Samira Mohyeddin is a Toronto-based journalist and the 2024-2025 inaugural journalism fellow at the University of Toronto’s Women and Gender Studies Institute.
Should I go by car? Is it better to fly? Or maybe I should avoid the United States altogether?
These are questions that many Canadians are grappling with today. But some of us are not avoiding the U.S. as part of the “Elbows Up“ movement, or because of patriotic pushback on Donald Trump’s tariffs – some of us have no other choice, because of fear and persecution.
Recently, I cancelled my annual trip to a Detroit music festival and to a conference in Chicago. The Trump administration made it clear that my multiple identities and occupation make me an enemy of the state, three times over; as a lesbian, an academic, and a journalist, I am a prime candidate for persona-non-grata status in the new America. Now, a fourth part of my identity has turned me into an enemy, according to the U.S. government: Iranian-Canadians are reportedly being turned away from the border. Six Iranian-Canadians told The Globe and Mail they’d been prevented from entering on Canadian passports since November. Some have been detained for hours and fingerprinted, their luggage rummaged through and phones taken away.
We are citizens of Canada. Yet the Trump administration is dividing Canadians according to who is and isn’t welcome. We must not allow the United States to create a hierarchy of Canadian citizenship for us. Hostility toward any Canadians should be treated as an attack against all Canadians.
And so the U.S. has not just declared economic war on Canada; it has declared war on our very identity as a country.
The non-response from Canadian lawmakers, however, is sending the wrong message. This weekend, Canada updated its travel advisory for the United States, adding: “Expect scrutiny at ports of entry, including of electronic devices. Comply and be forthcoming in all interactions with border authorities. If you are denied entry, you could be detained while awaiting deportation.” But shouldn’t Canada find a way to do more, to be a sanctuary for those fleeing this new America, and to act as a bulwark against the rising tide of fascism there? We’ve already seen persecuted students fleeing here and other Canadians detained by border agents and held by ICE. What more will it take for Canada to stand up more forcefully against this perverse criminalization of Canadians by the Trump administration?
As an Iranian-Canadian, I’ve grown used to having to pay for the crimes and misdemeanours of the Iranian government. Ever since the high-profile hostage crisis began 1979 – which resulted in Canadian kids at my school tying me to a tree like a hostage at the age of five – I became starkly aware that it didn’t matter how far removed I was from Iran or how much I disdained the Ayatollah; the mere fact that I was born somewhere else meant that I could be discriminated against at best, and assaulted at worst. This type of bigotry, however, does nothing but provide fodder for authoritarian regimes around the world, who will tell their expats it doesn’t matter how much you assimilate; you will always be the Other. But that bigotry was never official national policy.
I’ve lived in Canada for 46 years. My family was given asylum here on May 4, 1979, our immigration papers stamped and signed in Iran by none other than John Sheardown, the Canadian envoy who housed and rescued some of the American hostages in Iran. My parents chose this country as a place of refuge for their children and themselves. That choice is not to be taken lightly. Donald Trump and his administration need to understand that.
Last month, I read that three professors from Yale University – including Timothy Snyder and Jason Stanley, two of the foremost American experts on fascism – had left the U.S. because of the Trump administration’s policies, and were joining the University of Toronto. When fascism experts are fleeing to Canada, you know there’s a crisis. We can’t just chalk this up to Mr. Trump’s erratic personality anymore. The America we once knew as Canadians is being profoundly transformed, and it is time that our lawmakers act accordingly. Canada should declare itself a safe haven for all those fleeing persecution under the new American regime. From transgender people ensnared in Mr. Trump’s cacophony of executive orders to a Fulbright scholar being detained for writing critical op-eds, providing sanctuary is a perfect way for Canada to assert its identity and push back on the authoritarian policies that we are not only witnessing, but in some cases, falling prey to.
We must not allow the United States to separate us as Canadians. It’s not just elbows up: We need to lock arms.
