Ottawa seeking mass visa cancellation powers to deter fraud from India: internal documents

2025/11/05 Leave a comment

Useful info to better understand the policy rationale:

The federal government is seeking the power to cancel applications for groups of visa holders at least in part due to concerns of fraud from India and Bangladesh, according to internal documents obtained by CBC News.

A departmental presentation to the immigration minister’s office said that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and unnamed U.S. partners are aiming to identify and cancel fraudulent visitor visa applications.

The Canadian entities and U.S. partners formed a working group looking to beef up authorities to refuse and cancel visas, according to the presentation, which singled out India and Bangladesh as “country-specific challenges.”

A section explaining how mass cancellation powers could be used listed hypothetical scenarios such as a pandemic, war and “country-specific visa holders.”

Publicly, Immigration Minister Lena Diab has listed a pandemic or war as why the government is seeking these powers, but has not mentioned country-specific visa holders. 

The presentation provides a further glimpse into Ottawa’s motivation for gaining those mass cancellation powers.

The provision was tabled in Parliament as part of Bill C-2, the government’s sweeping border legislation. That bill has since been spun off into two pieces, with mass visa cancellation folded into C-12, which the government is hoping  to quickly pass.

More than 300 civil society groups have raised concerns over the legislation. Some, such as the Migrant Rights Network, say group cancellations would give the government the ability to set up a “mass deportation machine.” 

Immigration lawyers have also wondered if the mass cancellation ability was being sought to allow the federal government to reduce its growing backlog of applications. 

Asylum claims from Indian nationals increased from fewer than 500 a month in May 2023 to about 2,000 by July 2024, the document said. 

The presentation says that verifying temporary resident visa applications from India slows down application processing.

It said processing time rose from an average of 30 days at the end of July 2023 to 54 a year later. It said approvals also started to decline in 2024 as it committed more resources to verification, from more than 63,000 in January to about 48,000 in June.

The presentation also noted a rise in “no boards” in India — passengers not allowed to board airplanes — as of the summer of 2024. By July 31 of that year 1,873 applicants had been identified for further questioning and sent procedural fairness letters outlining their rights and potential legal recourse.

No data about claims from Bangladesh was provided in the document. 

Last month, IRCC told CBC News in a statement that new powers were not being proposed “with a specific group of people or situation in mind,” and that “decisions would not be taken unilaterally.”

A separate document from October 2024, a memorandum to then immigration minister Marc Miller, urged him to push for the department to be given extra visa cancellation powers without naming any individual countries.

“The ability to cancel temporary resident documents reduces security risks and limits potential misuse of such documents,” it noted.

The memo also said that the risk of applicants seeking judicial review of the cancellations would “depend on the particular facts of each case, notably whether procedural fairness was followed.” …

Source: Ottawa seeking mass visa cancellation powers to deter fraud from India: internal documents

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Federal agencies fumble privacy safeguards on asylum system revamp, risking refugee data

2025/09/09 Leave a comment

Sigh….:

Three government agencies that partnered on a $68-million project to revamp Canada’s asylum system failed to complete mandatory privacy safeguard tests for years while the project was being implemented, CBC News has learned. 

The lack of privacy protections raises “red flags,” lawyers say, and may have put refugee claimants’ data and applications at risk.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) worked together on the “asylum interoperability project,” which would transform the asylum system into a more efficient digital one and address the ever-growing backlog of pending asylum applications, which currently sits at more than 290,000.

Earlier this year, CBC reported that the project, which launched in 2019, had been prematurely shut down in 2024 in what CBSA called an “unexpected” move.

Now, documents obtained through access-to-information legislation show there were “outstanding” privacy impact assessments (PIA) for the project, which was quietly scrapped when it was only 64 per cent complete.

According to a government digital privacy playbook, a PIA is a “policy process to identify, assess, and mitigate potential privacy risks before they happen.”

“All these steps need to be completed before the launch of the initiative,” that guide says.

Even though the interoperability project has now been scrapped, it implemented changes to how data is collected digitally and used — meaning that the completion of PIAs remains an essential part of that risk identification process, said  Andrew Koltun, an immigration and refugee lawyer who also practices privacy law.

The departments told CBC over email, however, that the privacy assessments are still incomplete. IRCC said it’s currently drafting its portion of the PIA and expects it to be done by the end of 2025.

The fact they still aren’t finished, Koltun said,  raises “a lot of red flags.”

