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This puts the total spending on ICE and border security at over $120 billion U.S. over four years. While this is a stunning figure, the logic is clear: invest unprecedented billions to detain, deport and deter migrants at any cost. And history shows that when the U.S. flexes its immigration muscles, the fallout doesn’t stay south of the 49th parallel. 

Canada is already seeing the ripple effects. More people are being swept up in Trump’s mass interior raids, . But instead of upholding our long-standing commitments to fairness and protection, Canada is veering toward the same harsh playbook.

Earlier this year, Ottawa tabled the Strong Border, Safe Communities Act (Bill C-2). The bill closes loopholes in the Safe Third Country Agreement, restricts irregular crossings, grants sweeping new detention and removal powers to the Canadian Border Service Agency, expands cross-border surveillance with the U.S., and fast-tracks inadmissibility decisions. At its core, Bill C-2 borrows from the same logic that underpins Trump’s ICE surge: that migration is a threat best met with force, surveillance and deterrence. 

But how does this affect Canada and Canadians? If we care about our global reputation, let alone our Charter values of due process, freedom from arbitrary detention, and equal treatment, we should demand nuance, not mimicry. We shouldn’t allow our leaders to spend billions in taxpayer money to just “keep up” with the Kardashians.

Because once we normalize the framing of immigration as a miliary threat rather than a human reality, the outcome is inevitable and costly. It means bigger detention centres, longer removal backlogs, and growing human rights challenges at the border. 

True protection demands funded reception capacity, legal aid and rigorous refugee determination processes alongside border enforcement. History tells me, deterrence doesn’t solve migration, it just hides it. Walls and raids don’t erase the reasons people move, be it conflict, persecution, or economic desperation.

The more the U.S. tightens the screws, the more people seek pathways elsewhere. And if Canada’s only answer is to mirror that escalation, we risk becoming complicit in a Fortress America mentality that abandons the very ideals we claim to defend. 

I have spent over a decade studying forced migration. I know these policy waves don’t just impact people in abstract ways. They decide whether children are reunited with parents. Whether survivors of violence are protected or pushed back into danger. Whether Canada remains a place where refugee claims are heard with fairness and due process, not filtered by quotas or political optics.

Acting in concert with a U.S. mandate that’s fuelling mass detention and deportation risks shifting our nation’s stance from refuge to refoulement. But we can’t let that happen. We need to hold on to what makes us different. Canada’s refugee system, while imperfect, has long balanced order and compassion. At a time like this, we need to strengthen that legacy, not weaken it under the shadow of Trumps’ ICE megabudget.

Canada faces a choice: do we build a taller fence because our neighbours did and hide the problems, or do we invest in solutions that uphold dignity and fairness while protecting security? The billions now being spent south of the border should be a cautionary tale, not a blueprint.