Vote love island

WASHINGTON — The United States and Canada have reached an agreement that will allow both countries to divert asylum seekers from their borders at a time when migration has surged across the hemisphere, a U.S. official familiar with the agreement said Thursday.

The deal, which is set to be announced Friday by President Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after the two leaders meet in Ottawa, will allow Canada to turn back immigrants at Roxham Road, a popular unofficial crossing point from New York for migrants seeking asylum in Canada.

In exchange, Canada has agreed to provide a new, legal refugee program for 15,000 migrants who are fleeing violence, persecution and economic devastation in South and Central America, the official said, lessening the pressure of illegal crossings into the United States from Mexico.

Mr. Biden arrived in Ottawa on Thursday evening for a 24-hour visit meant to underscore the unity of purpose between the United States and Canada after four years of frosty and even openly hostile exchanges between Mr. Trudeau and former President Donald J. Trump.

But the visit — long delayed from its usual place as an American president’s first trip abroad after taking office — will also expose some difficult issues between the two countries, including the longstanding debate over how to govern the movement of people across the border between them.

The agreement removes one of the relatively few disputes between Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Biden. The two leaders are also expected to discuss differences over how to stabilize Haiti, and the global race to develop critical minerals needed to make batteries and other technology.

But the accord is likely to further anger advocates for refugees, who are already frustrated with Mr. Biden’s decision to crack down on asylum seekers at the southern border with Mexico.

Mr. Trudeau’s government has been pushing for months to expand a 2004 migration treaty with the United States that limits how many asylum seekers Canada can turn away at its border and send back to the United States.

The treaty only allows Canada to turn back a migrant — for example, someone fleeing violence in El Salvador — if the person crosses at an official port of entry between the two countries. Crossings at unofficial points of entry like Roxham Road have surged in the past several years, putting pressure on Mr. Trudeau to limit them.

(Asylum seekers who come from other countries by plane or by ship are not covered by the agreement regardless of where they enter. They are comparatively few in number and, in many cases, are detained until their hearings.)

Until recently, officials in the United States have been resisting a change in the treaty. But members of governments on both sides of the border said conversations have been underway in an attempt to resolve the issue ahead of the daylong summit.

For Mr. Biden, the deal could help lessen the record number of migrants who have surged toward the southern U.S. border through Mexico, driven by political instability across the region and economic changes that have increased poverty.

The idea is that the agreement would divert up to 15,000 migrants each year from that dangerous trek, leaving the Biden administration with fewer migrants to turn away.

At the northern U.S. border, the agreement will allow Canada to turn back to the United States migrants who have decided to try their luck with the Canadian asylum system rather than to win protection in the United States.

Mr. Trudeau’s government has welcomed refugees from Syria and elsewhere, and has pledged to increase immigration, earning Canada a reputation as being more open to migrants than many other Western nations. But over the past year, as migration has swelled at Canada’s border, there are signs that the country’s famed hospitality toward migrants may be fraying.

The nearly 40,000 migrants who crossed into the country last year — more than double the number in 2019 — have given Canada a small taste of the challenges that other Western countries have faced in settling refugees and prompted Mr. Trudeau’s opponents to call for him to renegotiate a key agreement on asylum seekers with the United States. The number arriving each month has spiked, with almost 5,000 people arriving in January.

On Friday, Mr. Biden will meet with Mr. Trudeau and deliver an address to the Canadian Parliament, a tradition that was embraced by former Presidents Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

Top American officials in Canada and Washington stressed the personal chemistry between the current leaders. One official, speaking to reporters this week, said the prime minister and president have a “Justin and Joe” relationship that includes each of them having the other “on speed dial” for frequent consultations.

That stems in part from Mr. Biden’s longstanding history with Mr. Trudeau’s family. As a young senator in the early 1970s, Mr. Biden met Mr. Trudeau’s father, Pierre Trudeau, who was then the country’s prime minister. In a speech six years ago, Mr. Biden praised Pierre Trudeau as a “decent and honorable” man who had raised a successful son.

Officials said Mr. Biden would use the speech to highlight the years of cooperation between the two countries on the war in Ukraine, climate change, confronting China and the global economy. They said he would also talk about the mutual benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act and the Chips Act, which provide incentives to North American companies for the production of silicon chips, car batteries and steel.