Source: Federal agencies fumble privacy safeguards on asylum system revamp, risking refugee data

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Minister planning new powers to clamp down on fraudulent immigration consultants

2025/08/11 Leave a comment

Perennial issue and debate:

Immigration Minister Lena Diab is preparing to crack down on unscrupulous immigration consultants, drawing up new regulations that would give the industry regulator more powers, such as forcing them to compensate migrants they have defrauded. 

The move follows a number of inquiries into the improper conduct of consultants, including one involving an elaborate job-selling scheme targeting migrants.

The College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants earlier this year cancelled the licence of Hossein Amirahmadi, a consultant the college found to have orchestrated job selling, faked payroll documents and fraudulently obtained work permits. 

It ordered him to pay a $50,000 fine by October, as well as $49,000 in costs incurred by the college. It also instructed him to reimburse clients a total of $32,000 in fees. 

But the college, which regulates licensed immigration consultants, lacks the power, without going to court, to collect the funds or force him to pay. 

Draft regulations drawn up by the Immigration Department last year would allow the college to impose fines of $50,000 per infringement of the act establishing the college. They would also give it the power to establish a compensation fund for migrants exploited by its members. 

But the proposed regulations, drawn up before Ms. Diab took on her new cabinet role, have been shelved for months. Ms. Diab’s spokesperson, Isabelle Buchanan, said the minister is preparing new regulations. 

…But lawyer James Yousif, a one-time policy director for former immigration minister Jason Kenney, said it is “time to accept that Canada’s experiment with a separate immigration consulting profession has failed.”

“We should return to a model in which only lawyers are permitted to represent clients under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act,” he said. “The legal profession in Canada is much better governed, with stronger accountability and disciplinary mechanisms.”

Source: Minister planning new powers to clamp down on fraudulent immigration consultants

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Canadian immigration refusal letters will now come with officers’ notes

2025/08/01 Leave a comment

Overdue and hopefully will reduce need for time consuming ATIP requests. But to be seen in terms of how informative these notes will be and the degree they satisfy applicants (IRCC also has the largest number of court proceedings):

The Immigration Department has started to include officers’ notes in refusal letters to failed immigration applicants, who have long complained of insufficient information about the reasons they’re refused.

The change is a response to the soaring immigration applications and refusals, which have led to a significant growth in the number of access-to-information requests over the years, clogging up the Access to Information and Privacy system, as it was the only way applicants and counsel could obtain their case notes. 

“As part of our ongoing efforts to improve our services, on July 29, 2025, we started proactively providing officer decision notes along with refusal letters for certain applications,” the department says on its website.

“These notes come from the officer who made the final decision on the application. This change makes it easier for clients to get their personal information on their application. This supports our commitment to delivering our services with greater transparency.”

The change will cover applications for extensions for temporary resident visas (excluding electronic travel authorizations and temporary resident permits), visitor records, study permits and work permits.

The department said that over time, more application types will be added to the list. However, as of now, those who applied using the new version of the department’s online portal won’t benefit from the move. 

“We may decide to exclude certain portions of the notes on a case-by-case basis due to security, privacy or other concerns,” said the department notice.

According to an Information Commissioner of Canada report to the Parliament last year, 78 per cent of federal access-to-information requests were directed to the Immigration Department in 2022-2023, with eight per cent going to the Canada Border Services Agency. The rest were for all other federal government institutions.  

Source: Canadian immigration refusal letters will now come with officers’ notes

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$68M project to secure, revamp Canada’s asylum system shut down unexpectedly, documents show

2025/07/24 Leave a comment

Complex cross organization IT project. Responded to clear need for common platform across silos, even if only partially successful.

Not convinced by arguments against such projects by advocates as current systems and approaches make asylum system more costly with more complex management and oversight.

Advocates continuing to argue for “more resources” are simply denying reality:

A $68-million project led by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) that was meant to revamp Canada’s outdated asylum system and enhance the integrity of the country’s borders was quietly shut down last year — an “unexpected” move for some in the government because it was only partly completed, internal documents show. 

Now, some critics fear the outcomes that were achieved may be more harmful than beneficial for people seeking protection in Canada.

IRCC’s “asylum interoperability project” began in 2019 and was supposed to wrap up by 2022. It came during a surge of asylum seekers entering Canada, putting pressure on an already struggling system that relied heavily on paper files. Its launch followed calls for major reform.

The main goals of the project was “to transform the asylum system” into a digital one, automate data and create real-time information sharing between three departments — IRCC, Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB).

