On July 5, the Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR); The Canadian Council of Churches (CCC), of which Project Ploughshares is an operating division; and Amnesty International (AI) launched a case in the Federal Court of Canada to challenge the designation of the United States as a “safe third country” for refugees as this designation pertains to the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) between Canada and the United States under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) and the Regulations.
The three organizations joined an individual litigant who wanted to be allowed to make her refugee claim in Canada. After being targeted by a gang for over a decade in El Salvador, she fled to the United States with her daughters and has strong reasons to believe that she may not receive protection in the United States if she has to file her refugee claim there, rather than in Canada.