As this Afghan family was in the fight against ice in bureaucratic summing up

In a quiet, leafy suburb of Toronto, a 30-year-old Afghan woman spends most after lunch on the phone, hoping she would be able to reach two younger siblings.

They are not in Afghanistan, but instead in a few miles, across the US border, they are held as part of the detention of immigration and customs execution (ICE).

Three were there in crowded cells for months, stuck in that their lawyers say it was a bureaucratic limb between Canada and the United States.

They are entitled to asylum in Canada because they have direct relatives who are legal refugees in the country, but can only submit an application to the ground border – and US officials insist that they will only be released if they enter Canada on the air that they cannot do without a visa.

This application for Visa is now under consideration, and they remain detained, now unable to claim Canada and face deportation with the United States.

From her house near Toronto, “Asal” says she tried everything to release them. The BBC uses a nickname because its family belongs to the ethnic and religious minority, which faces persecution in Afghanistan.

She hired lawyers in both countries to press her business and even offered to cover the costs of ice agents who accompany them to the Canada-SSH border to no avail.

The family’s case illustrates how some asylum seekers have come to a rapidly changing policy under the Trump administration, their lawyers and experts say. It also raises questions about whether Canada is responsible for the entry of people into the detention of ICE who have ties with this country.

At the same time, family members of the exali may be sent back to Afghanistan or the third country that does not choose – “the most terrible step of all,” says their American lawyer Jodi Gudwin. This option “exposes them at risk to be sent to God, knowing where, without guarantees,” she said.

Asal said his father worked with US troops as a contractor that made it a potential target for the Taliban when deported back to Afghanistan.

Over the last eight months, Ms. Goodwin has been working to prevent the US authorities from sending a family to his home country.

Meanwhile, their lawyers in Canada pressed the authorities to give the visas they needed for the aircraft. As part of the Immigration Covenant between Canada and the United States, a safe third -country contract – migrants without a visa must demand asylum at the land intersection.

Osal talks to his detained family if he can. Ice allows you to “visit” on the Internet, and it often goes to her 18-year-old sister.

According to a recent call made using the iPad, which she shares with about 80 other cells, her sister offered details of her daily life – her struggle for good night, her habit of laundry only for employment – before she burst into tears.

In the Canadian legal statements shared with the BBC, she claims that she was “shocked” by the ICE detention.

“Every aspect of our lives is controlled, though we are not criminals,” she said.

She describes to go through the search given “almost inedible” food and how the prisoners who refuse to eat threaten “lone imprisonment”.

BBC sought a comment from ICE. Earlier, administration officials defended reports of poor conditions in the US as false.

Asal and the other family say they are struggling to get information about the welfare of the detainees, including the younger brother who was hospitalized for 10 days because of attacks and who has now returned to ICE detention.

The first part of the family, which included the target and two brothers and sisters, arrived in Canada in February 2023, Jan BBC said.

This was their preferred destination after reluctant escape in Afghanistan when violence quickly grew after the Taliban took over.

They went to Iran and from there to Brazil to the United States, where they were spent four days before heading to the northern border and crossing to Canada through the Rockham Road, at the time, a well-run, but an unofficial transition between New York and Quebec. Once in Canada, they successfully fell on the shelter.

“It’s safe. There is security and the community is good,” Asal said.

In August 2024, more and more family members were able to leave Afghanistan and arrived in Canada on a similar path.

But as long as the final group – her mother and father, and her three brothers and sisters – made a trip, politics in North America has changed.

Roxham Road – the unofficial route for the thousands seeking asylum who was part of Canada from 2017 to 2023 – was closed and the United States fought to cope with the splash of migrants on the southern border.

Following the unsuccessful attempt by legal options to enter the US from Mexico, in December there were family members who paid for smuggling across the border, where they then surrendered to the authorities.

In February, her mother was also exempted and one of her sisters was released shortly after Trump took over and signed the executive order, expanding the detention and deportation of migrants and made his way to Canada.

But the other three are still in custody, and US authorities refuse to release them In accordance with the new rulesMs Goodwin says.

The fact that they were not released with the rest in February was reduced to bad terms.

Ms. Goodwin says the official told her that “they just didn’t get to the documents.”

In response to the BBC’s questions in the family case, a high -ranking US internal security official (DHS) says: “Ice will gladly return them to their country of origin” if they are asking for voluntary departure.

They add that the US “is not going to convey illegal foreigners who seek asylum from our country to Canada and vice versa. This is part of good neighbors and partners.”

Adam Sadinsky, one of the Canadian family lawyers, said that Canada had the opportunity to allow this family to reunite.

“We do not want Canada a complicit in this treatment, and the potential result they can be sent to any number of countries with their own inappropriate human rights report,” he says.

Mr. Sadinsky also claims that the permission to enter Canada will comply with the agreement on a safe third country, which contains exceptions aimed at reunification of families.

In a statement by the BBC, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Canada states that he will not comment on the family case, citing privacy legislation.

The case creates an order for Canadian officials, says immigration lawyer Richard Kurland.

Mr. Kurland, who is not involved in his business, told the BBC that the entry permit could create a precedent for others in detention with Ice with connections with Canada. “How can you say” yes “only one family, and then” not “for everyone else?”

But he adds that he believes that both Canada and the US are responsible to ensure that the family is not sent back to Afghanistan.

“It is harsh so that the US does not rule out Kabul’s flight,” he said. “Americans know that they are in the store because they were there in Kabul for over 20 years.”

So far, Asal and her family in Canada continue to suffer from this case, wishing for reunion.

“Believe me when I say I can’t sleep most of the night,” she said.

But she hopes that Canadian officials will pass and “that they will not leave us alone in this situation.”