In the shadows of Canada’s progressive image lies an unsettling truth: for decades, the country has operated as a revolving door for the world’s most dangerous individuals. While its leaders drape themselves in virtue, professing an open-arms approach to immigration, the consequences of their recklessness have landed squarely on the doorsteps of both Canada and the United States.
The growing public frustration with Canada’s broken immigration system has placed increasing pressure on Ottawa to tighten its policies.
The cracks in this illusion are no longer hypothetical. They are now real, violent, and all too frequent. Whether through terrorist sympathizers who slip through the system unchecked or human smugglers exploiting the vast northern border, the consequences of Canada’s willful negligence are becoming impossible to ignore.
The Warning Signs Canada Refuses to Heed
Just months ago, Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, a 20-year-old Pakistani national living in Canada on a student visa, was arrested in an FBI sting while attempting to carry out a mass shooting against Jewish communities in New York City. His plan, inspired by Hamas’s October 7th attack on Israel, was designed to kill as many innocent civilians as possible. And yet, Canada — so insistent that its screening procedures are rigorous — somehow allowed him to settle in the country, study, and plot an atrocity just miles from the U.S. border.
Khan is not an anomaly. He is a symptom.
Last year, Mostafa Eldidi, an Egyptian national, and his son were arrested in Toronto while preparing to launch a large-scale attack on Canadian soil. Eldidi had already become a Canadian citizen, exposing a glaring failure in Canada’s naturalization process: not only are potential threats entering the country, but they are embedding themselves into the very fabric of its society.
Canada’s immigration system — once viewed as a model of modern governance — is, in fact, the weakest link in North American security. It is a sieve through which criminals, extremists, and traffickers pass unchallenged, taking advantage of policies that prioritize political optics over national safety.
The Border No One Is Watching
For years, the spotlight has rightfully been on America’s porous southern border. But the northern border — the longest undefended border in the world — is now becoming an entryway for illegal crossings, human smuggling, and terror networks.
Take the case of Ana Karen Vasquez-Flores, a pregnant woman from Mexico who drowned last December trying to cross the freezing Great Chazy River from Canada into New York. She was lured by smugglers who advertised their services openly on social media, promising easy passage into the U.S. for the right price. Her tragic death is a symptom of a booming industry: Canadian coyotes are now openly advertising illegal crossings into the United States on platforms like TikTok, with customers ranging from economic migrants to individuals who cannot afford the scrutiny of legal border crossings.
And who are these migrants? The majority may be economic asylum seekers, but the U.S. has already apprehended multiple “Special Interest Aliens” crossing from Canada — individuals from countries with known links to terrorism. How many more have made it through undetected?
Despite these obvious vulnerabilities, Canada has refused to take any meaningful action. It has resisted calls to increase border enforcement, overhaul its vetting processes, or even acknowledge the scope of the problem. Instead, it continues to operate under a dangerous delusion — that its openness is a virtue, rather than an invitation for abuse.
A Crisis That Spills Across Borders
This is not just a Canadian issue. It is a North American security crisis.
The United States cannot afford to ignore what is happening just miles away from its cities and communities. Every failure in Canada’s immigration system is a risk exported south. Every smuggler operating with impunity in Quebec or British Columbia is a direct threat to the safety of Americans.
And yet, this problem remains one of the least discussed security threats of our time. Politicians on both sides of the border continue to act as though the primary concern is the southern frontier, while thousands of miles of uncontrolled northern terrain remain an open door to the worst actors on the planet.
America must demand that Canada step up. It must insist on intelligence-sharing, increased border surveillance, and a comprehensive overhaul of the screening process for those entering or gaining citizenship in the country. And if Canada refuses? Then the United States must take unilateral action, deploying resources and personnel to close the gap where Canadian negligence has left a gaping hole.
Canada: The Road to Reform
For decades, Canada has traded on its reputation as a polite, progressive neighbor — a country that, in its own eyes, is free from the security dilemmas that plague the rest of the world. That assumption has led to a dangerous level of complacency, one that has been reinforced by successive Liberal governments that have embraced mass immigration as an unquestioned good, with little regard for the long-term consequences.
But there is reason to believe change may be coming. The growing public frustration with Canada’s broken immigration system has placed increasing pressure on Ottawa to tighten its policies, and with Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre surging in the polls, a shift in approach may soon become a reality. Unlike the Trudeau administration, which has prioritized expanding immigration numbers at all costs, Poilievre has signaled that he will take a harder line on border security and national security vetting.
A new government in Canada could mark the beginning of a long-overdue course correction. A robust security-first approach — one that balances immigration with national interest — could restore credibility to Canada’s border management and prevent it from continuing to be a liability for both itself and its allies. That means ending the blind acceptance of asylum claims without proper scrutiny, dramatically increasing enforcement along the U.S. border, and revisiting citizenship policies that have allowed bad actors to integrate into Canadian society unchecked.
None of this will happen overnight, and none of it will happen without serious political will. But the alternative — continuing down the current path of inaction — will only ensure that the problem grows more dangerous with time.
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