Mexican Nationals Need Visas to Visit Canada (Again)
The more things change, the more they stay the same. In 2009, then Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Jason Kenney, imposed a visitor visa requirement on Mexican nationals after a significant surge in asylum claims from that country -notwithstanding the serious human rights and other issues plaguing that nation.
The Liberal government now somewhat long in the tooth rescinded that requirement in 2016. Claims have shot up from a hundred or so from 2015 to about 25K last year. The Quebec government cried foul given the burden fell disproportionately on belle province; the Americans did as well.
The Liberals have responded with imposing visa requirements on Mexican nationals again, albeit attenuated with the ETA. I discussed this with Shaye Ganam of 630 CHED last week.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. In 2009, then Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Jason Kenney, imposed a visitor visa requirement on Mexican nationals after a significant surge in asylum claims from that country -notwithstanding the serious human rights and other issues plaguing that nation.
The Liberal government now somewhat long in the tooth rescinded that requirement in 2016. Claims have shot up from a hundred or so from 2015 to about 25K last year. The Quebec government cried foul given the burden fell disproportionately on belle province; the Americans did as well.
The Liberals have responded with imposing visa requirements on Mexican nationals again, albeit attenuated with the ETA. I discussed this with Shaye Ganam of 630 CHED last week.
Transcript:
Shaye Ganam: Now a lot of people will be getting out of here soon, getting away from the cold weather. Spring break is almost upon us. I’m not sure when it is. I don’t have kids in school anymore, but it’s sometime in March I think. So we know a lot of people will head to Mexico, right? They do every year. There’s probably a lot of Canadians in Mexico right now. Probably a lot leaving today and so far so good. And I don’t know, and I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves and say that things may change for Canadians wanting to travel to Mexico. I guess that possibility exists given what happened yesterday in our country with a sudden and massive shift in policy from the liberal government. This week they announced that Mexican nationals coming to Canada will now require a visa. They announced it Thursday morning and it came into effect about 12 hours later, like last night.
Now I have to think all kinds of Mexican travel plans were suddenly upended. Like if you were planning to come to Canada today, the rules have changed. Now suddenly you need a visa. How does that work? I’m not a hundred percent sure. We’ll find out. But Canada’s saying the change had to be implemented, had to do this because of an explosion in asylum claims from Mexico. And the numbers bear that out. There were more than 25,000 in 2023. There was 111 in 2015. That’s a pretty steep climb, right? Explosive growth. So why did that happen? And again, what did these changes mean for travel back and forth between Canada and Mexico? We know it’s changed a lot for one side. Where does it go from here? We’re going to have a conversation now with Raj Sharma, who is the founder and managing partner of Stuart Sharma Harsanyi, one of Canada’s largest dedicated immigration law firms. Raj, thanks so much for being here today. I really appreciate your time.
Raj Sharma: Good morning.
Shaye Ganam: Unprecedented growth in asylum claims. It really is remarkable. If you look at it from 111 eight years ago up to 25,000 last year, what happened? Why are we seeing that in your estimation?
Raj Sharma: Well, let’s go back a little bit before 2015, as you said, 111 in 2015, maybe 260 in 2016, all the way up to about 25,000 last year. And a touch more, actually, if you go back, there was a visa requirement imposed on Mexico in 2009 by Jason Kenny, perhaps you’ve heard the name used to be the Minister of Citizenship and immigration. At that time, Mexico wasn’t happy. It’s not happy right now. Mexico wasn’t happy at that time and on the principle of reciprocity imposed a visa requirement on Canadian diplomatic staff, not on Canadians traveling there. Obviously tourism is a large part of that country’s economy. So 2009, they imposed a visa requirement that was lifted in 2016 by the liberal government. And obviously the liberal government now has imposed it again at the urging of Quebec and by the Americans.
Shaye Ganam: Because Quebec says, we’ve got all these asylum seekers, we can’t handle it. The United States says we’ve got a mess on our southern border. And this doesn’t make things easier because now we’ve got a problem on the northern border, albeit a fraction of what they’re seeing in the South. So that’s where the pressure came from, right?
