International Law

Immigration reform

By immlawyer

Just had a thought, while I was reading the UK Home Office country of origin information documents.

What if the IRB/RPD had a mandate to assess humanitarian grounds at the time of the refugee claim?

As it stands, individuals enter Canada and make a refugee claim which is heard in 18-24 months. After refusal, they can "appeal" the decision to the Federal Court, but generally file a humanitarian and compassionate application. This application is taking over 3 years to be determined in Alberta. Sometime during this process, the individual is presented with a PRRA - a risk assessment that takes place before removal. The success rate for this is low. The individual is therefore in Canada for years (perhaps more than 5) during which the refugee claim and H&C and PRRA are decided and before removal.

It's obviously hard on the individual to be removed after years and settling down in Canada, and would be more efficient that one process and one decision maker determines the substantive merits of granting status through the refugee/humanitarian route. This may result in a higher acceptance rate by the Board (but that would reflect a determination on both risk and humanitarian issues), but would address the concerns that individuals are exploiting the refugee and immigration process in Canada for economic reasons.

Full post as published by Canadian Immigration Blawg on September 29, 2009 (boomark / email).