Pro- and anti- immigration protesters face off at Lacolle Border crossing

CTV Montreal: Dueling protests at Lacolle border There was a clash between pro-immigration and Far-Right groups at the Lacolle border crossing on Saturday.

Members of the right-wing group Storm Alliance held a rally at the St-Bernard-de-Lacolle border crossing to protest what they call the destructive policies of Justin Trudeau's government, while Solidarity Across Borders, held a counter demonstration to symbolically show support for refugees.

Around 200 members of Storm Alliance traded insults across a police line with the group of pro-refugee protesters outside the St-Bernard-de-Lacolle border station.

Solidarity Across Borders is vocal in both its support of refugee arrivals, and its denouncing of racism and the Far-Right.

Their spokesperson on the spot at Lacolle, Anas Bouslikane, called for a better reception of asylum seekers in Quebec and Canada.

He also described the group's presence at the border as highly symbolic, since it is here that thousands of migrants of Haitian origin entered Quebec during the summer, fleeing the policies of US President Donald Trump.

For Bouslikane, it was important for the demonstrators in his camp to face the extreme right-wing group Storm Alliance, whose aim is to intimidate asylum-seekers, he said.

The Storm Alliance Group appealed to its supporters on Facebook to participate in Saturday's protests against Justin Trudeau's "destructive'' policies in Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec, Edmonton, Alberta, Windsor, Ontario and than in New Brunswick.

Tensions were high at the border—the first of its kind since a demonstration in Quebec City back in August turned violent.

Riot police intervened in a minor scuffle early on but there was no escalation of violence.

The protest temporarily halted traffic from the U.S. into Canada, redirecting commuters to other points of entry nearby.