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Roxham Road

Roxham Road
Rang Roxham
An unmarked paved two-lane road curves past a tree and barn, with a dead-end sign at right foreground, through countryside under clouds and blue sky during the summertime.
Roxham Road near south end during summer 2017
Map
NamesakeSettlement midway along road
OwnerTown of Champlain (US);
Les Jardins-de-Napierville Regional County Municipality (Canada)
Length5 mi (8.0 km)
Addresses1–126 (US)
127–339 (Canada)
LocationChamplain, NY, USA;
Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, QC, Canada
Postal code12919 (US)
J0J 1V0 (Canada)
Coordinates45°00′26″N 73°31′02″W / 45.0071°N 73.5172°W / 45.0071; -73.5172
South endNorth Star Road
North endChemin Pleasant Valley ( Quebec Route 202)
Other
Known forUse by immigrants to enter Canada irregularly and seek asylum

Roxham Road[a] (French: chemin Roxham) is a 5-mile (8.0 km) rural road from the former hamlet of Perry Mills in the town of Champlain, New York, United States, generally north to the vicinity of the former hamlet of Bogton, in the municipality of Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec, Canada. It has existed since the early 19th century, before the Canada–United States border was formally established along the 45th parallel north[b] between the St. Lawrence and Connecticut rivers. For most of its length it is a rural two-lane blacktop; north of Parc Safari, it is also part of Quebec Route 202.

For most of its history, it was possible to freely cross the border via Roxham Road, since it largely carried local traffic. Canada established a small customs station just north of the border; the U.S. never followed suit, leaving Roxham an uncontrolled border crossing, even after Canada closed its customs station in the 1950s. That ended when Canadian authorities decided, in advance of the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, to barricade all the uncontrolled land border crossings between Quebec and New York, as well as the neighboring U.S. state of Vermont. Since then Roxham has officially been a dead end in both directions at the border.

Until March 25, 2023, Roxham Road was a key "irregular" border crossing for persons who were in the United States and wished to apply for asylum in Canada.[4][5] This was because of a "loophole" in the "Safe Third Country Agreement" between Canada and the United States that did not provide for the return to the United States of persons claiming asylum in Canada if they entered Canada at a place other than an official border crossing.[4][6] Beginning in 2017, more than 90 percent of those who irregularly entered Canada seeking asylum did so via Roxham Road, making it a metonym for the complications of Canada's immigration policies.[6][7][8][9][10] Housing the asylum seekers required building facilities at the border,[11] a camp nearby (and then in Montreal's Olympic Stadium) at considerable expense to the Canadian government, and led to anti-immigration groups protesting near the border crossing. Under a 2022 change to the agreement that took effect at 12:01 a.m. on March 25, 2023, that is no longer the case for most (though not all) such persons who make such a claim within 14 days of entry into Canada.[6][12] The 2023 implementation of this "protocol" amending the agreement was seen as likely to stem the growth that had taken place since 2017 (other than during the pandemic shutdown of March 2020 to November 2021[6][13][14][15]) of Roxham Road being the entry point into Canada of large numbers of persons seeking asylum status.[6] Some of those individuals had been awaiting a decision on their immigration status in the U.S. and feared a negative outcome due to stricter immigration policies of Donald Trump's presidential administration, but many had just briefly passed through the U.S. to get to Canada, began entering Canada via Roxham in order to seek political asylum there.[16][6] Later, immigrants began coming to the United States specifically to make the crossing at Roxham and apply for asylum in Canada,[6] leading to criticism of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government for its apparent failure to enforce Canadian immigration law. In 2023, the Roxham crossing was closed permanently. During the time it was widely used as an unofficial border crossing, more than 100,000 asylum seekers passed through it.[17]

  1. ^ Mooers Quadrangle – New York – Clinton Co (Map). 1:24,000. USGS 7 1/2-minute quadrangles. Cartography by USGS. ACME Laboratories. Retrieved June 10, 2021.
  2. ^ Champlain (Map). 1:42,240. Beers. 1869. Retrieved July 24, 2021.
  3. ^ Carroll, Francis M. (2001). "4: The 45th Parallel, The Connecticut, and Deadlock". A Good and Wise Measure: The Search for the Canadian–American Boundary, 1783–1842. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9780802083586.
  4. ^ a b Lévesque, Catherine (March 24, 2023). "Canada and U.S. closing Roxham Road and other unofficial border crossings". National Post. Retrieved March 25, 2023.
  5. ^ Stevenson, Verity (March 25, 2023). "Stunned faces and heartbreak for migrants heading to Roxham as they learn Canada will likely send them back". CBC.ca. Retrieved March 25, 2023.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Keung, Nicholas (March 13, 2023). "The Roxham Road dilemma: What are Canada's options in the border controversy?". Toronto Star. Retrieved March 25, 2023.
  7. ^ Leuprecht, Christian (2019). "The End of the (Roxham) Road: Seeking coherence on Canada's border-migration compact" (PDF). Macdonald–Laurier Institute. Retrieved June 18, 2021.
  8. ^ Macklin, Audrey; Blum, Joshua (January 2021). "Country Fiche: Canada" (PDF). European Commission. p. 10. Retrieved June 18, 2021. Despite many Canadians' revulsion at the treatment of migrants and refugees in the United States, the large number of refugees fleeing that treatment by entering Canada "irregularly" led Roxham Road to become a kind of symbol for Canada's loss of control of its borders.
  9. ^ Banerjee, Sidhartha (December 19, 2018). "As immigration debate heats up, Quebec's Roxham Road road still ground zero". CBC News. Retrieved June 16, 2021.
  10. ^ Armstrong, Lyndsay (March 21, 2023). "As immigration debate heats up, Quebec's Roxham Road road still ground zero". Retrieved March 21, 2023.
  11. ^ Why Illegal border-crossers to Canada target Roxham Road (Television broadcast). CBC News. September 26, 2017. Retrieved June 18, 2021.
  12. ^ Asylum seekers continue to arrive at Roxham Road after closure, retrieved 2023-03-27
  13. ^ Coletta, Amanda (December 29, 2020). "Canada is turning asylum seekers away at the border. In the U.S., they face deportation". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 26, 2023.
  14. ^ Major, Darren (February 25, 2023). "Roxham: The little country road that became a big political headache for the Trudeau government". CBC.ca. Retrieved March 25, 2023.
  15. ^ "LILLEY: Roxham Road sees record number cross into Canada illegally in 2022". torontosun. Retrieved 2023-03-25.
  16. ^ Ross, Selena (2019-04-17). "In a twist, Canada asks U.S. for help cracking down at its southern border". The Washington Post. Retrieved 5 July 2019.
  17. ^ "Last RCMP building at Roxham Road demolished". CityNews (via YouTube). September 25, 2023. Retrieved October 24, 2023.


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