After journeys through up to 12 countries, asylum seekers rejected by Canada end up stranded in N.Y.

Sitting at the bus and gas station in Plattsburgh, N.Y., 24-year-old Naomie shakes her head.

She spent more than a year on what she calls le chemin de l'enfer, the road to hell, to escape persecution in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and meet up with a long-lost uncle in Montreal, only to end up exhausted and without any money back at this convenience store in upstate New York. 

Naomie fled her country to neighbouring Angola in 2021, after she was raped by her stepfather, a soldier.

In Angola, with next to no resources for asylum seekers, she met a man in a market who said he was willing to help her and rented a little place for her to stay. Naomie says she didn't know he was married and that when his wife found out, she called on a group of bandits who stormed her home in the night. One of the men also raped her.

CBC has agreed not to use Naomie's last name because she fears repercussions to her safety and her immigration file for speaking to media.

"I've been through so many horrible, horrible places," she said, sitting at a table next to the Dunkin' Donuts counter inside the store. "I went through all that, all that, all that for nothing."

More than a month after changes to the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) between Canada and the U.S. effectively closed the Canadian border to asylum seekers, refugee hopefuls like Naomie continue to try to claim asylum in Canada at the border in New York.

Some believe they will qualify for one of the exceptions to the agreement; others still don't know about the changes. Most, including Naomie, have been turned away.

Naomie's attempt to seek asylum in Canada at the official border crossing in Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle south of Montreal was rejected in late April.

Roxham Road, the unofficial crossing point where 40,000 asylum seekers entered on foot in the last year, effectively closed following changes to the STCA between the United States and Canada, announced March 24.

Taxi drivers no longer shuttle people from the Plattsburgh bus station to Roxham as a result, instead driving them to the nearby official point of entry. 

Naomie's expression was stoic as she told her story, resigned and almost in disbelief that she is once again without solid ground to land on. But as she described the events in the DRC and Angola, she wiped away a tear with her sleeve. 

Naomie had learned of the closure of Roxham Road, but she believed she qualified for one of the three exemptions to the agreement.

The exceptions include having a family member with legal status in Canada, being an unaccompanied minor and having a work permit or other official document allowing a person to be in Canada.