solution to more permanently deal with the visa problem for Mexico and other countries did emerge from a summit in Ottawa last month, but it wasn’t the Canada-Mexico meeting. It was the announcement at the trilateral Three Amigos meeting that the North American trusted-traveller programs, including the Canadian-American NEXUS program and the U.S. Secure Electronic Network for Travelers Rapid Inspection (SENTRI) program for Mexico, would be linked. These allow for expedited security screening at border crossings for low-risk, pre-approved travellers. This is the key to permanently solving the visa issue with Mexico and potentially other countries. There are three steps here. First, individuals enrolled in the SENTRI program can use the NEXUS lanes when leaving Canada for the U.S. but cannot use NEXUS for entering Canada. Moving these individuals into the NEXUS lanes and out of the general traveller pool will winnow down the number of visitors that need to be examined closely. Second, an estimated 12 million Mexicans have 10-year B-1 or B-2 multiple-entry visas for the U.S. These individuals pose no or little threat of making false refugee claims. So, removing this group from intensive scrutiny should further winnow out the pool of travellers needing enhanced scrutiny. Third, because of the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement, refugee claimants arriving in Canada from the U.S. mostly at land border crossings are not accepted and the applicant is returned across the border. Ergo, Canada need focus attention only on visitors from Mexico arriving by air. Requiring that the already-mandatory Advance Passenger Information for air travellers, essentially the basic passport information, be filed before the day of departure for those who do not have SENTRI or a U.S. visa would allow Canadian immigration officials more time to identify potential false claimants. This system is not perfect but it would both reduce the number of false claimants and would actually expedite the movement of business people, investors, and tourists. Coupled with measures to facilitate refugee claims by journalists and human rights workers, these measures may also mean more of a positive contribution by Canada to improving the human rights situation in Mexico. The visa issue has been a mess and a major setback not just for Canada’s relations with Mexico, a key and desperately needed ally for dealing with the U.S. It has also been a setback for North American and Canadian competitiveness. And it has damaged Canada’s ability to contribute to improving the human rights situation in Mexico. A problem this serious needs a serious solution, not a kick-the-can-down-road act of political convenience. Hopefully the announcement at the trilateral summit can open the door to real improvements in the bilateral Canada-Mexico relationship and kick-start Canada taking the both the movement of people and competitiveness seriously. Carlo Dade is a senior fellow in the University of Ottawa’s School of International Development and a member of the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations. The Hill Times

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Why the Obama meeting might have been the real help to solve the Mexican visa issue

Canada’s decision the day prior to lift the visas in December only kicked the can down the road.

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