The US has a problem on its northern border too

Since the 1970s, Canada has cultivated a reputation for having one of the most liberal immigration systems in the world, with a strong emphasis on diversity. But the country’s unique, decades-old immigration consensus is being eroded. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s open-border approach has permitted unchecked immigration to thrive at the expense of economic stability, social integration and national security.

Acting on a tip-off from a European ally, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police recently arrested an ISIS-inspired father-son duo for allegedly plotting to carry out a mass casualty attack in Toronto. Under the aegis of the Trudeau government, the father was deemed admissible to Canada on a track to citizenship, despite allegedly appearing in an open-source ISIS propaganda video in which he is seen dismembering a prisoner with a sword.

Terrorists and criminals have long sought ways to exploit Canada’s liberal immigration system and acquire Canadian citizenship. The Canada Border Service Agency is mandated to remove inadmissible foreign nationals, yet it struggles to locate and deport individuals with serious criminal offenses.

A recent Canada Border Service Agency audit noted that most of the agency’s criminal investigators lack basic training. A 2023 federal government audit found that between 2014 and 2019, Ottawa admitted 3,314 foreign nationals who had been flagged for serious criminal offenses including war crimes and terrorism.

Citing the example of an internal cover-up of a human smuggling operation via Quebec, a Canada Border Service Agency whistleblower recently alleged that transnational criminal elements had penetrated the agency and compromised its databases to help terrorists, spies and drug cartels enter Canada. That comes on top of widespread concerns about the infiltration of Canada’s federal civil service by foreign agents sympathetic to hostile powers intent on well-documented foreign interference in the country’s democratic institutions. 

With the Trudeau government’s surging immigration, severely under-resourced federal security agencies are struggling to vet new arrivals thoroughly. Immigration Minister Marc Miller even conceded that Canada routinely admits individuals from countries that provide “unreliable” police certificates for security screening.

Regardless, the Trudeau government has authorized the admission of 5,000 Palestinians from Gaza into Canada. About 1,000 are presumed to have already arrived. A senior Israeli government source, requesting anonymity, admitted to me that they had “obvious security concerns about Canada taking people out of Gaza.”

Christian Leuprecht, professor at the Royal Military College of Canada and senior fellow at the Center for North American Prosperity and Security, has similar concerns.

“As the Canadian government readily admits large swathes of people from areas of the world such as Gaza where political violence is part and parcel of the daily modus operandi, there is necessarily a greater risk of spillover effects of violent anti-Israel behavior or latent sympathies for listed terrorist entities.”

The Trudeau government has allowed support for Hamas and the atrocities of Oct. 7 among select ethno-religious groups, along with deep-rooted antisemitic and anti-U.S. sentiments, to fester. It also has a proven track record of grounding decisions on immigration and national security in diaspora politics instead of security and national interest. In 2016, the government lifted visa requirements on Mexican nationals, against the advice of Canadian civil servants. Predictably, frivolous asylum claims surged, yet it took them eight years to reimpose visa requirements.

In light of the pervasive vulnerabilities in Canada’s immigration system, the decision to admit Palestinians exacerbates the increasingly risky gamble the Trudeau government has been willing to wager on politicizing immigration and refugee resettlement at the expense of Canada’s longstanding commitment to continental security and social harmony.

Recent arrests of suspected Palestinian terrorists at America’s southern border confirm intelligence assessments of bad actors from the war-torn region destined for the U.S.

This has not been lost on Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). In late July, on the occasion of a congressional bill to review security along America’s northern border in light of an escalation of irregular southbound crossings across the border from Canada, Rubio wrote a letter pointing it out to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

The Trudeau government’s tolerance of rising antisemitism and Islamist radicalization, along with its dubious record on immigration policies and screening programs, should give Washington pause. As the Biden administration continues to manage the migrant crisis at the southern border and growing threats from resurgent terror groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda, more accountability and action must be sought from its counterparts in the north to preserve and protect the long-term security interests of both countries.

Joe Adam George is a national security analyst on Middle East and South Asia affairs and has written for the Center for North American Prosperity and Security.