Trump Shares Call for U.S. Immigration Pathway as Canadian Jews Explore Leaving Canada

By Joseph Marshall

President Donald Trump on Sunday drew attention to a growing effort to create a special legal pathway for Canadian Jews seeking to relocate to the United States, sharing a report about the proposal on his Truth Social account as nearly 2,000 Jewish Canadians have expressed interest in leaving the country.

Trump shared the report at 8:19 a.m. Sunday without adding any comment of his own. The White House has not announced a new immigration policy for Canadian Jews and there is no indication that Trump has formally approved the proposal, but his decision to circulate it places the issue directly before the president after months of discussions involving Jewish organizations, American officials and a relocation program in Oklahoma.

The latest request was sent to Trump on Thursday by the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, together with religious leaders and other civic figures. The group is asking the administration to direct the U.S. State Department and Department of Homeland Security to develop what it described as “lawful, secure and appropriately expedited” pathways for Jewish Canadian citizens and their immediate families who can demonstrate persecution or a credible fear based on their Jewish identity or religion.

The proposal does not call for normal immigration screening to be waived. According to the letter, applicants would still be subject to identity verification, criminal-history checks, medical screening, security requirements and other U.S. admissibility rules. The group asked the administration to examine existing refugee, humanitarian and visa authorities rather than wait for Congress to establish an entirely new immigration category.

“For generations, America has served as a refuge for people fleeing religious persecution,” the letter said. “We urge you to ensure that, consistent with federal law and the security interests of the United States, that door remains open to our Jewish brothers and sisters in Canada who need it today.”

The letter was signed by National Association of Christian Lawmakers founder and president Jason Rapert, former U.S. senator and Kansas governor Sam Brownback, who also served as U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, and a group of state legislators, religious leaders and civic figures. Copies were also sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, congressional leaders and members of the Senate and House of Representatives.

The figure of more than 2,000 Canadian Jews cited in the appeal does not represent 2,000 refugee or asylum applications. It comes largely from inquiries received by an existing Oklahoma program assisting Jewish Canadians who are considering moving to the United States.

Joe Roberts, executive director of Jewish Tulsa, told The Canadian Press earlier this month that between 800 and 900 Canadian Jewish families, representing approximately 2,000 people, had contacted the Tulsa Tomorrow organization about the possibility of leaving Canada and relocating to Oklahoma.

Tulsa Tomorrow and the Jewish Federation of Tulsa established Lech L’Tulsa specifically for Jewish Canadian citizens. The program offers qualifying Canadian households up to US$4,000 in relocation reimbursement, immigration-lawyer support and assistance finding employment, housing and connections within Tulsa’s Jewish community. It also organizes visits for prospective residents, covering airfare and accommodations apart from a trip deposit.

The program does not grant immigration status, sponsor visas or allow Canadians to bypass American immigration law. Families considering a move still require a legal basis to live and work in the United States, which has become one of the reasons supporters of the initiative are now pressing Washington to establish another route for those who say they no longer feel secure in Canada.

The push for such a route began well before Thursday’s letter.

In June, JNS reported that Jewish communities in Canada, France, Britain and Spain had contacted officials at the State Department to explore whether refugee or other protected-status immigration options could be made available because of growing anti-Jew hatred in their countries. A State Department official confirmed that the approaches had taken place, although there was no indication at the time that the department had acted on the requests.

Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, Trump’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, said during a July 28 visit to Ottawa that Washington was not then considering the resettlement of Canadian Jews.

“We weigh everything, but we would hope that the Canadian government would step in to make sure that their Canadian Jewish citizens feel safe in Canada,” Kaploun told The Canadian Press. “I’m here to ask the Canadian government to do a better job to protect their Jewish citizens. I’m not wading into what we will do in the future.”

Trump’s decision Sunday to share the latest appeal does not change that policy by itself, but it marks the first indication that the issue has received the president’s personal attention.

The calls for an American immigration option come after nearly three years of sharply increased anti-Jew hatred across Canada, including attacks against synagogues, schools, Jewish-owned businesses and community institutions.

