Canada-U.S. asylum-seeker pact has adequate safeguards, Canada argues in court documents

FILE PHOTO: Drivers wait to cross through Canadian customs at the Canada-US border near the Peace Arch Provincial Park in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. Canada March 16, 2020. REUTERS/Jesse Winter

TORONTO (Reuters) - The agreement under which Canada turns back asylum-seekers crossing from the United States has adequate safety valves, and the U.S. asylum system has sufficient safeguards, to make the pact constitutional in Canada, the federal government argued in court documents filed with Canada's Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Under the Safe Third Country Agreement, signed in 2002, asylum-seekers crossing the Canada-U.S. border at formal crossings are turned back, with few exceptions, and told to apply for refugee status in the first "safe" country they arrived in.