Canada is asking the court to dismiss hundreds of immigration cases. Here’s why

2026/01/23 1 Comment

Makes sense and good to see some due diligence:

Ottawa has asked the Federal Court to throw out hundreds of immigration cases en masse, alleging they were filed by unauthorized agents.

In a motion last month, the immigration minister argued that the 430 applications, seeking relief from court over delays, should be heard and dismissed collectively due to “irregularities” stemming from the “similar format, style and phrasing” in court filings.

The applicants also shared the same home addresses, phone numbers and email accounts despite claiming to have self-represented.

The case involves Chinese applicants who have applied for study, work or visitor permits. They have asked the court to review the processing delays of their individual files and to order the Immigration Department to fast-track the application if the delay was found to be unreasonable.

The use of unscrupulous “ghost agents” has posed an ongoing challenge for immigration officials and legal profession regulators because they operate behind the scenes and cannot be held accountable. Their incompetence can also lead to dire consequences for applicants and abuse of the immigration and legal systems.

Recently, immigration officials appear to have stepped up efforts to detect the involvement of unauthorized agents in applications — and have been going after the applicants as a deterrent. Last year, multiple refugee claims by Sikhs were flagged and rejected for lack of credibility because their narratives were “nearly word for word” identical.

Source: Canada is asking the court to dismiss hundreds of immigration cases. Here’s why

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Trump And Miller Slashing Legal Immigration By 33% To 50%

2026/01/23 Leave a comment

Of note:

New research concludes the Trump administration’s policies will reduce legal immigration to the United States by 33% to 50% over four years. Restricting Americans’ ability to sponsor their closest family members will be the administration’s primary way to lower legal immigration. While aggressive deportation tactics by Immigration and Customs Enforcement have garnered headlines, cuts to the admission of legal immigrants will have a profound impact on the country and millions of people.

Numerous Restrictions On Legal Immigration

Trump officials have implemented policies to block American citizens and employers from sponsoring legal immigrants. The policies will override the immigration rules and categories that Congress established unless a lawsuit stops the actions.

“The Trump administration’s policies will reduce legal immigration to the United States by an estimated 33% to 50%, or by 1.5 million to 2.4 million legal immigrants, by the end of Donald Trump’s four-year term,” according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis.

In FY 2023, 1,172,910 legal immigrants received permanent residence, also commonly referred to as green cards, on a pace for 4,691,640 over four years. “NFAP estimates 1,546,710 to 2,369,998, or 33% to 50%, fewer legal immigrants will gain green cards during Donald Trump’s administration due to policies that include significantly lower admission levels for refugees, restrictions on the Immediate Relatives of U.S. Citizens due to ‘public charge’ policies and a 39-country immigration ban, actions taken against Diversity Visa recipients and other policies.” The analysis provides a range because uncertainty remains about how restrictively administration officials will enact the policies….

Source: Trump And Miller Slashing Legal Immigration By 33% To 50%

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Volunteer program for immigrant doctors to improve medical English gets big boost

2026/01/22 Leave a comment

Good initiative. During my various cancer treatments, some, by no means all, of the doctors who helped treat me would have benefited from this training:

Romel Castillo, a family physician originally from Cuba, learned much more than words when he joined a fledgling program to brush up on his medical English. 

He learned the unspoken language of practising medicine in Canada, where concepts such as patient privacy, cultural competency and shared decision-making can be different than in an immigrant doctor’s homeland. 

“In my country, it’s like you prescribe the medication, they take it,” said Dr. Castillo, 35, who moved to Canada in 2021 and now lives in Brampton, Ont. “But here, I ask you first, ‘What are your values, your understanding of the condition?’ I share with you my knowledge, and then we make an arrangement.” 

Those subtleties, which would be hard to pick up from a Spanish-to-English medical dictionary, were the most important lessons that Dr. Castillo took away from Health English Language Pro (HELP), a program that pairs retired Canadian physicians with newcomer doctors to improve their medical English over the course of about 10 virtual conversations.