“In the first year of this administration, we focused on rebuilding that bilateral relationship,” John F. Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said. “This visit is about taking stock of what we’ve done, where we are, and what we need to prioritize for the future.”

The spirit of cooperation stands in stark contrast to the tension during Mr. Trump’s administration. In 2018, after attending a Group of 7 summit meeting in Charlevoix, Quebec, Mr. Trump angrily withheld his signature from the leaders’ statement and blasted Mr. Trudeau as “very dishonest and weak.” The relationship between the two men never improved.

Officials on both sides expect far more harmonious meetings during the current visit, which will conclude with a gala dinner at the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum.

But the agenda includes some issues on which the two countries disagree.

Mr. Biden and Mr. Trudeau are also expected to discuss efforts to help stabilize Haiti after devastating natural disasters and political violence and unrest. The United States has said it believes an international security force is needed, and has urged Canada — which has deep ties to the island — to lead it, something Mr. Trudeau has so far resisted.

American officials declined to say whether Mr. Biden would pressure Mr. Trudeau to accept such a leading role, a decision the Canadian leader has said must be informed by his country’s long history in previous security efforts and the lessons it has learned.

“They will continue to talk about ways we can continue to support, from a humanitarian assistance perspective, the people of Haiti and Haitian national security forces,” Mr. Kirby told reporters at the White House.

“As for, you know, a multinational force or anything like that, I don’t want to get ahead of the conversation here,” he added. “If there’s a place for that, that’s all going to have to be worked out directly with the Haitian government and with the U.N.”

Mr. Biden and Mr. Trudeau are also expected to touch on longstanding disputes between their industries, such as those over the dairy and timber trade. U.S. technology companies have also urged the Biden administration to push back against a proposed digital services tax in Canada, saying that the bulk of revenues would be collected from American firms.

But experts said the meeting would likely take a wider lens on the trade relationship, focusing on how the countries could align their policies to take on larger challenges like climate change, economic and security threats from China, and the war in Ukraine.

“The competition is not within North America, it is without,” Louise Blais, a former Canadian diplomat, said in a virtual panel discussion Wednesday hosted by the Americas Society/Council of the Americas and the Woodrow Wilson Center Canada Institute.

One issue that would be raised in this context, Ms. Blais said, is that of the critical minerals that power electric vehicle batteries, like lithium, nickel, graphite and cobalt. China dominates the global processing of these important materials, and U.S. officials have begun holding talks with allies about new sourcing arrangements.

Canada has large reserves of critical minerals that could be developed with U.S. investment and assistance, Ms. Blais said. But the Canadian government will want to make clear to the United States that it is not interested in “just a raw export of those minerals.” Instead, it would argue for developing integrated, continental supply chains for electric vehicles that will reinforce the Canadian manufacturing sector.

“This is what I’d love to see coming out of this meeting, a reaffirmation on the part of the president and the prime minister that we’re going to be developing our industrial policy together and in a comprehensive, integrated way,” Ms. Blais said.

Some U.S. provisions to offer incentives for the production of high-tech equipment have rankled allies in the European Union, South Korea, Britain and elsewhere who say they unfairly penalize foreign companies.

As a result of an aggressive lobbying push last year, Canadian companies qualify for some of these benefits, such as tax incentives for electric vehicles that source critical minerals from Canada or Mexico. But Canadian officials remain concerned about the potential for large U.S. subsidies and other requirements for using American-made materials to tilt the playing field and draw more manufacturing south.

Instead, some analysts say more focus should be on constructing an integrated North American economy, which could better compete with new threats from China and Russia.

“If we’re not working together in this new world that we face, I think both of our securities and frankly economic well-being is at risk,” Eric Farnsworth, the vice president of the Council of the Americas and the Americas Society, said during the panel discussion Wednesday. “I think both leaders certainly get that, the governments get it, but sometimes interest group politics intervene.”

Ana Swanson

ALBANY — If everything had gone according to plan, Thursday should have marked the beginning of a well-earned break for the state’s 213 lawmakers, as the 2017 legislative session drew to a close.

Instead, the day was spent in confusion and full of pointed language over one primary piece of unfinished business: the recurrent debate over how long New York City’s schools should remain under the control of the city’s mayor, Bill de Blasio.

