Western Law students, along with students from 22 universities across Canada, are spending 12 hours researching possible legal changes to the Safe Third Country Agreement.
The “research-a-thon” is focusing on the Safe Third Country Agreement because of the effects it’s having on those being marginalized in the United States.
“It’s a bilateral agreement between Canada and the United States. If you try to seek asylum in one country, you are unable to do so in the other. The effect that this has had on the ground right now is because of the travel ban, there are many people seeking asylum and refugee status in the United States who are now barred from doing so in Canada,” Western Law student Yasmin Sattarzadeh explains.
What started out as a project at the McGill Faculty of Law picked up stream nationwide, and even with only 24 hours notice, around 80 Western students are doing their part.
Nusaiba Al-Azem says it’s encouraging to see people coming together.
“It’s amazing to me as a visible minority that this is happening on the National Day of Action Against Islamophobia. So there’s people taking a stand in the streets and then there’s law students across Canada taking a stand at their computers.”
The official hashtag being used across Canada is #research4refugees