If these tools are so effective and being implemented, then why do we still have this backlog?- Wei Will Tao, immigration and refugee lawyer

It also hoped to “enhance integrity, security and deterrence within the asylum system,” while improving efficiency and service to claimants, documents show.

It allocated about $48.4 million to IRCC, $15.5 million to CBSA and $3.8 million to the IRB over several years to meet these goals, an internal document shows. IRCC said it had used 75 per cent of its allocated funds.

Through access to information documents, CBC News has learned the project was abandoned in February 2024 after it failed to get another extension from the Department of Finance. 

But just months after prematurely halting this project, then Immigration minister Marc Miller told the House of Commons immigration committee: “I want to reform the system. It’s not working in the way it should.”

At the time, he said Canada’s asylum and refugee system was still struggling due to volume and inefficiency.

According to records obtained by CBC, about 64 per cent of the interoperability project was accomplished. IRCC either scrapped or “deferred” the rest of the tasks to future major IT projects.

“The decision to close the project was unexpected,” reads a 2024 CBSA briefing note.

The latest IRB data shows a backlog of 288,198 pending applications as of last month — a historic high that’s nearly tripled since June 2023, when the interoperability project was well underway.

“The first question is, if these tools are so effective and being implemented, then why do we still have this backlog?” said Wei Will Tao, an immigration and refugee lawyer.

Automation, online portal among goals achieved

All three departments operate their own IT systems, “causing program integrity risks” and delays, a project document reads.

While incrementally rolling out improvements until its shutdown in 2024, the project faced “capacity issues,” “black-out periods” in IRCC’s internal application processing tool Global Case Management System (GCMS), and a “downgrade” in priorities which led to delays past its 2022 finish date, records say.

The project still managed to build an online refugee application process, and automated case creation, data entry and admissibility checks, according to documents. For IRB hearings, the project also allowed more real-time information exchange between departments.

The process to detain and remove people from Canada was also “enhanced,” according to a CBSA briefing note, citing the ability to automatically cancel valid work or study permits when a removal order is issued, among other improvements. 

But there were several wish list items the project couldn’t make happen — like a CBSA officer portal and online applications for pre-removal risk assessments (an application for people facing removal from Canada.)

Another task that was skipped — a function to “view notes associated with a claim in one place,” which would have helped officers’ workflow, CBSA records show.

In a closing note, one government official noted that “the project did deliver on every benefit identified but not all to the depth it aimed to.” 

IRCC declined an interview. The department didn’t specify which tasks it was unable to complete, but said in an email those may be part of future projects. IRCC has hundreds of millions of dollars allocated to digital modernization in the coming years.

Impacts felt, but questions remain

“The actual project itself and the fact that there’s huge funding … that came to us as a bit of a surprise,” said Tao, who’s part of a collective of experts monitoring AI and technological advances in Canada’s immigration system.

Tao said he didn’t “want to deny the positivity” of some digital advancements. But he raised questions around transparency, the kind of information being exchanged between the three departments and how it’s being used by each partner — especially because the IRB is an arms-length, independent tribunal.

“What if there’s information that’s being transmitted behind the scenes that we’re not a party to, or that could implicate our clients’ case without us knowing?” asked Tao, founder of Heron Law Offices in Burnaby, B.C.

Despite multiple followups, the IRB did not respond to CBC’s requests for information. IRCC wrote to CBC that the IRB maintains its adjudicative independence.

“We do have serious concerns about this interoperability — being yes, an efficiency tool and a way for things to be streamlined — … [but] is our ability to contest these systems being altered, or even perhaps barriered, by these tools?” Tao asked.

“Digitization is not the answer,” said Syed Hussan, spokesperson for the Migrant Rights Network. “These so-called streamline mechanisms are actually making life harder for people.”

Hussan said the digital-focused application system has “caused immense havoc” for some people with technological barriers. He also questions the “enormous focus” on sharing private information between agencies and the oversight of that.

“What is framed as a technical step forward is actually a series of policies that make it harder for refugees to gain protection,” said Hussan. “It’s part of a broader turn rightward towards Trump-like policies in the immigration system.”

Hussan said what the system actually needs is more resources for settlement organizations and claimants who need protection.

“Instead there’s actually just mass firing of federal civil servants as well as underfunding of settlement agencies and money being put into these digitization projects — which largely seem to be about streamlining removals rather than ensuring rights,” Hussan said.

Canada enforced more removal orders in the past year than in any other 12-month period since 2019 — 18,048 in the 2024-25 fiscal year, according to CBSA data.

