Canada bringing back visa requirements for Mexican nationals to curb asylum seekers

The federal government is reimposing some visa requirements on Mexican nationals visiting Canada, senior government sources tell Radio-Canada and CBC News.

The new rules will take effect on 11:30 p.m. ET on Thursday.

Quebec Premier François Legault has been calling on the federal government to do more to slow the influx of asylum seekers into his province. Last week, he said Ottawa should bring back the visa requirement for Mexican travellers.

"The possibility of entering Canada from Mexico without a visa certainly explains part of the influx of asylum seekers," the premier wrote in a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

More than 25,000 Mexicans applied for asylum in Canada last year, making Mexico the top source of asylum claims, according to statistics from the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. The number of backlogged claims from Mexico currently filed with the board sits at more than 28,000.

The U.S. government also has been asking Ottawa to bring back the visa requirement to curb a sharp increase in illegal crossings from Canada into the United States.

Mexicans currently don't need a visa to travel to Canada, but they do have to obtain visas to enter the U.S. American border officials say some Mexican nationals are using Canada's visa-free rule to fly into the country and then cross illegally into the United States.

The new visa requirement is expected to affect roughly 40 per cent of all Mexican travellers to Canada, a government source told Radio-Canada.

The Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper imposed a visa requirement on Mexico in 2009 to stem the flow of asylum claims. The Trudeau government relaxed it in 2016.

The new rules won't amount to a complete return to the pre-2016 rules. Mexican nationals with certain types of U.S. visas and those coming to Canada on study or work permits won't have to obtain Canadian visas.

Mexican nationals who received valid visas under the previous system at any point within the last ten years won't have to reapply under the new requirements.

The new visas will apply for a ten-year period and will allow a traveller to enter Canada multiple times and stay for up to six months at a time. Customs officers will have discretionary power to limit the duration of the visa or the number of visits, one source said.

The government isn't expected to announce the new visa requirements until Thursday.

But on Wednesday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador accused Canada of attempting to act unilaterally on immigration measures.