The border as archive: reframing the crisis mode of governance at the Canada-US border

Chronicle of a “crisis” foretold: Asylum seekers and the case of Roxham Road on the Canada-US border

“…Macklin (2005) and Young (2021) have made important observations regarding the impact of restrictive asylum and border policies in Canada over the last two decades. Macklin has argued that, even though the “legal and material reality of refugees” has been ever present, we have witnessed “the erosion of the idea that people who seek asylum may actually be refugees” (Macklin, 2005: 365).…”

“…This erasure “performs a crucial preparatory step towards legitimating actual laws and practices that attempt to make them vanish in reality” (Macklin, 2005: 369). Contemporary border and migration regimes articulated upon restrictive instruments “produce the border crises they anticipate while simultaneously masking and revealing contested and intersecting histories of migration” (Young, 2021: 7). Over time, these regimes make it increasingly difficult (if not impossible) to claim asylum.…”

“…Indeed, asylum seekers only had one option: to cross the land border between official POEs, often in remote locations. Some, like Ghanaians Razak Iyal, Seidu Mohammed, or Mavis Otuteye tried the Manitoba farmland route, and the frigid conditions led to severe frostbite and death (CBC News, 2017; Young, 2021). Mainly, however, the STCA seemed to funnel migrants to Roxham Road.…”

“…This new norm (erasure) is predicated upon a refusal to acknowledge the existence of agentic asylum seekers as political actors and upon a related negation of the continuing and intensifying reality of survival migration around the globe. Young (2021: 7) argues that, when it comes to the movement of populations across borders, “rather than a deviation from the norm, the nation-state is always anticipating unwanted arrivals, always operating from a position of crisis.” Perhaps. Yet, we believe that something different was at stake at Roxham Road.…”

“…The crossing of the Canada-US land border by 56,515 asylum seekers between 2017 and 2019 has been framed as a “migration crisis,“ 2 but the question remains: “a crisis for whom?” (Young, 2021). Roitman (2014) tells us that crisis proclamations lead us to ask specific types of questions, opening some spheres of intervention while foreclosing others.…”