January 14, 2020

This Week’s Success Story: Family Fleeing War Challenges Refusal

A family fleeing war and persecution applied together for resettlement as permanent residents in Canada. As they were privately sponsored by a Group of Five, they required to provide a refugee recognition document. They obtained one document covering everyone in the family, and provided it to IRCC, who advised them it was acceptable. Half of the family later had their applications accepted and came to Canada. But the other half were told to wait – until they were surprised by news that IRCC now considered the document insufficient, and that their applications were refused – even though it was the exact same document! We helped the family challenge the decision at Federal Court. We argued that IRCC cannot say the same family document both meets and does not meet the program criteria at the same time, and supported our stance with careful legal arguments. Thanks to our work, IRCC agreed to reopen the refused applications without a fight.