Turned away, then jailed, family makes third attempt to enter Canada

Aracely Serrano arrived on Monday, shortly after 8:30 a.m., in the parking lot next to the U.S. port of entry in Niagara Falls, N.Y., where she had recently been detained along with her common-law husband and two daughters in a windowless holding cell for two weeks.

She pulled a light blue suitcase and a black backpack from the trunk of a vehicle that ferried Serrano and her two daughters, Madelin, 14, and Itazayana, 4, from a shelter in Buffalo, N.Y,, to the parking lot.  

The trio walked past the stone walls of the U.S. port of entry, beneath the bulbous eyes of the surveillance cameras and through the metal turnstiles below the sign that read, "Entry to Canada."

"I have hope that this time, yes, it will happen," she said, her daughters by her side. 

Serrano felt this same hope the last time she took this pedestrian walkway across the Rainbow Bridge that spans the Niagara River to Canada. It was March 17, as previously reported by CBC News, and she was crossing with her husband Marcos Guardado and the two girls. 

Originally from El Salvador, they had been living undocumented in New Jersey and decided to take the risk of exposure and make an asylum claim in Canada, to escape the Trump administration's immigration crackdown that had injected fear into their everyday lives. 

But Canadian border officials on the other side questioned the veracity of documents Serrano presented that she said proved she had an anchor relative — a brother who is a Canadian citizen — one of the exceptions that allow asylum claims under the Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the U.S. 

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) sent the family back to the U.S. where they were held for two weeks inside cells designated for detentions lasting under 72 hours. 

The family managed to breathe fresh air once during their detention, in late March, when they were sent across the bridge to the Canadian port of entry only to be rejected again. They were sent back to the U.S. and into a windowless cell where Itzyana would sometimes wake up crying from bad dreams. 

While they were detained, Serrano's brother, Israel Serrano, began making calls, including to the Canada-U.S. Border Rights Clinic, which provides free legal advice to migrants. This is how they found Heather Neufeld, an experienced Ottawa-based immigration lawyer. 

Neufeld filed a challenge in the Federal Court of Canada to overturn the CBSA's rejection of their attempt to file an asylum claim. 

Then, last week, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada agreed to allow Serrano to enter Canada and make the claim. 

"I think finally the government has recognized that they did the wrong thing, that they made mistakes," said Neufeld, who accompanied Serrano on this, her third walk across the bridge to Canada. 

"Our lives are about to change, forever, for my daughters," said Serrano, as she approached the lines on the bridge marking the international border which runs through the river below.