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- Roxham Road, known as Rang Roxham or Chemin Roxham for much of its length, is a 5-mile (8.0 km) rural road from the former hamlet of Perry Mills in the town of Champlain, New York, United States, generally north to the vicinity of the former hamlet of Bogton, in the municipality of Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec, Canada. It has existed since the early 19th century, before the Canada–United States border was formally established along the 45th parallel north between the St. Lawrence and Connecticut rivers. For most of its length it is a rural two-lane blacktop; north of Parc Safari, it is also part of Quebec Route 202. For most of its history, it was possible to freely cross the border via Roxham Road, since it largely carried local traffic. Canada established a small customs station just north of the border; the U.S. never followed suit, leaving Roxham an uncontrolled border crossing, even after Canada closed its customs station in the 1950s. That ended when Canadian authorities decided, out of concerns that the terrorist killings at the 1972 Munich Olympics could also occur at the upcoming 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, roughly 60 km (37 mi) north of the border, to barricade all the uncontrolled land border crossings between Quebec and New York, as well as the neighboring U.S. state of Vermont. Since then Roxham has officially been a dead end in both directions at the border. It is still possible, though not legal in either country, to cross the border on foot there, and starting in 2017 Roxham Road carried far more traffic than it ever had as a legal entry into Canada when refugees, some awaiting a decision on permanent legal status in the U.S., fearing a negative outcome due to stricter immigration policies of Donald Trump's presidential administration but most having just briefly passed through the U.S. to get to Canada, began entering Canada via Roxham in order to seek political asylum there. Later, immigrants began coming to the United States specifically to make the crossing at Roxham and apply for asylum in Canada, leading to criticism of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government for his apparent failure to enforce Canadian immigration law and a lawsuit that led to the Safe Third Country Agreement between the two countries being declared unconstitutional in Canada, a verdict since overturned on appeal. Over the next two years, around 90 percent of those who irregularly entered Canada seeking asylum did so via Roxham Road, making it a metonym for the complications of Canada's immigration policies. Housing the asylum seekers required building facilities at the border, a camp nearby (and then in Montreal's Olympic Stadium) at considerable expense to the Canadian government, and led to white nationalist and anti-immigration groups protesting near the border crossing, attracting counterdemonstrations from their opponents. Only when the COVID-19 pandemic required the border be closed completely did this traffic significantly diminish, resulting in the U.S. government detaining those whom Canada returned after refusing them entry and beginning deportation proceedings against them, a controversial move since many of them had cited fear for their safety or freedom in their native countries; Roxham and other irregular Canadian border crossings were reopened in late 2021. (en)
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- Roxham Road, known as Rang Roxham or Chemin Roxham for much of its length, is a 5-mile (8.0 km) rural road from the former hamlet of Perry Mills in the town of Champlain, New York, United States, generally north to the vicinity of the former hamlet of Bogton, in the municipality of Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec, Canada. It has existed since the early 19th century, before the Canada–United States border was formally established along the 45th parallel north between the St. Lawrence and Connecticut rivers. For most of its length it is a rural two-lane blacktop; north of Parc Safari, it is also part of Quebec Route 202. (en)
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