Arrest without charge, indefinite detention, traumatizing conditions: Canada has long used immigration practices akin to its more infamous neighbor to the south. But when COVID-19 drew attention to the extra vulnerability faced by incarcerated people, something began to change. UBC legal scholars Efrat Arbel and Molly Joeck found that more migrants in Canada were being released and fewer were being detained. It signaled an important shift in how immigration detention was adjudicated, and who was taken to be at risk when people crossed borders. A new progressive window was finally opening – or so it seemed. How was this shift justified and could it be maintained when COVID was no longer a main concern?