The immigration deal announced Friday by US President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau aims to end a process that has seen tens of thousands of migrants from around the world walk across the border between two countries along a secondary route between the state of New York and the province of Quebec.

Since early 2017, these migrants have entered Canada via Roxham Road outside of Champlain, New York, where a Royal Canadian Mounted Police checkpoint has been set up to process them approximately 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the official Champlain crossing, the border where they would go. be forced to return to the United States.

The agents warn them that they will be arrested if they go any further. So they do, and without handcuffing them, the officers process them and release them back to Canada, where they live while their refugee claims are processed, which often takes years.

The new policy states that any asylum seeker who is not a US or Canadian citizen who is apprehended within 14 days of crossing will be sent back across the border. It will come into effect one minute after midnight on Saturday, a rapid implementation aimed at preventing an influx of asylum seekers trying to cross, according to Canadian officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the agreement at the ‘advance.

“We are expanding the Safe Third Country Agreement to apply not just at designated ports of entry, but along the entire land border, including inland waterways, ensuring fairness and a migration more orderly relationship between our two countries,” said Canada’s announcement.

Canada also agreed to allow 15,000 migrants to apply “on a humanitarian basis from the Western Hemisphere throughout the year, with a pathway to economic opportunities to address forced displacement, as an alternative to migration. irregular”.

Some of the last migrants to cross were around eight people from two families – one from Haiti and one from Afghanistan – who arrived on the US side of Roxham Road shortly after dawn on Friday. Both said they took circuitous routes to get there.

Gerson Solay, 28, carried his daughter Bianca to the border. He said he did not have the required documents to stay in the United States.

“That’s why Canada is my last destination,” he said before being taken into custody for prosecution.

The deal was announced as the US Border Patrol also responds to a surge in illegal crossings, in this case from north to south, across Canada’s porous border. Almost all occur in northern New York and Vermont, along the border closest to Canada’s two largest cities: Toronto and Montreal.

Although the numbers remain paltry compared to the US-Mexico border, crossings have become so frequent that Border Patrol has sent more personnel to the area and is releasing Vermont migrants with dates to appear before authorities.

Canadian authorities began tackling the problem in early 2017. Many northbound migrants say they are fleeing President Donald Trump’s immigration measures, which were hostile to their presence in the country and remain in place under his successor Joe Biden.

These migrants take advantage of a quirk of the 2002 agreement between the United States and Canada, under which asylum seekers must file their claims in the first country they arrive. Migrants going through an official crossing are encouraged to return to the United States to apply, but those arriving in Canada through any other entry can stay and seek protection.

Meanwhile, migrants traveling south overwhelm US authorities.

Border Patrol agents made 628 arrests of migrants entering Canada illegally in February, five times the number from the same period a year earlier. Those numbers pale in comparison to those on the southern border – where more than 220,000 arrests were made in December – but they signify a massive percentage increase.

In the Border Patrol’s Swanton sector, which encompasses New Hampshire, Vermont and part of New York, officers made 418 migrant arrests in February, up 10 times from the previous year. About half of those arriving from Canada are Mexicans, who do not need a visa to enter Canada.

The police chief in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, a town of 6,000 people an hour from the border, alerted state authorities that the patrol had unloaded migrants from a pickup truck with a few minutes’ notice. minutes to the visitor center in town. The same thing had happened several times over the past few weeks.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said in a statement that migrants being transported to St. Johnsbury were prevented from entering the United States without permission and were told when to appear for court hearings. of immigrants.

They were dropped off at St. Johnsbury because there is a bus station from which they can travel to a major city.

“In these circumstances, CBP is working with local authorities to ensure the safety of all involved – residents and migrants – and to ensure the stability of the population’s resources,” the statement said.

But local authorities said they had not had time to prepare. Now they are installing a system to provide migrants with the services they need.

On Thursday, a Haitian couple and their children, 17- and 9-year-old boys and a 15-year-old girl, were brought to the reception center. The family, who did not want to give their names, wanted to take a bus to Miami.

They said they had been in Canada for two months, but declined to disclose their reasons for continuing to travel.

They did not take the Thursday bus that would take them to a connection to Boston, from where they would continue their journey to Miami. A local group of volunteers provided them with food and accommodation for the night.

Police Chief Tim Page said St. Johnsbury wanted to help migrants, but not on a whim.

“We have to figure out what we will do when these families arrive,” he said. “We don’t have a system yet, but when we do, I’m sure it will work better.”

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Associated Press contributors include Rob Gillies in Ottawa, Ontario.