Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Marc Miller is set to announce Thursday that Mexican citizens will once again need a visa to come to Canada.
Mexican citizens will once again need a visa to come to Canada after asylum claims from citizens of the country have soared over recent years.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller made the announcement Thursday morning in Ottawa, saying the change will take effect as of 11:30 p.m. Eastern.
Mexicans who hold a U.S. visa will still be able to travel to Canada without a visa.
This will not apply to Mexicans who hold a valid work or student visa.
The Quebec government had told Global News on Wednesday night that it had been told by Ottawa that the federal government plans to bring back visa requirements for Mexican nationals, something Premier Francois Legault has been pushing for to curb the rising number of asylum seekers to the province.
In that statement to Global News, spokesperson for Quebec’s ministry of immigration, Maude Méthot-Faniel, said in French this is an important step forward, but will not solve everything.
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She added Quebec takes in half of all asylum seekers in Canada and of these, 25 per cent are Mexican nationals.
The Liberals lifted the visa requirement in 2016, making it easier for people from Mexico to make an asylum claim in Canada.
Legault cited the steep rise in Mexican asylum claimants since then in a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last month, warning that his province’s services for refugees are reaching a “breaking point.”
Data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada shows the number of asylum claims from Mexico increased more than 22,600 per cent since the year the Liberals were elected, to 25,236 in 2023 from 111 in 2015 in 2023 — the highest number of claims from any country last year.
The backlog of claims from Mexico currently sits at over 28,000, according to the department.
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