Statistics Canada recorded 788 police-reported hate crimes targeting Jews in 2025. That was a decline from the revised figure of 943 in 2024, but Jews remained by far the most frequently targeted religious group in the country. Of 1,115 police-reported hate crimes motivated by religion last year, 788 targeted Jews, accounting for more than 70 per cent of the total.

The numbers remain particularly disproportionate given the size of Canada’s Jewish population, which represents roughly one per cent of the country’s population.

Prime Minister Mark Carney acknowledged the extent of the problem during a June address at Toronto’s Holy Blossom Temple, saying anti-Jew hatred in Canada had reached levels “not seen in the post-war period.”

Carney cited bullets fired at Jewish schools, firebomb attacks against synagogues, attacks on community centres and Jewish-owned businesses, harassment of Jewish patients in hospitals, the targeting of Jewish students on university campuses and the desecration of Holocaust memorials. He also acknowledged that Jewish parents were being forced to consider whether it was safe to send their children to Jewish schools and that observant Jews were thinking twice about wearing a kippah in public.

“The crisis of antisemitism in Canada today is specific, severe, and demands a targeted response,” Carney said.

The federal government has since introduced a series of measures aimed at responding to hate crimes. The Combatting Hate Act, formerly Bill C-9, received Royal Assent on June 18 and came into force July 18. The legislation created new offences involving intimidation or obstruction at places of worship, schools and community centres, established a specific hate-motivated crime offence and created an offence involving the public display of certain terrorism and Nazi symbols for the purpose of wilfully promoting hatred.

Carney also created the Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion and directed its first work toward anti-Jew hatred, including examining its scale and causes in Canadian institutions, workplaces, universities and online spaces and developing a government-wide response.

Those measures have come as the federal government’s own research continues to document the experiences of Canadian Jews.

A national report released this month and commissioned by the Government of Canada surveyed approximately 900 Jewish postsecondary students across the country. It found that 95.7 per cent of those surveyed had experienced or witnessed at least one incident they considered antisemitic during the previous 12 months.

Seventy per cent said their university did not take anti-Jew hatred seriously, 68 per cent said their campus was not a safe and inclusive place for Jewish students and 72 per cent said they limited what they said in class about being Jewish. Fifty-seven per cent said they avoided wearing or displaying Jewish symbols because of safety concerns.

The report also found that 54 per cent of respondents had encountered intimidation or threats directed at Jews and 22 per cent reported encountering physical violence against Jews. Approximately one-quarter of those surveyed said they had considered leaving their university because of anti-Jew hatred.

The survey was conducted between November and December 2025 and recruited respondents through Jewish student and community networks. The report therefore describes the experiences of the Jewish students who participated and does not claim that its percentages can automatically be applied to every Jewish postsecondary student in Canada.

The Canadian situation has increasingly become an issue outside the country as well. What began largely as Jewish community discussions about personal security has expanded into conversations about whether Jews in Canada should maintain what some community leaders have called a “Plan B,” including relocation to Israel or the United States.

The Tulsa initiative has become one of the most organized examples. Lech L’Tulsa is continuing to accept Canadian applicants and is currently planning another visit for the fall of 2026. The program says it will assist families who decide to proceed with employment opportunities, real estate and integration into the local Jewish community.

Oklahoma has also been identified in the National Association of Christian Lawmakers letter as a state prepared to receive Jewish Canadian families. The letter says Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt has told Trump that the state would welcome Jewish families who legally immigrate to the United States, although no separate public statement from the governor outlining such a program has been released.

Any Canadian Jew attempting to obtain refugee or asylum protection in the United States would still have to meet American legal requirements unless the administration establishes another applicable immigration pathway. One potential obstacle that does not apply, however, is the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement. The agreement specifically states that it does not apply to refugee-status claimants who are citizens of Canada or the United States.

For now, there is no American program specifically admitting Canadian Jews and no indication from the White House, State Department or Department of Homeland Security that one has been approved.

What has changed is the level at which the issue is being discussed. In June, Canadian Jewish representatives were quietly approaching the State Department about possible protected immigration routes. By July, Trump’s antisemitism envoy was publicly being asked whether the United States might accept Canadian Jews. In August, an American political and religious coalition formally asked the president to act, citing approximately 2,000 Jewish Canadians considering relocation.

On Sunday morning, the president of the United States put that request on his own social-media feed.