On Tuesday, HELP will get a major boost when the Canadian Medical Association Foundation announces a $645,000 grant to expand the program so that volunteer Canadian doctors can share their expertise with at least 330 more immigrants like Dr. Castillo, who is working in the health system, but not yet as a doctor….

Source: Volunteer program for immigrant doctors to improve medical English gets big boost

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ICYMI – ‘A win on all fronts’: Federal Court quashes Ottawa’s attempt to stop legal challenge on cabinet secrets in Canada-U.S. refugee deal

2026/01/22 Leave a comment

Not all that surprised:

A Federal Court judge has rejected the Canadian government’s attempt to throw out a challenge by advocacy groups seeking greater transparency on how Ottawa decides to designate the United States as a safe country for refugees.

The legal challenge by the Canadian Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers and the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario asked the government to pull back the curtain on its internal reviews regarding the Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S. In its application, the groups argue that Ottawa must be transparent about the process and ensure it complies with Canada’s Charter of Rights and its international legal obligations.

Under the bilateral refugee pact, which was introduced in 2004, most asylum seekers are required to claim protection in the first safe country they arrive in. This means Canada can turn back refugees arriving from the U.S. on the basis they should pursue their claims in the U.S.

The government brought forward a motion to strike the legal challenge last year, before the case could start. In a ruling on Monday, Justice Alan Diner rejected that request, saying the application was not “doomed to fail” and is strong enough to warrant a full hearing.

Diner wrote that at the core of the government’s argument is the question of what constitutes a decision when it’s required to conduct an ongoing review — “a legal question that should not be answered on a truncated record.”

The judge also granted the applicants “public interest standing,” while recognizing that the advocacy groups themselves are not “directly affected” individuals like refugee claimants.

While the government argued the challenge was filed too late, Diner granted an extension and agreed with the applicants in finding that the delay was reasonable because the legal pathway to challenge the review process only became clear following a 2023 Supreme Court of Canada decision.

Maureen Silcoff, a co-counsel for the refugee lawyer association, described the ruling as “a win on many fronts.”

The question of why the Canadian government is continuing to designate the U.S. a safe country is more pertinent now than ever, Silcoff told the Star. “All we have to do is look south of the border and we see that the current administration has essentially eradicated the asylum process,” she said….

Source: ‘A win on all fronts’: Federal Court quashes Ottawa’s attempt to stop legal challenge on cabinet secrets in Canada-U.S. refugee deal

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Usher: Farewell Cakeism, Welcome Trade-offs, Effectiveness and Efficiencies

2026/01/21 Leave a comment

While focused on the education sector, applies more broadly as Carney’s Davos speech makes clear (with the hard trade-offs to come):

… But look, cakeism is everywhere. I mean, just look at the last federal election, where every party competed to cut taxes/increase spending in the midst of threats from the US that were going to slow economic growth and require increases in national security spending. Nary a trade-off in sight. Politicians in Canada and many other countries have come to the conclusion – perhaps erroneously, perhaps not – that voters simply dislike trade-offs so it’s better not to make any. Once upon a time – in the mid-late 1990s when we finally got our fiscal house in order – Canada was pretty good at thinking about trade-offs. But it’s basically all been downhill since the turn of the century.

Now, if you wanted to put the shoe on the other foot, you could say that all politics is a bit cakeist. After all, loads of people ask for government money to fund their favourite cause or institution and never think too hard about where the money is coming from. So is it cakeist to ask for more money for universities and student aid? Well, sort of. But one expects stakeholder groups to be cakeist/selfish – they are pushing their set of priorities, and it’s not really their job to think through trade-offs. It’s the job of governments. And increasingly over the past decade or two, governments just forgot how to do that and started saying yes to more and more people. 

But times are changing. Neither our federal nor our provincial governments are in particularly sound financial footing. Thanks to the Cheeto Chaos Agent in the White House, we are in for an extended period of economic dislocation and lowered growth prospects, not to mention a massive re-orientation of fiscal spending priorities to advantage national security. For the next half-decade at least, public resources are going to be much scarcer than they have been at any point before. We as a country, therefore, need to re-learn how to talk about trade-offs, and perhaps more importantly, how to talk in terms of efficiencies.

