Canada's government is sending more asylum-seekers hoping to file claims in Canada back to the U.S. under a bilateral pact, even as the U.S. says it may deport them to third countries.
Some of the people Canada is turning back should be eligible to file refugee claims in Canada, lawyers say, under exemptions to the Safe Third Country Agreement.
The agreement broadly requires asylum-seekers at the Canada-U.S. border to be sent back to the first of the two countries they entered but allows some people - for example those with close family in Canada or stateless persons - to file claims.
Canada turned back 3,282 people under the agreement in the first eight months of 2025, up from 2,481 in the first eight months of 2024, according to data from the Canada Border Services Agency.
It turned back 789 people in July, the highest month of 2025 so far and the highest single month in at least a decade. The agreement was expanded in 2023.
A Canada Border Services Agency spokesperson declined to say why the number of asylum-seekers turned back is rising.
Meanwhile the U.S. Department of Homeland Security says it intends to deport some asylum-seekers Canada turns back to countries not their own if their asylum claims are not successful and their home countries will not accept them.
Another Canadian border agency spokesperson, asked about the risk of third-country removal, said the agency's involvement ends when asylum-seekers enter the care of U.S. authorities.
Since returning to office in January, U.S. President Donald Trump has sought to speed up deportations, including by sending migrants to third countries.
“If their home country will not take them, we will make arrangements for them to go to another country," department assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin wrote in an email in response to questions about asylum-seekers turned back from Canada.
Reuters spoke with lawyers and relatives for two people who were turned back by Canada, detained in the U.S. and say they were threatened with removals to third countries.
Negassi, 50, had lived in the U.S. for two decades under authorizations the U.S. government provided her to work as a nurse because they could not deport her to Eritrea.
She brought DNA tests to the border proving she had a younger brother in Ontario, only to be turned back and detained for two months in Texas.
"The stakes have become so high," her lawyer Heather Neufeld said, "because if someone is returned, we know that detention is more likely than not."
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Russia and Ukraine are set to return to Abu Dhabi on Tuesday for a fourth round of U.S.-brokered peace talks, with European participation, security guarantees and territorial disputes expected to shape the negotiations.
Nvidia has launched an independent investigation into whether its chief executive, Jensen Huang, was targeted in a foreign intelligence operation, following allegations that a businesswoman with whom he had a relationship passed information to Beijing.
U.S. envoy Jared Kushner said Washington believes the Russian President is prepared to reach a peace agreement under the right conditions, as U.S., Russian and Ukrainian delegations began trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday 10 November.
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Russia has declared a Moldovan diplomat at the country’s embassy in Moscow undesirable, in retaliation for a similar move by Moldova last month, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday (10 November).
A senior U.S. Army soldier has been arrested in Britain on suspicion of assisting Russian intelligence, British police said on Tuesday (10 November), a day after the United States moved aircraft out of a British air base over an apparent threat from Iran.
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