Source: $68M project to secure, revamp Canada’s asylum system shut down unexpectedly, documents show

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Slim majority of Canadians found reduced immigration levels still too high: government polling

2025/06/19 Leave a comment

Not that surprising as echoes other public opinion research:

Shortly after cutting immigration levels, the federal immigration department heard through government-funded polling that a slight majority of Canadians still found this year’s number too high.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada commissioned the survey as part of its annual tracking of public sentiment towards immigration and reported it publicly as part of the government’s disclosures on its public opinion research.

The survey, which was done last November, followed the federal government’s announcement that it would reduce the number of permanent residents by nearly 100,000 in 2025. The target was set at 395,000, down from 485,000 in 2024.

The survey found that 54 per cent of Canadians said they “felt there are too many immigrants coming to Canada.” Another 34 per cent said they felt the number was fine, according to the report.

“When informed that Canada plans to admit 395,000 immigrants as permanent residents in 2025, 52 per cent said that it is too many, 37 per cent that this is about the right number and five per cent that this is too few,” it read.

“When informed that 395,000 immigrants is roughly 20 per cent fewer than Canada planned to admit in 2024, 44 per cent feel this is too many, 39 per cent that this number is about right and 13 per cent that it is too few.”

A spokesperson for Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab said in a statement that work has begun on setting immigration levels for the next two years, with that plan scheduled to be tabled in the fall, as it has in years past.

“(Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada) will continue work together with partners to establish the best paths forward to ensure that Canada is in position to attract the best talent in the world, while ensuring that overall immigration levels are more sustainable, and that the integrity of the system’s programs remain in tact,” wrote Renée LeBlanc Proctor, the minister’s press secretary. 

“We won’t speculate about specific future policy decisions at this time, but note that work on the 2026-2028 levels plan is already underway.”

Determining how many more permanent and temporary residents Canada will allow into the country has been challenged by changing public sentiments around immigration, connected to concerns regarding housing affordability, the availability of doctors and other social supports.

While federal officials say immigration accounted for nearly 98 per cent of Canada’s population growth in 2023, helping to offset an aging population and bringing the country’s population to 41 people million last year, housing experts, economists, and the Bank of Canada all warned that it has contributed to the country’s housing shortage.

Keith Neuman, senior associate at the Environics Institute, a non-profit that has been conducting public opinion research on attitudes around immigration for the past four decades, says Canadians’ perspectives have changed in terms of people thinking about how many immigrants the country could handle.

He says that represents a shift from what research has shown in the past, where Canadians previously focused on who immigrants were and where they were coming from.

“The capacity issue has never really been something that Canadians have thought about, up to this point. And so that’s where the real shift has happened,” he said in an interview.

“It is now become a public issue and a political issue.”…

Source: Slim majority of Canadians found reduced immigration levels still too high: government polling

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ICYMI: Twelve IRCC employees tried to interfere with immigration files, misconduct report finds

2025/06/17 Leave a comment

Small numbers but good that this breach was caught and acted upon:

Staff at the federal immigration department tried to interfere with applications to enter and stay in Canada, with one asking a colleague whether they would accept money to approve a study permit, a report published Friday on misconduct and wrongdoing found.

The first ever report on misconduct at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada discloses that in 2023-2024, 12 staff took advantage of their ability to access IRCC’s systems to look at people’s files. 

Some checked or asked about the status of immigration files for family members, friends and acquaintances, or checked their status out of curiosity. 

In some cases IRCC employees tried to get immigration cases fast-tracked, or asked a colleague to make corrections to a file. 

IRCC produced the report to demonstrate its commitment to transparency, and show the actions it had taken to deal with wrongdoing. …

Source: Twelve IRCC employees tried to interfere with immigration files, misconduct report finds

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Immigration Canada rembourse certains frais quand les temps d’attente excèdent ses normes

2025/06/04 Leave a comment

Welcome change and accountability:

Alors que les délais d’attente de traitement en immigration font de plus en plus la manchette, Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada (IRCC) dépense de plus en plus d’argent pour rembourser des immigrants après ne pas avoir respecté ses propres normes de service.

Cette mesure encore très peu connue a coûté 1,68 million de dollars au ministère fédéral l’an dernier, considérablement plus que l’année précédente, lors de laquelle seulement 72 000 $ avaient été déboursés. Cette politique, qui découle de la Loi sur les frais de service, n’est en vigueur que depuis 2021, et certains des services d’IRCC ne se sont ajoutés à la liste qu’en 2023. Les données pour 2024-2025 seront disponibles l’automne prochain, a indiqué un relationniste au Devoir.