To take our own sector as an example: when asking the public for money, institutions are going to need to be a lot more explicit both about what immediate obvious benefits will accrue to the public or the government if the money arrives, as well as about immediate specific costs which will occur if the money does not arrive. That means “asks” are going to have to get a lot more specific: not “we would like $50 million please”, but “we would like $50 million please, which we will spend on X, Y and Z, and if we don’t get it we will need to cut A, B and C in order to fund these priorities, which means the community will lose L, M and N”. This may sound simple, but institutions going in this direction would be the biggest tonal shift in university government relations in my lifetime, because universities choke on the idea of doing less or being seen to do less. But this is what the language of trade-offs requires….

Source: Farewell Cakeism, Welcome Trade-offs, Effectiveness and Efficiencies

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Robson: Canada’s prevention gap grows wider the more complacent we become

2026/01/21 2 Comments

Thorny lines to draw and not easy to implement but needed given the nature of some of the protests and protestors:

…Diaspora dynamics, therefore, require institutional maturity. The challenge is not to cast suspicion on whole communities. It is to distinguish legitimate protest from intimidation, and political grievance from early-stage radicalization cues—especially when imported conflicts are weaponized inside Canadian information spaces.

Prevention doctrine has to be able to say, without flinching, that a small minority within some diaspora and newcomer populations—including naturalized Canadians—carry or adopt illiberal and extremist ideologies, and that those ideologies can express themselves as targeted hatred toward Jews. Treating that as an institutional design problem—triage rules, evidence standards, and earlier handoffs—avoids both naïveté and collective blame.

It also means using international tools without outsourcing Canadian standards. Many subjects who could fall within the scope of a promotion offence did not begin their political trajectory in Canada. Some may have prior histories of supporting extremist organizations, being investigated abroad, or coordinating across jurisdictions.

Canada already has mechanisms to seek corroborating information while preserving due process through the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act. The aim is not to “import” foreign decisions. It is to avoid assessing a suspect’s online activity here as if it exists in isolation—especially when trusted partners can corroborate a pattern of propaganda production or cross-border coordination that should inform Canadian risk assessments for bail, peace bonds, and sentencing.

So what does “prevention” mean when radicalization cycles move faster than case-prioritization and reassessment? Canada has conceptual building blocks: the RCMP explicitly acknowledges the linkage between hate crime and violent extremism and stresses prevention alongside enforcement in its hate-crime overview. The gap is operationalization—multilingual capability, faster evidence capture, clearer handoff triggers, and disruption that treats a heightened hate environment as a security condition, not a communications problem.

Canada cannot prevent every attack. But it can choose whether to keep treating antisemitic extremism as a late-stage file—something we condemn after it becomes violence. If we continue to manage weak signals as “not urgent,” we will eventually face the question other democracies face after tragedy: What did we notice early, and why did we decide it was not urgent enough?

Daniel Robson is a Canadian independent journalist specializing in digital extremism, national security, and counterterrorism.

Source: Canada’s prevention gap grows wider the more complacent we become

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Officials processing foreign nationals’ visas, permanent-residence applications will not face job cuts: minister

2026/01/20 Leave a comment

Of note and to watch whether processing times improve or not:

Federal employees processing applications from foreign nationals for temporary or permanent residence in Canada will be insulated from forthcoming public-service cuts, Immigration Minister Lena Diab says.

Government departments have begun rolling out plans to reduce staffing levels, honouring a pledge made in last year’s budget to cut the number of public servants by about 30,000 over five years. The federal public service numbered almost 358,000 employees last year.

Statistics Canada this month said it plans to cut more than 850 jobs. 

Natural Resources Canada told The Globe and Mail last week that approximately 700 employees received letters last month informing them that their position may be affected. The department said it plans to eliminate approximately 400 positions by 2028-29.

Other government departments are expected to announce job cuts shortly. 

In an interview, Ms. Diab, who oversees Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, said public servants working on applications for settlement, employment and study here will not be among those facing job cuts.

She said the agency’s staffing is tied to Ottawa’s annual immigration levels plan, which sets targets for the numbers of people admitted for entry to Canada.

