NDP Leader Avi Lewis Calls to End Safe Third Country Agreement, Boost Refugee Intake

(CANADA) — NDP leader Avi Lewis called for Canada to scrap the Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States and sharply raise refugee intake after winning his party’s leadership on March 29, 2026, framing the U.S. under President Trump as “not safe for refugees.”

Lewis also pledged to reverse 2025 immigration cuts, restore permanent resident targets to post-COVID highs, grant immediate permanent residency to all migrants under a “Status on Arrival” system, and hire 3,000 IRCC caseworkers to tackle an estimated 1 million pending applications.

In his victory speech on March 29, 2026, Lewis said, “The Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S. is a relic of a safer time. Today, the U.S. is a machinery of deportation. It must be cancelled immediately.”

The proposal sets up a sharp split with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government, which cut permanent resident targets from 500,000 to approximately 393,000 in 2025. Carney has moved toward tighter immigration settings as Canada grapples with housing and affordability pressures, while Lewis is pushing for a broad expansion of refugee intake and a wider reopening of the immigration system.

Lewis has centered the plan within a wider political platform built around a “Green New Deal” and “socialist populism.” On immigration, the most immediate break with current policy is his demand to abolish the Safe Third Country Agreement, which bars most refugee claimants from seeking asylum in Canada at official land border crossings if they arrived through the United States.

He argues the agreement no longer reflects conditions south of the border. His language has gone beyond procedural criticism, with Lewis describing the United States as a deportation system rather than a place of refuge.

That argument lands as U.S. policy has tightened further in early 2026. On Oct. 31, 2025, President Trump set the refugee admissions ceiling for Fiscal Year 2026 at 7,500, a level Lewis and refugee advocates cite as evidence of a harsher American approach.

Presidential Determination No. 2025-13 said, “The admissions of up to 7,500 refugees. is justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest,” while directing priority to specific groups including Afrikaners from South Africa. The ceiling marked the latest constraint on refugee access in the United States.

Another measure followed on Dec. 2, 2025, when USCIS issued Policy Memorandum PM-602-0192. The memorandum carried the title “Hold and Review of all Pending Asylum Applications and all USCIS Benefit Applications Filed by Aliens from High-Risk Countries” and froze the processing of asylum claims for nationals of 19 designated countries.

That freeze, combined with a lower refugee ceiling, has become central to Lewis’s case that Canada should stop treating the United States as a presumptively safe destination for people seeking protection. His argument also draws on broader enforcement language from U.S. policy, including Executive Order 14161, which mandates the “most stringent identification verification of any class of alien,” a requirement tied to delays and “mandatory re-interviews” for people trying to secure protection in the United States.

At the same time, the U.S. government has publicly rejected suggestions that its immigration enforcement agencies operate in Canada. Responding on April 2, 2026, to Canadian concerns about U.S. law enforcement presence during the World Cup, a DHS spokesperson said, “ICE has no authority or jurisdiction on Canadian soil. [and] obviously, ICE does not conduct immigration enforcement operations in foreign countries.”

The two governments have nevertheless maintained cross-border asylum cooperation. A DHS/CBP guidance memo dated Jan. 21, 2026, confirmed that the United States continues to uphold the Additional Protocol to the Safe Third Country Agreement, extending the pact across the entire land border to manage “irregular” crossings.

For refugee claimants, that framework means the border rules have tightened rather than loosened. Lewis wants Canada to move in the opposite direction.

His “Status on Arrival” proposal would grant permanent residency to all migrants immediately, a step he says would prevent the creation of “two classes of workers.” That would amount to a sweeping restructuring of Canada’s immigration system, replacing multi-stage pathways with a single-tier model from the moment of entry.

Lewis also says Ottawa should reverse Carney’s 2025 cuts and restore permanent resident admissions to post-COVID highs. He has not framed the issue as a narrow refugee adjustment but as a wholesale shift in how Canada manages migration, status, and labor rights.

A parallel part of the plan addresses processing. Lewis has promised to hire 3,000 IRCC caseworkers immediately to cut through the estimated 1 million outstanding applications, linking the hiring push to delays in asylum decisions and family reunification.

That backlog has become one of the clearest practical tests of any immigration pledge. Without a large staffing increase, applications already in the system would continue moving slowly, leaving families separated longer and claimants waiting for decisions.

The human impact sits at the heart of the debate around refugee intake. With the Safe Third Country Agreement still in place and the U.S. refugee ceiling set at 7,500, asylum seekers can find themselves trapped between two systems, unable to move forward quickly in either country.

Lewis and groups challenging the agreement say that leaves people in legal limbo. Critics of the current framework argue that the United States no longer offers the level of access to asylum protection that underpinned the original Canada-U.S. arrangement.

That legal argument is already playing out in Canada. Human rights organizations including the Canadian Council for Refugees have used the current U.S. climate in court challenges, contending that the Safe Third Country Agreement violates Charter protections.

Those cases now sit within a changed political environment. Under Carney, Ottawa has defended more restrictive immigration settings; under Lewis’s proposal, a future NDP government would seek to dismantle one of the central bilateral arrangements governing asylum at the land border.

The difference is not only administrative. It also points to a more confrontational diplomatic tone toward Washington.

Lewis has cast U.S. policy in blunt terms, calling the country a “machinery of deportation” and coupling his asylum proposals with criticism of support for American enforcement agencies. The rhetoric marks a departure from the more cautious language Canadian leaders typically use when discussing cross-border migration management.

That rhetorical shift could affect the broader tenor of U.S.-Canada relations even if the legal structure of the Safe Third Country Agreement remains unchanged for now. A Canadian government arguing that the United States is unsafe for refugees would be challenging a core premise of the bilateral asylum system.

For now, official U.S. policy remains in place on several fronts at once. The refugee cap stands at 7,500 for Fiscal Year 2026. USCIS is maintaining the adjudication hold spelled out in Policy Memorandum PM-602-0192 for nationals of 19 high-risk countries. DHS and CBP continue to uphold the Additional Protocol on border management, while DHS has said ICE has no authority in Canada.

On the Canadian side, Lewis’s platform would require the federal government to move quickly on several files at once: exit the Safe Third Country Agreement, restore immigration levels, redesign status rules for newcomers, and expand IRCC staffing by 3,000 positions. Each step would carry legal, administrative, and diplomatic consequences, though Lewis has presented them as parts of the same response to a refugee system he says no longer meets the moment.

The clash also reflects two competing views of migration policy in Canada. Carney’s government has tied restraint to domestic pressures such as housing and affordability, while Lewis has cast refugee intake and permanent residency expansion as matters of rights, safety, and economic fairness for migrants already in the system.

That leaves refugee claimants, families awaiting reunification, and people caught in long application queues watching both governments closely. Their cases move through systems shaped by caps, border rules, staffing limits, and security screening measures that can stretch timelines for months or longer.

Public records from the U.S. Federal Register, DHS/CBP, USCIS, and IRCC now form the backdrop to that debate. Together, they show a hardening American approach to refugee admissions and asylum processing at the same moment Lewis is urging Canada to open a wider path.

Whether his plan becomes policy will depend on politics and law. But Lewis has already redrawn the terms of the discussion, putting the Safe Third Country Agreement, refugee intake, and Canada’s response to U.S. enforcement at the center of the national immigration debate.