Le remboursement est « automatique », c’est-à-dire que la personne qui a déposé un dossier n’a pas à le demander. « Toutefois, la délivrance peut prendre un certain temps », souvent « entre 2 à 8 semaines », indiquent plusieurs pages d’IRCC. La remise de frais déjà engagés n’est pas non plus à hauteur de 100 % : selon le nombre de jours excédant le délai affiché, ce sont 25 ou 50 % des frais qui sont renvoyés à l’expéditeur. Il s’agit donc, pour la plupart des bénéficiaires, de quelques dizaines ou centaines de dollars tout au plus.

« C’est du jamais vu en 15 ans de carrière », a commenté, surpris, l’avocat en immigration Maxime Lapointe. L’un de ses clients a récemment été avisé par courriel que le montant qu’il a payé à IRCC serait remboursé à 50 %. « Dans le contexte économique actuel, rembourser une partie des frais de traitement est contre-intuitif, car le travail des fonctionnaires est fait quand même », note-t-il.

Surtout, le « client » qui a entamé ces démarches « sort aussi échaudé de son expérience avec IRCC », poursuit Me Lapointe.

Ce ministère fédéral est souvent critiqué, notamment en raison de l’impossibilité de parler à un agent ou à la suite de refus sans demande de document supplémentaire.

Ces remboursements sont en fait si peu connus que deux associations qui représentent des immigrants ont confié au Devoir ne pas être au courant, et donc ne pas pouvoir commenter.

Source: Immigration Canada rembourse certains frais quand les temps d’attente excèdent ses normes

As immigration processing waits are making headlines, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is spending more and more money to reimburse immigrants after not meeting its own standards of service.

This measure, which is still very little known, cost the federal prosecutor’s office $1.68 million last year, considerably more than the previous year, when only $72,000 was disbursed. This policy, which stems from the Service Fees Act, has only been in effect since 2021, and some of the IRCC services were not added to the list until 2023. Data for 2024-2025 will be available next fall, a relations officer told Le Devoir.

The refund is “automatic”, i.e. the person who filed a file does not have to request it. “However, the delivery can take a certain time”, often “between 2 and 8 weeks”, indicate several pages of IRCC. The remission of expenses already incurred is also not up to 100%: depending on the number of days exceeding the posted deadline, 25 or 50% of the costs are returned to the sender. It is therefore, for most beneficiaries, a few tens or hundreds of dollars at most.

“This is unprecedented in 15 years of career,” commented immigration lawyer Maxime Lapointe, surprised. One of his clients was recently notified by email that the amount he paid to IRCC would be refunded at 50%. “In the current economic context, reimbursing part of the processing costs is counterintuitive, because the work of civil servants is done anyway,” he notes.

Above all, the “client” who started these procedures “also comes out scalded from his experience with IRCC,” continues Me Lapointe.

This federal ministry is often criticized, in particular because of the impossibility of speaking to an officer or as a result of refusal without requesting additional documentation.

These refunds are in fact so little known that two associations representing immigrants have told the Devoir that they are not aware, and therefore cannot comment.

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Recording of Research Matters event: Exploring citizenship trends and immigrant engagement in Canada and Australia 

2025/05/30 Leave a comment

ICYMI: Good webinar on recent trends in citizenship by Fung Hou of StatsCan (decline in naturalization along with “citizens of convenience” evidence showing little difference between citizen immigrants and non-citizen immigrants who leave Canada) and a Canada-Australia comparison by Li Xu of IRCC.

Source: Recording of Research Matters event: Exploring citizenship trends and immigrant engagement in Canada and Australia

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Launch of immigration program for caregivers marred by website crash

2025/04/03 Leave a comment

Sigh…:

The rollout of a much-anticipated immigration program for nannies and personal support workers was marred by severe technical difficulties when it launched this week – resulting in many prospective applicants losing their only chance at obtaining Canadian permanent residency.

Scores of temporary residents working as caregivers who intended to apply for the Home Care Worker Immigration Pilot encountered error messages and faced challenges uploading documents to the application portal when it first opened on Monday morning. The website is run by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the federal immigration department.

For many, Monday morning was a critical time in their immigration journey: Ottawa had allocated just 2,750 spots each in two immigration streams that would grant permanent residency to child caregivers or home support workers already living and working in Canada. The system took applicants on a first-come, first-served basis…

Source: Launch of immigration program for caregivers marred by website crash

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