Raj Sharma: That’s correct.
Shaye Ganam: Now, in terms of what goes on with these claims, why are we suddenly seeing 25,000 when we saw 111? Has it become a strategy? Are the Americans right in saying, you know what? It’s sort of become an end run here.
Raj Sharma: It is an end run to get into the United States. There are individuals from Mexico that are fleeing violence that do meet the definition of a refugee. Someone that has a well founded fear of persecution, doesn’t have access to state protection. There are individuals, for example, victims of domestic abuse. There’s victims and those targeted by drug cartels. There are legitimate refugees from Mexico. What you have is you have about 25,000 inflow, and the majority are either being rejected or withdrawn or abandoned. So the high rate of let’s say non success is part of the reason behind us going down that pathway again. And so I find it a little bit amusing in the sense that the liberal government said that essentially we’re going to do things differently than the predecessor conservative government. And yet we’ve done the exact same thing as at the end of the day it’s policy.
So it was policy to impose a visa requirement on Mexican nationals in 2009. It was some kind of messaging for them to lift that visa requirement in 2016. And policy once again informs the imposition of visa in 2024.
Shaye Ganam: Now this requirement, this ETA, the electronic travel or authorization, I know in some instances a visa is a matter of you show up at the country and you give ’em a hundred bucks. I’ve done that in Africa. Other ones, I know people who’ve tried to go to China and it’s taken weeks and they’ve had to send off the passport. What’s the requirement here to get one of these visas? If you’re coming from Mexico to Canada, how long does it take? What do you got to do?
Raj Sharma: So that’s an important point, Shaye, in the sense that the ETA could take best case scenario could take 10, 15 minutes. It’s electronic. So if you’ve had a Canadian visa issued to you in the past 10 years, or if you hold a US non-immigrant visa, you can simply go online, pay the 10, $15 and get an ETA. Now if you don’t fall under that now a lot of Mexicans will benefit from this and it’s not going to be that onerous. So at least at one point we’ve tempered it. It’s not as draconian as perhaps, again, the Mexican president or prime minister is not very happy with this. But the ETA about 60% will probably qualify for this ETA. Everyone else who doesn’t have a Canadian visa in the last 10 years who doesn’t hold a US non-immigrant visa, they’ll have to apply for a visa through the high commission the visa office down in Mexico City. That could take weeks. Yes.
Shaye Ganam: Oh, it could take weeks. What’s the cost? What’s the charge to get one of these etas?
Raj Sharma: The ETA is 10 or $15. Last I checked. In terms of the visa, the visa is going to be a hundred plus dollars.
Shaye Ganam: Wow, okay. So that’s not nothing. That’s a pretty sizable one. Okay. Clearly we’ve got Mexican nationals that we’re probably planning to travel here in the next little while. This changes things for them. As you mentioned, the Mexican government not pleased with this. Talking about foregoing the three Amigo summit, will that be the extent of their frustration or could we see some sort of a tit for tat arrangement start to unfold here?
Raj Sharma: Tit for tat only works when you have a level playing field. You simply have far more Canadians that go to Mexico in terms of tourism, and obviously it’s a huge part of their economy. All of those resorts, all of the beaches and what have you. So I don’t think Mexico is going to cut its nose to spite its face, but there could be other repercussions, for example. I mean, I don’t see them imposing a visa requirement on the Canadian tourist. There may be other issues that they could utilize. For example, trade again, minister Marc Miller has indicated that these Mexican counterparts have not indicated any tit for tat or trade measures, but that’s certainly something that they can do. If you recall between Canada and India imbroglio last year, India suspended visa services to Canadians. But that was a far different, but I don’t see that happening from Mexico, but there could be other consequences and repercussions.
Shaye Ganam: Interesting. And we’ll just have to watch. Raj, thank you so much for walking us through. I really appreciate your time.