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Canadian official says country will reimpose visa requirements on Mexicans

Canada’s government is reimposing some visa requirements on Mexican citizens visiting Canada, an official familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Quebec’s premier has been urging the federal government to curb the influx of refugees that he says has been straining resources.

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The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak before Thursday’s announcement. The official said the new rules will come into effect Thursday night and will not mean a complete return to pre-2016 rules. Canada’s Immigration Minister is expected to announce the details.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government lifted the visa requirement for Mexican visitors in late 2016, removing a major irritant in relations between the two countries.

But Canadian Immigration Minister Mac Miller has said asylum applications from Mexico have skyrocketed since Canada lifted the visa restriction in 2016. Canada’s elimination of visa-free travel from Mexico is also expected to reduce the number of illegal crossings of Mexicans into the United States from Canada. .

In 2023, the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada received 17,490 applications from Mexico, representing 19% of the applications submitted that year. A year earlier, the figure was 7,483, which represented 12% of claims.

Previously, refugee service providers in Montreal have said Mexican families are fleeing violence, insecurity and lack of employment in Mexico.

Canada only grants asylum to people it believes cannot live safely anywhere in their home country because officials are unable or unwilling to provide those conditions.

A Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer informs an immigrant couple about the location of a legal border station, shortly before crossing illegally from Champlain, New York, to Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec, on Roxham Road. Canada’s government is reimposing some visa requirements on Mexican citizens visiting Canada, an official familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. Quebec’s premier has been urging the federal government to stem the influx of refugees that he says has been straining resources. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

During his daily press conference Wednesday morning, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador suggested that Canada was going to announce action when he responded to a journalist’s question about possible U.S. tariffs on Mexican steel exports and launched a incoherent complaint about the lack of respect coming from northern Mexico. American neighbors.

The president said conservative forces in Mexico had been pressuring the United States and Canada for measures that would reflect poorly on his administration. He cited U.S. complaints about fentanyl production in Mexico and claims by both the United States and Canada that Mexico was not doing its part to control immigration flows.

“The immigration issue is Mexico’s fault,” López Obrador mocked. “‘We’re going to build a wall and that’s how we’re going to solve the problem. We’re going to militarize the border and that’s how we’re going to solve the problem.'”

“And now Canada is doing the same, they are wanting to take measures against Mexico, we are very sorry,” López Obrador said. “They are negotiating to reach an agreement, so that we can control migratory flows to Canada, as we have always done. And we have acted generously with them, with the administration of Prime Minister Trudeau, but they were already on the verge of imposing unilateral measures on them, Right now, there are elections in Mexico.”

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López Obrador also raised the possibility of him not attending the North American Leaders Summit, scheduled for April in Quebec. “If there’s not respectful treatment, I don’t participate,” he said.


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