Thousands of asylum claimants are awaiting deportation from Canada. This is number was revealed in a response by the current Liberal government to a a question that had been posed by the opposition, Conservatives.
According to this response, the total number of warrants that have been issued to failed refugee seekers in Canada stands at over 28,000.
“The number of active warrants issued to failed refugee claimants currently stands at 28,145 active warrants,” the response to the Order Paper Question submitted by the Conservatives stated.
“A CBSA officer may issue a warrant for the arrest and detention of a foreign national if the officer has reasonable grounds to believe the individual is inadmissible under the IRPA and either poses a danger to the public or is unlikely to appear for an immigration process, such as a removal from Canada.”
According to a related report that appeared in the Canadian paper, Toronto Sun, a total of 321,788 people applied for asylum between 2027 and 2023. Out of these, just 145,751 or 45 percent have been accepted. The rest have been rejected, have abandoned or withdrawn their applications, or are still in the process.
I have been deported twice from Dubai and Ethiopia while trying to travel to Canada
At the same time, data from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) that was received by a coalition of migrant welfares through access to information requests, 7,032 people were deported from Canada in the first half of 2023. This averaged at 39 deportations per day for the first six months of 2023.
Asylum cases recorded a sharp increase in 2023 after the former Immigration Minister Sean Fraser issued a policy for bulk approval of tourist visas. This policy was canceled by the current Immigration Minister Marc Miller.
According to a Memorandum to Mr. Miller that was seen by Bizna Kenya, the bulk approvals saw over 19,000 people applying for asylum after traveling to Canada on using visit visas.
“To date, approximately 19,400 asylum claims were made by clients who travelled to Canada on visas issued under both public policies. The large majority of claims are made by visitor visa holders, not Supervisa clients,” the Memorandum dated December 6, 2023 stated.
