Canada’s federal court has ruled that an asylum agreement the country has with the US is invalid because America violates the human rights of refugees.
The Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA), in place since 2004, requires refugee claimants to request protection in the first safe country they reach.
But on Wednesday, a judge declared the deal unconstitutional due to the chance that the US will imprison the migrants.
The ruling marks a major victory for Canadian immigration activists.
Lawyers for refugees who had been turned away at the Canadian border had challenged the agreement, arguing that the US did not qualify as “safe” for asylum seekers.
The 5,525 mile (8,891 km) US-Canada border is the longest border between two countries in the world.
The Safe Third Country Agreement is a policy implemented to better manage refugee claims and to avoid so-called “asylum shopping” between countries.
But it is also driving asylum seekers to make what the Canadian government calls “irregular” crossings to avoid being turned back at official border points.
Since 2017, when President Donald Trump took office promising a crackdown on immigration, some 58,000 people have crossed into Canada from the US in that manner to make subsequent refugee claims.
Canada had been processing their claims until the coronavirus pandemic, when the Canadian government said they would be turned back.