Immigration Shortcut Program Faces Operational Challenges

Canada’s asylum system is facing mounting criticism as a backlog-clearing strategy has led to a surge in unresolved cases and raised security concerns among immigration experts.

In 2017, the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) introduced a “file review” policy designed to reduce the growing asylum backlog. This process has allowed 45,000 asylum cases to be decided without in-person hearings. However, far from solving the problem, the backlog has ballooned from 17,000 unresolved asylum cases in 2016 to a projected 300,000 by 2025.

Critics, including former Immigration Department policy director James Yousif, warn that this expedited system lacks proper scrutiny. Without face-to-face hearings, the IRB’s ability to detect false or fraudulent claims has been significantly compromised.

Many approved cases through this streamlined process involve asylum seekers from countries including Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Iraq. While these applicants undergo initial background checks that might flag individuals in security databases, immigration experts argue that in-person hearings provide crucial opportunities to identify inconsistencies and uncover potential connections to problematic regimes or terrorist organizations.

The IRB defends its procedures, stating that each adult claimant receives an interview with an immigration department or Canada Border Services Agency officer. However, immigration specialists counter that these interviews aren’t substantive assessments of claim legitimacy. Documents from the Immigration Ministry reveal that staff have been instructed not to evaluate the genuineness of claims.

Paradoxically, the fast-track process—implemented when the IRB faced possible dissolution due to slow decision-making—has not reduced the application backlog despite IRB staffing nearly tripling from 973 employees in 2016 to 2,579 in 2024. Experts suggest that Canada’s reputation for having an asylum-friendly system, partly due to this hearing-free process for applicants from certain countries, has contributed to the influx of cases.

The IRB initially published a list of countries and claim types eligible for expedited processing before later removing it from public access. While this information could benefit vulnerable individuals genuinely at risk, it could also be exploited by unscrupulous immigration consultants and claimants who can remain in Canada and receive benefits during the years-long waiting period, further delaying outcomes for legitimate asylum seekers.

The file review policy has demonstrably shifted outcomes toward positive decisions. The system encourages adjudicators to make quick approvals, which require less documentation and face fewer appeals. Since implementation, acceptance rates have climbed to 80 percent. Michael Barutciski of the Macdonald–Laurier Institute notes that Canada has become an international outlier, attracting disproportionately more asylum seekers than comparable countries.

Yousif highlights a circular problem in the policy’s design: countries were originally selected for file review because they had high acceptance rates. Now that they’re on the list, they’re virtually guaranteed to maintain high approval rates indefinitely.

Immigration experts recommend scrapping the file review policy entirely. Robert Vineberg, a former immigration department director-general, suggests transferring initial refugee status determinations to the immigration department, where staff could conduct thorough interviews more efficiently than the IRB’s quasi-judicial hearings.

Under this proposed restructuring, the IRB could be preserved as an appeals body for disputed decisions, though experts stress the need for limits on further appeals. The current system, which offers multiple challenge avenues, requires significant simplification.

While the asylum system undoubtedly needs streamlining, removing rigorous questioning compromises its integrity. For Canada to maintain its tradition of providing safe haven to vulnerable people worldwide, the system must strike a better balance between compassion and practical scrutiny—a challenge that Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab now faces as pressure mounts for comprehensive reform.