TORONTO (Reuters)-More Americans requested refugee status in Canada in the first half of 2025 than throughout 2024, and more than in any full year since 2019, according to data published on Thursday by the Canada Immigration and Refugee Council.
His participation in the total refuge requests – 245 of about 55,000 – is small and the Canada acceptance of US refuge requests has been historically low. Asylum applicants from other countries who cross the land border from the US are sent back under a bilateral agreement with the reasoning that they must request asylum in the first “safe” country in which they arrived.
Last year, 204 people filed a refuge in Canada with the United States as a country of alleged persecution. US requests also increased during the first Trump administration.
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The data do not inform why the claims were made. Eight lawyers told Reuters that they are listening to the most transtending Americans wanting to leave. Reuters talked to a trans woman from Arizona who went to Canada in April to record a claim and with a woman who came to record a claim on behalf of her young trans daughter.
US President Donald Trump and US Supreme Court has reversed the rights of transgender people, restricting those who can have access to gender affirmation care, who can serve in the Armed Forces, who can use which bathroom and who can play some sports.
To obtain asylum, refugees must convince Canada’s Immigration and Refugees Council that nowhere in the US is safe for them.
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The board recently added group documents such as Human Rights Watch, which examines US treatment to LGBTQ people to its national documentation package that details the country’s conditions.
A spokesman for the US internal security department said people who claim refugee status in Canada would create room for individuals who “face real fear and persecution.”
