Authorities in Canada are seeking powers to clamp down on applications of a group of visa holders, with internal documents singling out India and Bangladesh over “country-specific challenges”.
While Canada's immigration minister Lena Diab has publicly acknowledged that Ottawa is seeking such powers to use during “pandemic or war situations”, an internal document cited by CBC News states that such powers could also be used for “country-specific visa holders. It lists India and Bangladesh for the challenges.
Here is why India was singled out by Canada:
Reason for India being singled out in the Canadian visa clampdown
According to the internal document cited in the CBC News report, asylum claims from Indian nationals increased from fewer than 500 a month in May 2023 to about 2,000 by July 2024. It further stated that verifying temporary resident visa applications from India slows down application processing.
Also read: Canada rejects 3 in 4 Indian student visa applicants. Here's why
According to the document, the processing time rose from an average of 30 days at the end of July 2023 to 54 days a year later. Approvals also started to decline in 2024 as the authorities committed more resources to verification.
{{/usCountry}}According to the document, the processing time rose from an average of 30 days at the end of July 2023 to 54 days a year later. Approvals also started to decline in 2024 as the authorities committed more resources to verification.
{{/usCountry}}While the approvals in January stood at over 63,000, they declined to approximately 48,000 in June.
The document cited by the CBC News report also noted a rise in “no boards” in India as of the summer of 2024. No boards are passengers who are not allowed to board airplanes.
The document stated that 1,873 applicants had been identified for further questioning and sent procedural fairness letters by July 2024, outlining their rights and potential legal recourse.
No data about claims from Bangladesh was provided in the document.
What Canadian Immigration authorities said about the new powers
The Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) told CBC News in a statement last month that new application cancellation powers were not being proposed “with a specific group of people or situation in mind,” and that “decisions would not be taken unilaterally.”
The Immigration Department said in a recent statement that it has taken “concrete steps to minimise unnecessary border volumes, increase information sharing and reduce non-genuine visitors and illegal crossings at the border."
The department added that those actions, including heightened scrutiny of temporary resident visa (TRV) applications from “countries with the highest rates of abuse,” have led to a 97 per cent drop in illegal US crossings by foreign nationals into Canada from its peak in June 2024.
The statement also noted a 71 per cent drop in asylum claims from TRV holders in May compared to the same period last year, and a 25 per cent increase in visa refusals for fraud from January to May, also compared to the same period last year.