Family of 4 jailed in U.S. for weeks after Canadian border guards turned them away

Aracely saw Niagara Falls for the first time on a cold Monday in March as she crossed the Rainbow Bridge toward Canada with her common-law husband and two daughters aged four and 14, fleeing the immigration raids and sudden deportations sweeping across the U.S. 

She said they felt happiness and hope as they walked across the bridge, using their cellphones to capture a cloud of mist and spray from the falls in the distance above the Niagara River, still caked in ice. 

In a yellow envelope, Aracely carried documents she hoped would be the key to opening the gates to Canada for her family — birth certificates proving her relationship to her brother who is a Canadian citizen. 

"We could see Canada, there, ahead, and behind us, the U.S.," said Aracely, who is originally from El Salvador. "New opportunity, a new life."

But Canadian border guards sent the family back to the U.S., where they entered a shadowy limbo — jailed in holding cells at the U.S. port of entry in Niagara Falls, N.Y., without a breath of outside air for nearly two weeks. She spoke with CBC News in Buffalo, N.Y., where she's currently staying while awaiting a decision from immigration authorities.

CBC News is only identifying Aracely by her first name because she remains in a precarious situation in the U.S.

The Canada Border Services Agency's handling of Aracely's case and the family's treatment by U.S. border authorities is raising renewed questions about the Safe Third Country Agreement between the two countries.

Under the agreement, refugee claims must be submitted in the country where people first arrive. For this reason, Canada turns away most asylum seekers who attempt to enter from the U.S. at land border crossings, but there are exceptions to this rule. One of them allows people to seek asylum if they have an anchor relative who is, among other categories, a Canadian citizen, a permanent resident or has an accepted refugee claim.

The U.S. is the only place considered a "safe third country" by Canada. But some U.S. lawmakers say it's no longer safe there for immigrants under President Donald Trump. 

"The Trump administration has basically ended asylum in the United States," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat and member of the subcommittee on immigration and citizenship. 

"It's not a safe situation." 

Aracely and her common-law husband both lived undocumented for several years in the U.S. They decided to join family in Canada to escape the threat posed by the Trump administration's hardline immigration policies.

"We were living in fear," she said. 

So they took the risk of exposing themselves to U.S. immigration authorities by attempting to make a refugee claim in Canada.