Asylum rulings made without a hearing raise security and fraud concerns, C.D. Howe Institute report says

Of note:

The federal refugee tribunal’s practice of assessing some asylum claims without first questioning applicants could heighten the risk of fraud and weaken security screening, a report by a former director of policy at the ImmigrationDepartment says. 

The report, to be published on Thursday by the C.D. Howe Institute, expresses concern that the Immigration and Refugee Board’s assessment of asylum claims from certain countries without hearings removes an important layer of scrutiny. 

An access to information request by the report’s author, James Yousif, found that between Jan. 1, 2019 and Feb. 28, 2023, the IRB accepted 24,599 asylum claims into Canada without personally questioning the applicants in hearings. 

Mr. Yousif, a former IRB adjudicator, says that practice accelerates decision making, but has not reduced the huge backlog of claims. 

By September, 2025, there was a backlog of almost 296,000 pending cases. 

Under a file-review policy established in 2019, the IRB drew up a list of countries, which was removed from public view in 2020, from where claims could be assessed without an interview, the report says. 

Mr. Yousif argues in the report that all asylum claims should be adjudicated through in-person hearings “without shortcuts.” 

He writes that approving asylum claims without a hearing “may facilitate fraud and encourage more fraudulent claims.”

“Asking questions is also a part of Canada’s security screening architecture and cannot be skipped without increasing national security risks.” …

Source: Asylum rulings made without a hearing raise security and fraud concerns, C.D. Howe Institute report says