Country Agreement: Agreement and Country

country agreement: I think that the evidence is clear and has been since the creation of the Safe Third Country Agreement in 2004 that the United States is not a safe country for refugees, she said, according to National Observer. The United States' standards for refugee protection fall short of what the 'safe third' agreement requires for designation of a country as safe. Efrat Arbel is an associate professor at the University of British Columbia and was lead investigator on a Harvard Law School examination of the agreement in 2013. ; She believes strongly that Canada should never have signed onto the agreement and should absolutely suspend it now, especially in light of recent policy changes in the United States regarding asylum seekers. The Safe Third Country agreement is based on the core principle that people seeking refugee protection must file their claim in the first safe country they arrive in, unless they qualify for one of a few exceptions. So, if an asylum seeker comes to Canada at an official border crossing from the United States and tries to claim refugee protection, they will be refused entry and encouraged to make their claim in the United States - the safe country from which they just came. The other core tenet is that Canada considers the United States a safe country for refugees. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.