‘Shocking and unjustifiable:’ Canada is deporting migrants at its highest rate in more than a decade [or is it?]

Cue the outrage. Cite statistics without context and you get a header like this.

Rather than absolute numbers, which indeed show the Liberal government having lower numbers that the previous Conservative government and a sharp spike in 2023/24, it is the percentage of removals compared to the number of temporary residents admitted that is relevant.

The last 9 years when numbers of temporary residents increased dramatically presents a different picture of removals compared to international students and asylum claimants:

So perhaps the header should have read: “‘Shocking and unjustifiable:’ Canada is deporting migrants at its lowest rate in more than a decade:”

Canada has spent more than $115 million deporting nearly 29,000 migrants since 2022, an unprecedented rate that flies in the face of the federal government’s promise to regularize the status of undocumented workers, advocates say.

In 2023, Ottawa spent more than $62 million on deportations, the highest amount spent in a year in over a decade, according to data from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) dating back to 2011.

The deportation rate in 2023 was the highest since 2012, when more than 19,000 people were deported under Stephen Harper’s Conservative government. The deportations include “all removals enforced in each fiscal year,” the CBSA said, including refugee claimants, and migrants residing, working or studying in Canada who have overstayed their legal status.

When asked about the growth in deportations, the agency said “the number of removals enforced in any given year will fluctuate,” adding that the March 2023 expansion of the Safe Third Country Agreement, aimed at limiting asylum seekers entering Canada through unofficial entry points, has contributed to this year’s increase.

About 90 per cent of the total deportations since 2005 are due to “non-compliance,” the CBSA added, referring to migrants living in Canada without authorization. “Criminality,” the second most common reason for deportation, accounts for just over seven per cent of removals.

“The fact that $200 million has been spent to deport tens of thousands of people since 2020 — and after this promise has been made — is shocking and unjustifiable,” said Syed Hussan of the Migrant Rights Network, a national advocacy group for farmworkers, care workers, international students and undocumented people.

Advocates for migrant workers say the surge in deportations runs contrary to the government’s December 2021 commitment to a ‘regularization program’ for undocumented migrants. Such a program would allow migrants to stay in Canada as the government responds to historic labour shortages by ramping up immigration and issuing work permits to non-Canadians in record numbers.

Source: ‘Shocking and unjustifiable:’ Canada is deporting migrants at its highest rate in more than a decade