Could Canada really become the US's 51st state?
Canada's relationship with the United States is back in the spotlight after US President Donald Trump suggested that Canada could be annexed as the 51st American state. The comment has sparked political backlash and heightened tensions on both sides of the border.
So is this threat of annexation credible?
This week in UpFront, Redi Tlhabi speaks with Canada's ambassador to the United Nations, Bob Rae.
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Mayor Bass announces a curfew for a portion of the downtown area, effective from 8pm on Tuesday until 6am on Wednesday. The curfew covers an area of approximately 20sq km (7.7sq miles). The state of California has the largest Latino or Hispanic population of any US state, both in total numbers and as a share of its population, with nearly half of its residents identifying as such in the 2024 Census. Los Angeles is the United States's second-largest city, after New York City, with a population of some 3.8 million residents within its city limits. The city is home to more than 1.35 million migrants, which means that one in every three residents is a migrant, according to the LA city government in Angeles is one of many self-claimed sanctuary cities across the US, which limit their cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, particularly US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to protect undocumented citizens from detention and deportation. 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Americans voted to end the invasion. Democrat rioters are now waging violent insurrection to overturn the election result and continue the invasion.' America was invaded by illegal aliens. Americans voted to end the invasion. Democrat rioters are now waging violent insurrection to overturn the election result and continue the invasion. — Stephen Miller (@StephenM) June 10, 2025Miller shared an image from the Los Angeles riots, showing a rioter waving a Mexican flag. Miller wrote 'According to Governor Newsom, this is what the Founders were fighting for'. According to Governor Newsom, this is what the Founders were fighting for: — Stephen Miller (@StephenM) June 11, 2025 No. In fact, the opposite is true. Data from the US Office of Homeland Security Statistics shows that the number of undocumented migrants has fallen significantly since 2010. In 2010, the population of undocumented immigrants in California was estimated to be 2.9 million. 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Pebley added that since the Great Recession, greater economic stability in Mexico combined with worsening employment opportunities in the US seem to be the main motivating factor behind the voluntary return of Mexican migrants, albeit increasing anti-immigrant notions and laws over the last two decades may have contributed to their continued return. No. In fact, violent crime in the state dropped by 4.6 percent while property crime dropped by 8.5 percent in the state in 2024, compared with 2023, according to an analysis of Real Time Crime Index data by the Public Policy Institute of California. The data showed that in California, robberies, aggravated assaults, vehicle theft, burglary and larceny have decreased. Multiple studies have shown that migrants are consistently less likely to be imprisoned than people born in the US. One such research paper, published in July 2023, analysed 150 years of US Census data and used imprisonment rates as a proxy for crime. The economists found that in more recent years, migrants are 60 percent less likely to be jailed than citizens born in the US. Since the 1990s, the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) has carried out annual surveys of state residents on their perceptions of whether migrants bring benefits to the state – or whether they are a burden. The last survey was carried out by the PPIC in February 2024. Based on this, 60 percent of the state residents believed that migrants were a benefit to the state. However, the percentage of Californians who hold a favourable view about migrants has fallen in recent years. According to the survey PPIC carried out in 2023, 66 percent of Californians believed migrants were a benefit. In 2021, 78 percent of Californians held this view. On Tuesday evening, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) imposed a curfew in the city's downtown and announced that they would carry out 'mass arrests' if people gathered in the designated curfew area. The curfew lasted until 6am (13:00 GMT) on Wednesday. Trump, meanwhile, claimed he would 'liberate' Los Angeles from 'animals' and 'a foreign enemy' – without specifying what he meant. A day earlier, the Trump administration deployed 700 Marines in LA and doubled the number of National Guard soldiers in the city to 4,000. The protests continue to deepen the rift between the Republican Trump administration and the Democratic state government. In an address on Tuesday, Governor Newsom called Trump's use of military power a 'brazen abuse of power'. 'He doubled down on his dangerous National Guard deployment by fanning the flames even harder, and the president – he did it on purpose,' said Newsom. On Monday, the California governor announced that he had filed a lawsuit against Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth 'to end the illegal takeover' of the National Guard. On June 7, Trump federalised the National Guard, marking the first time in 60 years that a US president has activated the guard in defiance of a state governor's wishes.
