The independent tribunal that decides refugee claims has since 2019 ruled on more than 45,000 asylum cases based on paperwork alone without an in-person hearing, raising concerns from the Conservatives and experts that this could dilute scrutiny and compromise national security.
Figures provided to MPs on the Commons immigration committee by the Immigration and Refugee Board show that in that period, Iranian asylum claimants have had the most claims decided without an in-person hearing, with 10,730 claims decided based on paper reviews of their files.
Last year, 2,218 cases of alleged persecution in Iran – where the theocratic regime has imprisoned and killed scores of its critics – were decided after reviewing the files of asylum applicants, with 2,105 decided without a hearing in 2024 and 3,124 in 2023.
Between 2019 and 2025, the IRB decided 45,595 cases through “paper processes.” These included 4,220 paper-only asylum decisions on cases from Afghanistan. There were 484 such “file-review” adjudications from Palestinians, 6,827 from Turkey, 1,273 from Yemen, 2,542 from Pakistan and 256 from Iraq, the IRB figures show.
Asylum claimants from Haiti had 3,379 cases decided without a hearing between 2019 and 2025, including 2,471 last year.
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Between 2019 and 2025, 14,579 claims relating to religion were decided without a hearing. Another 10,086 claims relating to race, ethnicity or nationality were decided through paper processes.
The figures provided do not indicate how many of the asylum applicants were accepted and permitted to stay in Canada.
The latest statistics were provided by the IRB after MPs at a meeting of the immigration committee earlier this month questioned the board’s chairperson and chief executive, Manon Brassard, about how many refugee claimants have had decisions made about whether they could stay in Canada without hearings.
Ms. Brassard did not have such figures to hand but agreed to send them to the committee for scrutiny.
On Monday, Conservatives on the committee expressed concern at the numbers and said they are writing to Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab calling for an end to the file-review process.
In the letter, to be sent on Tuesday morning, Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner and associate Conservative immigration critic Brad Redekopp claim that asylum applications are being “rubber stamped” and call on Ms. Metlege Diab “to direct the IRB to end the file review system.”
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They express concern that decisions were made about claimants from countries with security issues without in-person hearings.
“In-person interviews are essential to proper screening and vetting of potential Canadian citizens,” it reads. “With recent reports of IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] officials here in Canada, it’s significant that a big portion of these ‘paper review’ approvals came from countries, like Iran, with known security issues."
Conservative MPs on the public safety committee last week asked Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree why only one Iranian IRGC member admitted to Canada has been deported.
The minister told the committee that the government is “aggressively trying to remove” other members of the IRGC, a body Canada listed as a terrorist entity in 2024. He said 24 Iranians have been assessed to be members of the IRGC and are going through the process of being removed.
No Iranians are currently being deported back to their home country from Canada because of the war between Iran and Israel and the United States.
James Yousif, a former member of the IRB who adjudicated on cases, has been raising concerns that paper-only decisions could heighten the risk of fraud and weaken security screening.
“It is not possible to tell a true claim from a made-up claim just by reading the documents in each file,” he said in an e-mail. “Asking questions at a hearing is absolutely essential to detecting fraud and risks to Canada’s national security. There is no substitute for this.”
Ms. Metlege Diab previously told MPs on the committee that each person claiming asylum is subject to security screening. She said decisions are made on a case-by-case basis by the IRB tribunal, which operates independently of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
But in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail, Mr. Redekopp expressed concern that the file-review process is being used “to expedite asylum claims without interviewing claimants, even from high-risk countries like Iran.”
“Even worse, the Immigration Minister won’t take responsibility for this security gap, saying the IRB is independent – even though she is the minister responsible for the IRB,” he said. “Canadians expect a rigorous and thorough immigration vetting process and we are calling on the Immigration Minister to take action.”
The IRB has a big backlog in asylum cases, increasing from 17,000 claims in 2016 to nearly 300,000 in 2025.
Last year, IRB figures given to the immigration committee show, it finalized 80,716 refugee claims, of which 11,874, or 15 per cent, were decided by “file review.”
At the immigration committee meeting earlier this month, Ms. Brassard told MPs that “every adult making a refugee claim is interviewed by an officer of IRCC or CBSA [Canada Border Services Agency] when they make their claim,” including those assessed without a hearing.
“This is the first step of the in-Canada asylum system towards refugee status or removal, where CBSA or IRCC decide if a claim is ineligible to be referred to the board due to security, violating human rights or international rights, serious criminality or organized criminality,” she said.
Taous Ait, a spokesperson for Ms. Metlege Diab, said in an e-mail that “when it comes to claiming asylum in Canada, officers rigorously review each and every claim before they reach the Immigration and Refugee Board and nobody can claim asylum in Canada without questioning.”
“To keep Canadians safe, CBSA does front-end security screening on all adult refugee claimants,” she added. “There is no rubber stamping of claims – each one is assessed individually, on the merits, by highly trained decision-makers."
The IRB did not immediately respond to requests for comment.