All 10 provinces to stop jailing migrants after Newfoundland vows to end practice

Newfoundland and Labrador has informed the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) that it will no longer incarcerate people detained solely for immigration purposes in its provincial jails as of March 31, 2025, according to information obtained by Radio-Canada.

The province sent official notice to the agency on March 12, 2024, eight days after a Radio-Canada story stated it was, at the time, the only Canadian province intending to maintain the controversial practice.

The detention of migrants for administrative reasons in the same facilities as people charged with or convicted of crimes has been denounced by many experts as a violation of international law.

"Newfoundland and Labrador's decision is a momentous human rights victory that upholds the dignity and rights of people who come to Canada in search of safety or a better life," said Samer Muscati, acting disability rights deputy director at Human Rights Watch.

Since June 2022, all other provinces have either refused to imprison people held for immigration-related purposes or have committed to stop doing so in the coming months.

Many provinces had signed formal contracts with CBSA under which they had to give the agency one year's notice of cancellation.

"With all 10 provinces now having cancelled their immigration detention agreements and arrangements, the federal government should finally guarantee through a policy directive or legislative amendment that the border agency will stop using jails for immigration detention, once and for all," said Muscati.

The federal government would not comment on Human Rights Watch's proposal.

In an email to Radio-Canada, CBSA instead explained that it is "committed to limiting the use of detention" to the most difficult cases and that it is increasingly using alternatives to the practice.

Abdirahman Warssama spent five years and seven months in jail without ever knowing when he was getting out. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

More than 5 years behind bars

A Somali-born man described his years behind bars in Canada in an interview with Radio-Canada/CBC last year.

Abdirahman Warssama was locked up for five years and seven months in maximum security jails in Ontario, where he was violently beaten.

Even though he wasn't charged with a crime, he was incarcerated with hardened criminals while the CBSA tried unsuccessfully to arrange his removal to Somalia.

Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the federal agency can detain foreign nationals or permanent residents for three main reasons: if they're considered a flight risk, if their identities aren't well-established or if they pose a danger to the public.

The vast majority of the 71,988 migrants detained by CBSA between 2012 and 2023 were deemed to be flight risks, meaning the border agency believed they would not appear for immigration processes, such as a removal.

It's the CBSA that decides whether they're locked up in provincial jails or in one of its three federal immigration holding centres in Toronto, Laval, Que., or Surrey, B.C.

Over the years, migrants have been sent to prison when there was no federal centre in the province where they were detained, when they were considered high risk or when they suffered from mental health problems.

But CBSA says that now, it only detains migrants in jails in provinces where that measure still exists when there are "serious concerns about danger to the public, or to other detainees, or staff."

That could be a person who has "prior convictions and outstanding charges for violent crimes" or someone who has demonstrated "violent, non-compliant and unpredictable behaviour," the federal border agency said.

Her Majesty's Penitentiary in St. John's, Newfoundland. Last year, six people were incarcerated in this province for immigration purposes. (Ariana Kelland/Radio-Canada)

CBSA upgrading holding centres

Faced with the provinces' decisions, CBSA said last December that it's upgrading its immigration holding centres and adapting its staffing and guard training in order to "accommodate high-risk detainees."

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International each said they believe the federal government should put an end to immigration detention.

"We commend the provinces for their decisions to stop locking up refugee claimants and migrants in jails solely on immigration grounds," said Ketty Nivyabandi, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada's English-speaking section.

"There is now clear pressure for the federal government to stop this rights-violating system across the country."