Einwanderungsbeamte haben keinen Spielraum, Flüchtlingsanträge zu prüfen, sagen Experten

Immigration experts say the front-line officials charged with initially questioning refugee claimants do not have enough latitude to probe the details of claimants’ stories, even if there is reason to doubt them.

The issue of how and when claimants are questioned came to public attention late last month. That’s when figures provided to MPs on the Commons immigration committee revealed that the Immigration and Refugee Board, which adjudicates asylum claims, has since 2019 processed more than 45,000 refugee cases based on paperwork alone, without in-person hearings, as it deals with a backlog of claims.

Critics say this practice may not subject claimants to an appropriate level of scrutiny. Many “file review” cases originate from countries with high refugee approval rates in Canada, though it is not clear how many of these cases were approved and how many were rejected.

The federal government has defended this way of doing things in part by noting that refugee claimants are interviewed in person by border and immigration officers before their cases are handed to the IRB.

Last week, the office of Immigration Minister Lena 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.”

But immigration lawyer Richard Kurland said current rules prevent those officers from probing the truth of asylum seekers’ stories.

“A person can show up at the border, give a written story prepared with AI, and the officer is instructed to not ask questions that will verify the credibility of the story. Even if officers want to question, and ask permission to so do, they can’t,” Mr. Kurland wrote in an e-mail.

Internal documents Mr. Kurland obtained from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada under access to information law, which were reviewed by The Globe and Mail, show that immigration officers have been instructed not to block people’s access to the IRB only because they doubt their stories.

The documents include an e-mail sent in October of last year from an immigration official to a senior IRCC colleague asking, in response to questions from another officer, “if we believe the client is not being truthful, can we withhold our eligibility decision until they provide a reasonable story?”

The senior IRCC official, Gianfranco Bonofiglio, responded: “Our role is not to verify the credibility of their story/entry. The IRB (and R&I) will assess that. The declaration/interview we hold is just collecting facts/information.”

….Have we heard anything from that AI minister yet? Or just GTA grant annoucements

they also don’t have any incentive. If they were evaluated based on rejection, we’d see more rejections and vice versa.

Refugee fraud about to go brrrrrrrr. Well it’s already going brrrrr but now even moreso. (Liberals want this)