In a bid to stem the number of asylum claims, the Canadian government will block refugee claimants’ right to a hearing if they have been in the country for more than a year.
The move is part of immigration reforms passed by Parliament last spring, with the policy kicking off next Monday. One of the challenges the department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) faces is a massive backlog of refugee claims – more than 259,000.
Almost 20,000 international students filed claims for asylum in Canada last year, pleading that they faced persecution if required to return to their home country.
However, the opposition Conservative party has been highly critical of the stewardship of Prime Minister Mark Carney on the immigration file.
“While Mark Carney has claimed he has taken back control of immigration, he has no plan to clear hundreds of thousands of asylum claims – many of which are bogus,” commented MP Michelle Rempel Garner in a statement last month.
“The Conservatives will continue to press the government to remove non-citizens with no legal reason to be here.”
In bringing in the new rule, Carney is walking a fine line between respecting a Supreme Court ruling that applicants had a right to an oral hearing and trying to eliminate the backlog of claims.
Starting next week, immigration officials can dismiss a claim without referring it to the Immigration and Refugee Board for a hearing – provided the person arrived in Canada more than a year ago. Most international students who file claims do so after their study permit expires following several years in the country.
India had the largest number of student asylum claims in Canada last year, with 3,815 filed between January and August 2025, IRCC statistics show. Guinea was second at 1,254 claims, followed by Nigeria, with 1,059 such students.
Organisations working with international students are expressing concerns about the change.
Balpreet Singh, legal counsel with the World Sikh Organization of Canada, said that many international students from India have a well-founded fear of persecution.
“India has an appalling human rights record, and human rights observers have called it out for abuse against minority communities, including Sikhs,” Singh said. “It isn’t surprising that many Sikh students from Punjab have applied for refugee status.”
In an interview with the public affairs channel CPAC, India’s High Commissioner to Canada Dinesh Patnaik pledged to work with the Canadian government to deal with the flood of refugees.
“Right now is a time for Canada to crack down, and for us to help Canada crack down,” he said.
He added: “I am working with the Canadian government, with Universities Canada, with Colleges and Institutes Canada (CICan) to make sure that we have a talent and innovation strategy and immigration process which brings the best of talent and the best of things which Canada needs… a strategy which brings the best into Canada.”
The Liberal government argues that its reforms to the immigration system are already working. In a report released last month, it says asylum claims are being reduced through careful screening of students applying for a study permit.
“IRCC will continue to assess each application on an individual basis and apply a program integrity lens to reduce the risk of overstays and asylum claims,” the government report says. It credits this new approach for the fact that student asylum claims fell by 11% last year compared to 2024.
