There are nearly 20,000 people whose claims for refugee status were denied by Canada in 2011 or even earlier and may – or may not – still be in the country. Ottawa doesn’t know whether those thousands of people have departed, because it doesn’t keep track.
These numbers were provided to The Globe by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and are especially pertinent today, as a surging volume of refugee claims underscores the urgency of tightening up enforcement. In the first 10 months of 2024, 164,563 refugee claims were filed, nearly triple the number for all of 2022. There has been a similar rise in the number of people asked to leave the country in 2024. Ottawa needs to make sure these orders are enforced.
The CBSA has stepped up efforts to force adherence to the country’s immigration laws. Even more will need to be done.
On the Brink
This is part of a series on the continuing challenges facing Canada’s immigration system.
Overview: Our pillars of immigration are crumbling
Labour: Focus on the workers and skills we need the most
Border: Ottawa must change old thinking about a new frontier
Notably, the agency started its ramped-up efforts long before incoming U.S. president Donald Trump complained about the flow of illegal migrants (and drugs), and threatened massive tariffs on Mexico and Canada. The CBSA has increased the number of inland enforcement officers by 15 per cent since the beginning of 2023.
The agency also says overall removals of inadmissible foreign nationals – for the most part, failed asylum claimants – are expected to rise by 60 per cent this fiscal year compared with 2021-22.
Canada’s immigration wave of recent years means there were 2.8 million temporary residents in Canada in early 2024. The government says it expects many of those people will leave when their visas expire.
But some will claim refugee status, successfully or not. Others will remain even if not legally entitled to do so. The CBSA says the number of people being ordered to leave after a failed refugee claim is rapidly increasing.
Notably, in mid-November there were 24,552 people in Canada in the “wanted” category of enforcement. (Most in that category are failed refugee claimants.) In such cases, officials have tried to engage with them, or locate them, but people have been no-shows at meetings or otherwise shown they’re not going to comply with an order to leave the country. In these cases, a warrant has been issued, or is being contemplated, for their arrest, detention and removal.
The CBSA has made moves to become more muscular in its enforcement measures – including a new facial-recognition app to remotely track individuals, mostly those on Canada’s deportation list. The top priority, always, for the CBSA are people who have gone or are going through a criminal process. Immigration Minister Marc Miller says more changes to the immigration and asylum system are coming soon.
But how will we know if those measures are working, and that those with failed refugee claims, temporary residents and others are leaving when they’re supposed to? That’s still an open question, and the pressure on Canada’s overwhelmed refugee hearing system could increase quickly if Mr. Trump keeps to his vow to enact the largest deportation program in U.S. history.
Right now, Canada relies on a system of incentives for people to follow the law. People ordered to leave must confirm their departure with the CBSA at a port of exit or risk being put under an exclusion order that would prevent any future return to Canada.
But leaving it to people to decide what is in their best interests leads to a situation where the CBSA cannot speak with absolute certainty as to the whereabouts of 19,729 people whose claims for refugee status were denied by Canada in 2011 or earlier. They might have left and simply not informed the CBSA. Or they may still be here.
There are a range of potential solutions. First, the problem needs to stop where it starts: limiting the number of refugee cases by reducing the incentive for fatuous claims, as this space argued on Thursday. Ottawa could also explore issuing automatic exclusion orders once permits expire.
At the same time, the government needs to provide the CBSA with the tools and staffing to ensure that the people deported actually leave the country. In this new, harder world, stricter monitoring of whether people leave the country when they’re supposed to is inevitable.
Canada can no longer give people the option to fade into the woodwork.
Podcast: A new diagnosis for immigration
How can Canada reach a better balance on immigration, housing and the labour market? Editorials editor Patrick Brethour spoke with The Decibel about the issues explored in this series. Subscribe for more episodes.