Immigration officers don’t have latitude to probe refugee claims, experts say

Sigh…:

…But immigration lawyer Richard Kurland said current rules prevent those officers from probing the truth of asylum seekers’ stories.

“A person can show up at the border, give a written story prepared with AI, and the officer is instructed to not ask questions that will verify the credibility of the story. Even if officers want to question, and ask permission to so do, they can’t,” Mr. Kurland wrote in an e-mail. 

Internal documents Mr. Kurland obtained from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada under access to information law, which were reviewed by The Globe and Mail, show that immigration officers have been instructed not to block people’s access to the IRB only because they doubt their stories.

The documents include an e-mail sent in October of last year from an immigration official to a senior IRCC colleague asking, in response to questions from another officer, “if we believe the client is not being truthful, can we withhold our eligibility decision until they provide a reasonable story?”

The senior IRCC official, Gianfranco Bonofiglio, responded: “Our role is not to verify the credibility of their story/entry. The IRB (and R&I) will assess that. The declaration/interview we hold is just collecting facts/information.” …

James Yousif, a former IRCC policy director and IRB adjudicator, said such interviews alone are not sufficient.

“The questions asked by IRCC or CBSA officials before the file is referred to the IRB are intended to establish eligibility,” he said. “For example, if a person already has refugee status in another country, they may be ineligible to make a claim in Canada,” he said. 

“Fraud and national security issues often do not emerge until the claimant is questioned. If that happens, the IRB is required by law to halt the hearing and notify the relevant Minister.”…

Source: Immigration officers don’t have latitude to probe refugee claims, experts say