28 The Americas The EconomistJuly 20th 2019
21claims worsen overcrowding in American
detention centres and lengthen delays.
Even genuine refugees should not be able
to “shop” for asylum in their preferred
country, they grumble.
The Trump administration’s response
has been to narrow its interpretation of
what asylum means and, at the same time,
to transfer to other countries responsibil-
ity for caring for asylum-seekers and judg-
ing their cases. It has tightened the stan-
dards under which victims of gang
violence or domestic abuse can claim they
are suffering from “persecution”.
Mr Trump’s latest order makes mi-
grants’ situation more uncertain than ever.
The recent deal with Mexico now seems
“obsolete”, says Andrew Selee of the Migra-
tion Policy Institute, a think-tank in Wash-
ington, dc. Instead of waiting in Mexico for
a ruling from American authorities, mi-
grants are now expected to stay in a country
that cannot provide security to its own citi-
zens. Those still determined to reach the
United States may have to pay large sums to
people-trafficking gangs and risk their
lives in the desert.
Migrants’ hopes of a less perilous pas-
sage depend on whether American courts
overturn the new policies. They have al-
ready struck down a rule that denied the
right to claim asylum to people who cross
the border without authorisation. The “re-
main in Mexico” policy faces a challenge.
Mr Trump’s latest order is illegal because
the United States has no safe-third-country
agreements with any of the Latin American
countries to which it might send asylum-
seekers, contends Lee Gelernt of the Ameri-
can Civil Liberties Union, which has filed a
lawsuit against the new rule.
Tamaulipas, a hub for drug-trafficking,
is among Mexico’s least safe states. News-
paper offices have memorials to murdered
journalists. Truckloads of armed men
prowl the roads at night. But more mi-
grants go through Tamaulipas than any
other state. Miami-bound Cubans and
Venezuelans often choose it as the shortest
route without taking account of the dan-
gers. America sends a third of deported
Mexican migrants to Nuevo Laredo. Those
waiting in shelters are reluctant to venture
outside. One risk is that drug gangs will try
to press them into service. Their favourite
recruits are said to be Cubans, who typical-
ly have military training (as conscripts in
the Cuban army).
Eldis, the 46-year-old from central
Cuba, has waited eight weeks in Tamauli-
pas to apply for asylum in the United States
but is now unsure what to do. He expects
that Mr Trump will reverse his decision, at
least as it applies to Cubans, when he real-
ises that it could cost him votes in Florida, a
swing state. If not, he will ring the Canadi-
an embassy, he says. Chances are, he will
get a friendlier refusal. 7W
hen 12 north atlanticright whales
died in the Gulf of St Lawrence in the
spring and early summer of 2017, Canada
imposed speed limits on large ships in the
area and told snow-crab fishermen to
move. In the following year the govern-
ment worked with researchers, fishermen
and the shipping industry to refine the re-
strictions. No whales died in the gulf in- “We kept wondering if what we had
done was good, or were we lucky?” says
Moira Brown, a scientist at the Canadian
Whale Institute, a research body.
Apparently it was luck. Six right whales
died in the gulf in June this year after col-
liding with ships or getting entangled in
fishing lines. Three others were spotted
near Miscou Island trailing ropes, which
attach crab and lobster traps on the seabed
to buoys (see map). Just 400 North Atlantic
right whales, which can grow to 18 metres
(60 feet) in length, remain alive. The steps
Canada is taking to save them from extinc-
tion are expensive for industry.
On July 8th Canada responded to the lat-
est deaths by expanding the zone in which
ships must observe a ten-knot speed limit,
reducing to 13 metres from 20 the length of
ships that must comply, increasing aerial
surveillance of whales and extending the
period during which a fishing area must
close after a whale is sighted. The measures
will reduce risk for whales but will not
eliminate it, says Jonathan Wilkinson,
Canada’s fisheries minister.
The whales, which migrate annually
north from the coast of Florida, have been
“showing up in areas where we did not an-
ticipate they would be”, says Mr Wilkinson.
Because of climate change the Gulf of
Maine, where the whales used to stay, is
warming faster than almost all other ocean
regions. That has pushed northward their
favourite food, copepods, a kind of small
crustacean.
The Canadian waters into which the
whales are now venturing hold some
400,000 fishing lines. That is in addition
to the 600,000 the animals navigate al-
ready. An analysis of 30 years of data
showed that every year a quarter of right
whales, which can live to be 100, are
wounded by fishing gear. There is “no place
within the fished area along the east coast
of North America for which entanglementOTTAWA
Ships and fishing lines are killing an endangeredspeciesWildlifeRight whales, wrong place
UNITED
STATESCANADAGulf of Saint
LawrenceCabot StraitNORTH
ATLANTIC
OCEANNew
BrunswickNova
ScotiaNewfoundland
and LabradorCampobello
IslandMiscou
QuebecIslandMaineMontreal
390 kmGulf of
Maine 200 km Area of potential fishing
and speed restrictionsNot many left