The session ended Wednesday night without an agreement to extend mayoral control, casting an aura of uncertainty over the leadership of the nation’s largest public school system and its 1.1 million students.

By the next morning, there were hints of progress: A one-year compromise was being floated, and Assembly members were being asked if they would consider returning to Albany on Friday to vote on the issue.

But a few hours later, hopes of a quick resolution seemed misplaced. The Assembly speaker, Carl M. Heastie, a Bronx Democrat, released a statement saying that his chamber had “no plan to return.” Scott Reif, a spokesman for the Senate leader, John J. Flanagan, a Long Island Republican, indicated that senators would not come back unless a firm deal was in place.

Finally, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo emerged after days of public absence, suggesting that mayoral control was more complex — and less universally loved — than it appeared, and leveling his most stringent criticism toward the Assembly, led by members of his own Democratic Party.

“For a legislature to leave with one million children returning to what we know was a failed management system is a dereliction of duty,” the governor said during a nearly hourlong news conference in the Capitol’s ceremonial Red Room. “Frankly, it’s worse for the Assembly because the Assembly represents New York City much more than the State Senate.”

Mr. Cuomo’s remarks came amid a growing sense that a deal on mayoral control could be elusive, despite optimistic talk from City Hall. Even after the Legislature went home just before midnight on Wednesday — and weary staffers began to fill up bars near the Capitol — Eric Phillips, a spokesman for Mr. de Blasio, issued a statement saying “there’s time left to get this deal done.”

Mr. Phillips was technically right: Mr. de Blasio’s control over the schools is in effect through June 30. And early Thursday, the Mayor sounded hopeful during his weekly radio interview, telling WNYC’s Brian Lehrer that it was not yet “time to assess blame because there’s still a way to resolve this.”

“It’s June 22 this morning; we’ve got precisely eight days, so that’s when the proof will be in the pudding,” he said.

The impasse between the Senate and the Assembly is born of principle and political pragmatism. The Assembly had passed a two-year extension of the school control plan in May, but linked it to an extension of a raft of local taxes due to expire later this year. Republicans in the Senate did not like that linkage, and would only vote for mayoral control if the number of charter schools in the state was increased, an idea that was, in turn, a non-starter for Assembly Democrats.

Both chambers’ allegiances are at least partly for financial reasons: Charter schools and their supporters have given significant campaign funding to Republican candidates and Mr. Cuomo; public school unions have consistently backed Democrats in the Assembly.

In each of the last two years, the Senate has been stingy with Mr. de Blasio, giving him only one-year extensions, after granting his predecessor, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a six-year extension in 2009. This year, Mr. Heastie staked out a position that mayoral control should not be bargained over, precipitating the game of political chicken — something Mr. de Blasio, who has a chilly relationship with Mr. Cuomo and Senate Republicans, applauded on Thursday.

“You know, I was a legislator — there’s always a path to yes,” Mr. de Blasio said. One possible deal being discussed would not grant more charters, giving Mr. Heastie a partial win, but would change the rules for counting defunct charters, allowing Mr. Flanagan to claim some type of victory, too.

For his part, Mr. Cuomo said that he was continuing to talk with Mr. Heastie and other interested parties, and would call the Legislature back for a special session if there was an agreement between both chambers. The stakes would seem to rise if Mr. de Blasio actually lost control on July 1, including for Mr. Cuomo, who is said to harbor presidential ambitions and has staked his reputation on banishing dysfunction from the state capital.

The governor saw his streak of on-time or close to it budgets broken in April, but still said on Thursday that he was “very pleased” with a session that included accomplishments like a tuition-free college plan and raising the age of criminal responsibility. But, he conceded, “we are not going to agree on everything always.”

Including, of course, on who was to blame for the collapse of talks on Wednesday. Mike Whyland, a spokesman for Mr. Heastie, said that “the governor is entitled to his own opinion” but called Mr. Cuomo’s remarks “an unfair characterization of this process.”

“We share in his frustration,” Mr. Whyland said. “We’re moving on and trying to get this resolved.”

Senate Republicans echoed the determination to get a deal, and the dismissal of the governor’s critique.

“No one can say that our Senate majority hasn’t done the people’s business,” Mr. Reif said.