“The way IRCC has been funded over the years, it’s funded based on the levels plan, and so therefore that will not change. The people that are processing those numbers, they’ll still be there. They will not be affected,” Ms. Diab said. 

IRCC has huge backlogs in processing of applications for permanent residence, with some wait times stretching to more than 10 years. 

Toronto immigration lawyer Stephen Green said many applicants were facing long delays in decisions about their immigration status because of the backlogs. But he said IRCC officers were creating more work by failing to call applicants who may have, for instance, made slight mistakes or forgotten to include a document with their application. He said rejections of applications for small errors were leading to a slew of Federal Court challenges. 

“They need better processing, and just picking up the phone to check things could increase efficiencies. If picking up the phone can resolve an issue quickly, officials should be encouraged to do that,” Mr. Green said. 

Source: Officials processing foreign nationals’ visas, permanent-residence applications will not face job cuts: minister

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Supreme Court weighs road safety against racial profiling in ‘driving while Black’ case

2026/01/20 Leave a comment

To watch:

…Now, in a two-day hearing starting Monday, the Supreme Court of Canada will hear this landmark equality and police powers case – and revisit a long-ago precedent.

Quebec and several provinces, alongside lawyers for the federal government, will try to convince judges of the Supreme Court to overturn the rulings of the lower courts and reaffirm precedent. 

Governments insist it is a matter of essential road safety.

Mr. Luamba and an array of groups want the top court to strike down precedent and recognize that giving police such powers enables racism. They are calling on the Supreme Court to ban police from random stops of drivers throughout Canada.

“There isn’t anything random about these suspicion-less stops,” said Harini Sivalingam, director of the equality program of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which, with Mr. Luamba and the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers, is a respondent at the Supreme Court.

“We’re not saying all police officers are biased,” said Ms. Sivalingam. “But there’s a systemic bias – and it’s well-documented.” 

In 1990, the Supreme Court ruled – in a 5-4 decision – that cops were allowed to randomly stop drivers, declaring “statistics relating to the carnage on the highways substantiate a pressing and substantial concern.”…

Source: Supreme Court weighs road safety against racial profiling in ‘driving while Black’ case

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Canada can offer comfort to Ukrainians with a path to permanent residency

2026/01/20 Leave a comment

Not unexpected call:

…Canada should establish a targeted, time-limited pathway to permanent residence for eligible CUAET holders, a focused pilot program delivered federally, under existing ministerial authority, without the need for new regulations.

Such a program should be disciplined and defensible. Eligibility would be limited to Ukrainians who entered Canada under CUAET by March 31, 2024; maintained legal status; and can demonstrate at least six months of full-time work, or its equivalent. Modest language thresholds would apply. Applications would be accepted only within a fixed intake window, underscoring that this is an exceptional response to exceptional circumstances, not an open-ended program.

This initiative should be carried out federally, not by provincial nominee programs, which would add complexity, delay and political friction. Quebec’s distinct immigration jurisdiction would require consultation and co-ordination….

John Weston is a government relations and communications expert, former member of Parliament, and president of Pan Pacific Solutions Ltd.

Source: Canada can offer comfort to Ukrainians with a path to permanent residency

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How Many People Has Trump Deported So Far?

2026/01/19 Leave a comment

Over the past year, President Trump’s administration has deported about 230,000 people who were arrested inside the country and another 270,000 at the border, a New York Times analysis of federal data shows.

The number of deportations from interior arrests since Mr. Trump took office is already higher than the total during the entire four years of the Biden administration. It offers the clearest measure of the impact of Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown and expansive efforts to fulfill his campaign promise to deport millions of people.

At the same time, the number of people trying to cross the Southwest border has fallen to record lows. As a result, far fewer people were arrested and deported from the border than in the preceding few years.

Another roughly 40,000 people returned to their countries after signing up to “self-deport” and receive a stipend through a novel program and app provided by the administration.

That brings the total number of deportations since Mr. Trump took office to 540,000 — fewer than in the last two years of the Biden administration, when border crossings were at record highs. There were 590,000 total deportations in 2023 and 650,000 in 2024….

Source: How Many People Has Trump Deported So Far?

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