Data shows that Canada Border Services agents are setting new records for deportations across Canada, as a visible increase in raids and document checks are now occurring. Images of a CBSA raid at an international student protest in Calgary, Alberta, on Wednesday indicate that Canada is beginning to take a more serious and more visible approach to removals.
As of June 30, CBSA records show that over 10k deportations have already occurred in Canada, happening at a rate of 400 per week. Last year, Canada deported over 23,000 people.
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Being in Canada on a temporary visa means exactly that: temporary. No one was promised permanent residency, and protesting, demanding extensions, or framing the country as stolen land does not create one. The political sympathy these students once enjoyed has evaporated.
Document checks at these gatherings are not persecution or “Trump-style thuggery” — they are simply how a country determines who still has legal status and who does not. Hunger strike or not, the rules still apply.
Many of these students were clearly misled by shady consultants and marginal colleges. That does not change the fact that they signed temporary visas knowing the terms, and that the real goal for most was never education but a pathway to stay and eventually sponsor extended family. Living here without status only leaves them vulnerable to exploitation. For both their own sake and Canada’s, the clearer path is to go home when the visa ends.
The era of open-ended tolerance for expired status is closing, and that is long overdue.
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