US President Joe Biden

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agreed to an agreement to stop the irregular arrival of migrants from the United States.

Photo: EFE

US President Joe Biden concluded his first official visit to Canada on Friday night and in which he agreed with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on an agreement to stop the irregular arrival of migrants from the United States

Before leaving the Ottawa airport on Air Force One for Delaware, the US president and first lady, Jill Biden, attended an honorary dinner hosted by the Canadian prime minister and his wife, Sophie Grégoire.

Biden's two-day visit, the first to Canada by a US president since Barack Obama traveled to the Canadian capital in 2016 to also meet with Trudeau, has resulted in an agreement that will allow Canadian authorities to deport migrants who

Until now, the Safe Third Country Agreement signed by Canada and the United States in 2004 prevented action against migrants who cross the border between the two countries through unofficial entry points, which was causing internal policy problems for Trudeau.

Last year alone, 40,000 people arrived in Canada in this way to request refuge through Roxham Road, a point on the border between the state of New York and the province of Quebec.

Trudeau announced during a joint press conference with Biden at the end of their bilateral meeting that starting at midnight

What is the agreement?

The agreement announced Friday closes a legal loophole that exists in a 2004 bilateral pact that allowed Canada to turn away immigrants at official points of entry, but not at unofficial border crossings, such as Roxham Road, where they have entered the country in recent months tens of thousands of asylum seekers.

As part of the new agreement, Canada will also establish a refugee program for 15,000 migrants from Central and South America.

The United States, for its part, has also detected an increase in immigrant crossings into Canada.

So the new agreement is expected

The new pact is an amendment to the

2004 Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA), which requires migrants to apply for asylum in the first “safe” country they arrive in, either the United States

Canada.

The STCA, which allows US and Canadian authorities to turn away asylum seekers in both directions at formal ports of entry, did not apply to unofficial crossings.

That caused many migrants to try to enter Canada through places where there is no official border crossing.

The new deal

," Abdulla Daoud, chief executive of the Montreal Refugee Center, told the BBC on Friday, adding that he is concerned it could

. "

Daoud considered the new refugee program insufficient.

“We had 40,000 crosses last year.

So 15,000 is a low number and only for one part of the world, the Western Hemisphere."

Negotiations on a new border agreement between the United States and Canada have stalled for months.

US officials did not want to rewrite the 2004 pact as the country was focused on its own migration crisis on the US-Mexico border.

The new agreement between the US and Canada does not require the approval of the US Congress.

Other agreements

The two leaders also agreed that Canada will grant C$100 million (US$73 million) to the Haitian National Police.

Washington has pressured Ottawa for months to lead a stabilization force in Haiti in the face of the serious humanitarian and security crisis in the Caribbean country, but Canada has refused to send military personnel.

Biden delivered a speech before a joint session of the Canadian Lower House and Senate in which he reaffirmed the alliance and friendship of the two North American countries.

(With information from EFE and BBC Mundo)