‘Impossible to close the gap’: Immigration board boss says more resources needed to process legacy refugees – Canada – CBC News

More on IRB problems – Dion is polite in not flagging the number of adjudicator issue (see Globe editorial: The Trudeau government is failing refugee claimants, and Canadians):

Faced with a swelling backlog and a promise to resolve five-year-old asylum claims, the chair of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada admits he needs more funding and more people.

Mario Dion insists the IRB has become more efficient in dealing with cases, but it’s not enough.

“I am afraid the way things are at this point we will need additional resources … because there is a limit to how much you can stretch one person’s time,” Dion said in an interview with CBC News.

He said it’s “essentially impossible to close the gap using existing resources.”

Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen recently announced a review of the asylum system, but he’s offered no guarantee of additional funding.

The bulk of the backlog is made up of Canada’s so-called legacy refugees.

They are a group of about 5,500 people who have yet to have their asylum claims heard. That’s because they arrived in Canada in 2012, just before the federal government passed a law that requires new refugee clams to be heard within 60 days. Since the IRB had to comply with the law, it put thousands of existing files to the side — where they’ve stayed ever since.

Source: ‘Impossible to close the gap’: Immigration board boss says more resources needed to process legacy refugees – Canada – CBC News