The number of asylum claims at Canadian domestic airports has jumped more than 50 percent since Ottawa waived specific requirements for thousands of visitor visa applicants at the end of February.
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) processed 26,585 claims between January and the end of September, an increase of 54 percent from 2022’s total of 17,165, according to a report published by the Canadian Citizenship & Immigration Resource Centre (CCIRC).
While claims have been on the rise in the past two years, they escalated even more this spring with 1,595 applications processed in March and 2,285 in April. The number surged to 4,350 in June and increased to 5,435 in September, figures from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) have revealed.
The uptick in numbers has been linked to Ottawa waiving some of the eligibility requirements for visitor visa applications in a bid to clear the immigration application backlog.
Through the end of 2023, those applying for a visa no longer have to prove they have sufficient funds to stay in the country or show that they will leave Canada when their visas expire.
“The accumulated visitor visa inventory is limiting Canada’s attractiveness for tourists and business persons, in addition to keeping families separated,” then-immigration minister Sean Fraser said in a Feb. 28 statement.
“Facilitating the processing of applications currently in the inventory by streamlining eligibility requirements will position Canada for a clean start and a return to pre-pandemic processing times, thereby ensuring our international competitiveness moving forward.”
The Globe and Mail received a leaked IRCC memo in January predicting the move could lead to 8,600 extra asylum claims because not all applicants would be “genuine visitors.” The memo said waiving eligibility requirements could apply to as many as 450,000 temporary resident visa applications in the system.
The federal government forged ahead with the plan despite the prediction, putting the policy into effect on Feb. 28, although it didn’t actively publicize the changes until June.
“The percentage of people coming to Canada on a TRV and claiming asylum remains low compared to the overall volume of TRVs the department typically issues each year,” IRCC spokesperson Mary Rose Sabater said in a statement to the Globe. “In the current reality of increasing global migration, Canada, like many other countries, is experiencing a rise in the number of people claiming asylum.”
The CBSA has said the number of asylum claimants has surged in recent weeks, particularly at Montréal–Trudeau International Airport and Toronto Pearson International Airport. The majority of the claimants were from Mexico, India, Kenya, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, and Uganda.
A number of experts have expressed concern, saying that IRCC is not screening visitors properly. Although visitors are still screened to ensure they aren’t a known threat to national security, they are worried the growing number will put an even heavier burden on an already struggling refugee system.
The IRCC had more than 2.6 million applications at times last year. As of Aug. 31, 2.2 million applications remained in the queue.
