Amnesty International, June 17, 2026

Summary

A new court challenge launched by Amnesty International Canada and the Canadian Council for Refugees argues that the federal government is breaching refugees' Charter rights and defying a 2023 Supreme Court ruling on refugee protection.

The Government of Canada is violating the Charter rights of people seeking refugee protection in Canada by handing them over to the United States, despite mounting evidence of rights abuses linked to the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda, a new court challenge contends.

Filed by the Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International Canada and families who sought safety in Canada, the challenge argues that, by sending at-risk refugees back to danger in the U.S., Canada’s implementation of the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) is unconstitutional and ignores a 2023 Supreme Court of Canada ruling.

“Every day, people fleeing danger present themselves at the Canadian border expressing grave fears about what will happen to them if they are returned to the U.S.,” said Asma Faizi, President of the Canadian Council for Refugees. “While their fears are very real, the ‘safety valves’ supposedly offered by the Canadian government do not in practice exist and refugees’ pleas for protection are ignored.”

“Refugees are being turned away at our borders and handed over to the U.S. system of cruelty and chaos,” said Ketty Nivyabandi, Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada. “Instead of protecting people fleeing persecution, Canada is violating their rights and exposing them to harm. Canada must put an end to this unconscionable practice without delay.”

A system with no effective safeguards

Under the STCA, most refugee claimants who arrive at the U.S.-Canada land and water border seeking protection in Canada are denied entry and turned back to the U.S. First implemented two decades ago, the agreement is premised on the notion that both countries reliably respect people’s right to seek asylum.

In 2023, however, responding to a constitutional challenge to the STCA, the Supreme Court ruled that Canada must ensure that mechanisms to prevent deportation to the U.S. — so-called “safety valves” — are made available to individuals who would face violations of their rights in the U.S., such as unfair detention or the risk of deportation to another country where their rights or even their lives would be in danger.

In practice, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has failed to implement these “safety valves.” Consequently, individuals who raise serious concerns are regularly returned to the U.S., without an adequate screening process to avoid unlawful deportations and without access to a judge.

The risks are not abstract. The CCR’s and Amnesty’s co-applicants in the case include a Honduran family denied the opportunity to seek refuge together in Canada. The family told Canadian border officials that their U.S. asylum claims had been cancelled without any decision and that they were at risk of detention and deportation. Neither the family’s individual situation nor the readily available information about the mass campaign of detention and deportation launched by President Trump led Canada to provide them access to the constitutionally-required “safety valves.”

As a result, they were sent back to the United States, where they were immediately detained. Before deporting the family back to Honduras — without any assessment of their asylum claim — U.S. immigration officials held them for two weeks in the notorious Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas. Families held at Dilley have reported horrifying conditions, including prolonged incarceration without due process, inadequate access to safe drinking water, denial of medical care, and other violations of people’s basic human rights. These findings have spurred Amnesty International and other human rights organizations to call for the facility’s immediate closure.

Still in Honduras, the family now lives in hiding out of fear that they will be discovered by the same criminal gang whose attacks and death threats led them to flee in the first place.

In the U.S., immigration detention and deportations without regard to basic rights

Since returning to power, the Trump administration has dramatically escalated immigration detention and deportations, including of Canadian citizens. Refugees are among the worst affected and have the most to lose. The U.S. asylum system has been effectively dismantled, many are facing mandatory detention, and the Trump administration has deported people in violation of court rulings.

Migrants detained in the U.S. face overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, solitary confinement, inadequate medical care, and barriers to accessing legal help. Children are at risk of being separated from their parents and of suffering malnourishment and trauma while in detention.

Canada’s obligations are clear

The new legal challenge highlights that Canada is failing to uphold its constitutional and international obligations to protect people from refoulement — the direct or indirect return of individuals to countries where they face persecution or torture — and other serious human rights violations.

In a separate legal case, Amnesty International and the Canadian Council for Refugees, along with the Canadian Council of Churches, continue to challenge the constitutionality of the designation of the U.S. as a safe third country, arguing that it violates refugees’ right to equality.

The organizations once again call on the Canadian government to immediately withdraw from the STCA.

Source: https://amnesty.ca/press-releases/new-stca-court-challenge-announcement/