Canada is turning back refugees under a U.S. border pact. Why it’s headed to the Federal Court

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…The lawsuit focuses on the three most vulnerable subgroups — women, children and LGBTQ individuals — who are disproportionately disadvantaged by the system, the lawsuit argues.

Canada returned 4,323 claimants to the U.S. between Jan. 1, 2025, and March 30, 2026, according to court submissions. Of the total, 2,078 were recorded as female and 860 were children under 17; the majority were racial minorities.

The lawsuit said female refugee claimants fleeing gender-based persecution face additional hurdles to seek asylum protection under U.S. law, which treats their claims as “private matters outside the scope of protection.”

Refugee claimant children who are detained upon return face conditions such as lack of access to clean water, adequate food and hygiene supplies, which harm them disproportionately, causing long-term trauma, the lawsuit alleges.

In contrast, Canada was among the first countries to recognize gender-based persecution as a ground for refugee protection, and the detention of children is only a measure of last resort here, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit also claimed detained LGBTQ migrants are 97 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than other detainees, and suffer abuse by jail staff who regularly put them in danger by outing them. In addition, it said trans people are being issued identity documents in the wrong gender, which put them at risk for mistreatment or discrimination.

“Imagine your kid is being fed food with worms, cloudy water,” Sande said in an interview. “And then it’s like, ‘Well, if you want to sign your rights away, that’s the best way to get your kid out of detention.’ And so we see that, and kids are separated from their parents.”

What the lawsuit is seeking

The litigants ask the Federal Court to declare that the designation of the U.S. as a safe third country is “invalid and of no force or effect” under Canadian immigration law if it rules the agreement breaches the equality rights under the Charter.

“These claimants face a disproportionate risk of abuse in American immigration detention, as well as barriers to obtaining refugee protection,” said Prasanna Balasundaram, director of Downtown Legal Services in Toronto. The legal clinic represents the Salvadoran family named only as “ABC, DE and FG” in the lawsuit….

Source: Canada is turning back refugees under a U.S. border pact. Why it’s headed to the Federal Court