Immigration applicants to Canada face rising refusal rates, data reveals — and critics say the pressure to reduce a backlog may be a factor

2025/08/13 Leave a comment

Might be but hard to substantiate without more information:

Immigration applications in almost all permanent and temporary resident categories have seen higher refusals since 2023, according to the latest federal government data.

The soaring rejection rates in some cases such as study and postgraduation work permits are primarily the result of changing eligibility and policies. But critics are raising concerns that this has also been driven by the pressure to render decisions quickly and haphazardly to reduce an immigration backlog.

Ottawa has reduced the annual intake of both permanent and temporary residents for 2025, 2026 and 2027, and cut 3,300 positions in the Immigration Department. But the number of people applying to come to Canada has not come down.

As of June 30, there were 2,189,500 applications in process in the system — up from 1,976,700 in March — including 842,800 that have been in the queue longer than the department’s own service standards.

“They have set very aggressive targets for reducing both permanent and temporary immigration,” said Vancouver immigration lawyer Kyle Hyndman of the immigration cutbacks. “I don’t see how they can meet those targets in the short run without some pretty dramatic actions.”

Critics say they are seeing more solid applications being tossed away, and refusals using boilerplate language have led to same applicants re-applying over and over, as well as court appeals and litigation. It has contributed to the public losing faith in the immigration system, say both experts and applicants.

“I’m afraid to ask for another visitor visa to Canada again,” said Croatian Nikola Maricic, who was refused twice this year in seeking to attend a Qigong health practitioner conference in Vancouver, even though he had visited Toronto previously. “I have lost my confidence in the Canadian visa process.”

According to Immigration Department data, the refusal rates for all four permanent resident categories have crept up in the first five months of 2025: Economic class; family class; humanitarian and compassionate class of those otherwise not eligible for any program; and refugees with protected status and families.

However, the most significant increases in refusals over the last two years came in the temporary resident categories, with rejection rates for study permits rising to 65.4 per cent from 40.5 per cent; visitor visas to 50 per cent from 39 per cent; postgraduation work permits to 24.6 per cent from 12.8 per cent; work permit extension to 10.8 per cent from 6.5 per cent; and work permits for spouses of study and work permit holders to 52.3 per cent from 25.2 per cent. (Study permit extension and work permit refusals have remained steady.)

Experts say permanent residence applications under the economic class have the lowest refusal rates because officials can easily manipulate the number of applications in the system by adjusting the qualifying scores to prevent backlog from building up.

The higher refusal rate in the family class likely comes from migrants running out of options who may resort to marrying a Canadian for permanent residence.

Toronto immigration lawyer Mario Bellissimo said the current 40 per cent refusal rate for permanent residence under humanitarian grounds is considered low, compared to 57 per cent before COVID. That’s because Ottawa was more generous in granting permanent status during the pandemic to those who otherwise would not qualify under other immigration categories.

He expects the refusal rate for the humanitarian class will keep rising because there are fewer permanent residence spots for international students and foreign workers with expiring temporary permits, and so seeking leniency on humanitarian grounds becomes their last shot.

“A lot of things drive the refusals and the longer the backlog, the higher the refusal rate historically,” he noted. “Every time your processing capacity is flooded, your time to spend on applications that merit a positive decision becomes clouded and … higher chances of missing key points on good applicants. All of this becomes part of the issue.”…

Toronto lawyer Chantal Desloges believes the adoption of advanced analytics and automation in immigration application processing has contributed to the rising refusals because officers, under time pressure, may overrely on what red flags are raised by AI when making decisions.

Her client Victoria Joumaa in Halifax is the legal guardian of three cousins in Lebanon, who were twice refused visitor visas to Canada. In the refusal letters, the officer ignored the request for temporary resident permits to be issued to the three kids on humanitarian grounds as an alternative. Their appeal before the Federal Court has recently been settled and the case was sent back for a new decision.

“The department keeps telling us they are not using automated decision-making and all they’re doing is organizing this information and presenting it to give an officer a snapshot to make it easier to decide more quickly,” said Desloges. “That may be true, but where it’s breaking down is whoever is making the decision is not reading the file.”

The Immigration Department said no final decisions are made by artificial intelligence and its tools do not refuse or recommend refusing applications….

