The Trump administration announced this morning, that it is ending the Temporary Protected Status program that allowed Haitians to seek refuge in the United States in the aftermath the deadly earthquake that rocked the country in 2010.
59,000 Haitians living in the US will lose their status in July of 2019, at which time they will face deportation if they have not already left voluntarily.
A wave of asylum seekers poured over the US-Canada border into Quebec this summer after the White House indicated that the program would soon come to an end; many of those migrants remain in camps waiting to be processed by Immigration Canada.
The Trudeau government says it is preparing some contingency plans in case the news prompts another wave of illegal border crossings into Canada.
"It is still too early to know what will happen here," said Rivka Augenfeld, a refugee advocate who has worked closely with Haitian migrants. "What we know for sure is that Haiti is not ready to take back so many people."
Augenfeld said that the decision form the White House should indicate to Canadians that the United States is no longer a country that is safe for refugees, and the Trudeau government should immidiately suspent the Safe Third Country agreement.
Canada's Border Service Agency was not available to comment on its preparedness to take on another wave of migrants, but Carl Boisvert, spokesperson for the Red Cross says his organization is ready help out if they are needed.
"For now we are working with the Border Service Agency and we are still present at the border," he said. "If the agency wants us to be more involved, it will be possible to do it."
The immediate focus of Red Cross continues to be providing services to the many migrants that have already crossed into Canada.