Source: Immigration applicants to Canada face rising refusal rates, data reveals — and critics say the pressure to reduce a backlog may be a factor

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Four in 10 international students turned away by Canadian immigration

2019/09/16 Leave a comment

Interesting and significant study, both overall and with respect to specific countries of origin:

Study Permit Refusals by Level

Source: IRCC data

More than half the international students headed to undergraduate programs in Canada were turned away this winter and spring by immigration officials.

Between January and May, officers rejected 53 per cent of the study permit applications filed by foreign students hoping to begin a bachelor program in Canada, according to data provided by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

The record refusal rate is part of a trend that has seen immigration officials refuse a higher proportion of applications every year as international demand for Canadian education has soared. The overall refusal rate – including study permit applications to attend primary, secondary, post-secondary and language programs – was 39 per cent in the first five months of the year. (Rates for the first five months of 2019 may not reflect full-year rates.)

Reasons for refusal: fraud, danger, doubtful intentions

Twenty-eight per cent of all study permit applications were rejected by immigration officials in 2014. Four years later, in 2018, the overall rejection rate had climbed to 34 per cent. Demand for education boomed in that same period, with total applications almost doubling to more than 340,000 in 2018.

Increasing study permit refusals 2014 to 2019, Canada

Source: IRCC data

Robert Summerby-Murray is president of Saint Mary’s University, where 34 per cent of all students come from outside Canada. He is also chair of the Canadian Bureau for International Education, which promotes international education on behalf of more than 100 Canadian colleges, universities, schools and institutions.

He said study permit approvals have been improving for his students and he hasn’t heard of problems from other institutions.

“In some markets now, approvals are over 90 per cent,” he said of the experience of his own university this year. “We don’t see a 40 per cent refusal rate. That’s not our experience at all.”

Officials can refuse a study permit for many reasons: if they suspect the student may not return to their home country after graduation; if the student doesn’t have sufficient funds to pay for tuition and living costs while in Canada; if the student poses a health or security threat to Canada; if the officer doesn’t think the student’s academic plan makes sense; if the application is incomplete or inaccurate or if there is evidence of fraud in the application.

Harpreet Kochhar, assistant deputy minister of immigration, warned last fall that fraud had become a significant problem in study permit applications. He told a conference of the Canadian Bureau of International Education that a sample audit found that 10 per cent of the admission letters attached to study permit applications were false. In one case, he said, a supposed admission letter from Dalhousie University did not even spell the name of the university correctly.

Undergraduate refusals double

University-bound students are driving the higher rejection rate. While the study permit refusal rate for graduate university programs has increased slightly, the refusal rate for bachelor programs is soaring.

In 2014, only 20 per cent of international students headed to a bachelor program were refused a permit, compared to 37 per cent in 2018 and 53 per cent in the first five months of 2019.

Five years ago, visa officers were twice as likely to approve the study permit applications of international students bound for Canadian universities as students bound for Canadian college programs. Today the overall rates are similar.

The lowest refusal rates in early 2019 were for students who want to attend a doctoral program (11 per cent), high school (20 per cent), primary school (20 per cent), master’s program (31 per cent) or language program (31 per cent).

Refusals vary by source country

Refusal rates also vary dramatically by country, with students from Africa much less likely to receive a permit than students from many Asian and European countries.

Alain Roy, vice president of international partnerships with Colleges and Institutes Canada, said he is pleased that the rejection rate for college-bound students has remained steady despite a huge increase in the number of applications.

Summerby-Murray said his university works hard to build and maintain relationships with the consular officials who decide whether a student permit is approved, and they also work with expert agents who vet students thoroughly before an application is filed.

“We visit. We call,” he said. “I can pick up the phone. I can talk to the consuls in Shanghai, the team in Beijing, the folks in Hong Kong, Nairobi and other places and say, ‘Heh, we have these refusals, can you reconsider?’ We have worked very hard on these relationships.”

Polestar collected impressions from several other university administrators across Canada, all of whom shared information on the condition that neither they nor their institutions would be named. Two smaller universities said they have noticed an increase in problems with study permit approvals and two larger institutions said they had not seen any increase.

Universities Canada declined to comment on the study permit refusal rates.

International students who want to attend school in Canada must be admitted to a designated learning institution before they apply for a study permit from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. Most students will also need either a temporary resident visa or an electronic travel authorization to enter Canada.

Source: Four in 10 international students turned away by Canadian immigration

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