Pre-removal risk assessment (PRRA)
This section contains policy, procedures and guidance used by IRCC staff. It is posted on the department’s website as a courtesy to stakeholders.
The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) provides that, with certain exceptions, persons in Canada may, in accordance with the Regulations, apply for protection if they are subject to a removal order that is in force. This is called pre-removal risk assessment (PRRA).
Table of contents
- General policy
- General policy
- The Charter and PRRA
- Intake
- Who can apply for a PRRA
- Notification of eligibility to apply for a PRRA
- Stay of removal for PRRA applicants
- Regulatory stay of removal
- No stay of removal
- Applicants described in subsection A112(3)
- Persons subject to security certificates
- Subsequent PRRA applicants
- Who cannot apply for a PRRA
- Protected persons and Convention refugee who obtained their status abroad (Non-Refoulement section A115)
- Person subject to an authority to proceed under the Extradition Act
- Refugee claimants coming from a safe third country
- Certain unsuccessful refugee claimants and previous PRRA applicants
- PRRA bar
- Unsuccessful refugee claimants applying for their first PRRA
- Situations where the PRRA bar does not apply
- Calculating the bar
- Exemptions to the PRRA bar
- PRRA – Exemption to the bar (table)
- Timelines, inland and port of entry (POE) applications
- Applications made within 15-day period after inland PRRA notification
- Applications made after expiration of the 15-day period and subsequent applications
- Applications made by persons at the port of entry (POE) and across the entire land border
- Applications made by persons who are issued a removal order at the POE
- Applications for persons who have departed Canada without obtaining a Certificate of Departure and have subsequently arrived at the POE
- Applications made by persons subject to security certificates – subsection A77(1)
- Processing procedures and guidelines
- Assessing the evidence
- Identifying the issues
- Consideration of submissions
- Accepting new evidence
- Conducting research
- Using information obtained through Internet research
- How much research is enough?
- Weighing the evidence
- Standard of proof
- Establishing the facts – balance of probabilities
- Legal test to be met
- Section A96 – serious possibility or reasonable chance
- Paragraphs A97(1)(a) and (b) – balance of probabilities
- Self-serving evidence
- The risk must not be faced generally – generalized oppression and crises
- State protection
- Operational adequacy test
- Inability or unwillingness to make use of state protection
- Potential country of reference
- Country of reference for stateless persons
- Internal flight alternative
- Compelling reasons
- Factors that could lead to a rejection of the application
- Country against which risk is assessed
- Country of nationality or citizenship or habitual residence
- Refugees “sur place”
- Applicant restrictions on access to protection
- Establishing that an applicant is described in subsection A112(3)
- Subsection A112(3) applicants who are also described in paragraph A113(e)
- Consideration of PRRA applications from persons inadmissible for serious criminality: former versus current legislation
- Procedures: subsection A112(3) applicants
- Applicant not described in section A97 nor [if applicant falls under paragraph A113(e)] in section A96 after risk assessment
- Applicant described in section A97 or [if applicant falls under paragraph A113(e)] in section A96, including senior immigration officer and CBSA removals officer responsibilities
- Coordination between the CBSA Danger Assessments and National Security Cases (DANSC) and IRCC Migration Integrity Operations Branch (MIOB)
- Preparation of restriction assessments
- Disclosure
- Procedural fairness
- Receipt of submissions
- Decision and delivery
- Ministerial stay of removal
- Annex A – PRRA applications from persons inadmissible for serious criminality: former versus current legislation
- Exclusions
- Overview
- Authority to assess exclusions
- When to consider exclusions
- Assessing Article 1F exclusions in a PRRA
- Article 1F: General
- Article 1F(a): Crime against peace, war crime, or crime against humanity
- Article 1F(b): Serious non-political crime
- Article 1F(c): Acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations
- Further resources
- Modes of liability, Ezokola and defences
- Modes of liability
- The Ezokola test
- Defences
- Processing exclusions in a PRRA context
- Impact of the Article 1F exclusion clause assessment
- Interpreting section A96
- Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) section 96
- Well-founded fear
- Objective and subjective fear
- Standard of proof
- Legal test to establish a risk of persecution
- Past and future persecution
- Persecution
- Assessing persecution cases involving prosecution
- Assessing the reason for persecution - Nexus
- Race
- Religion
- Nationality
- Membership in a particular social group
- Political opinion
- Interpreting section A97
- Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) section 97
- Danger of torture, risk to life, risk of cruel or unusual treatment or punishment
- What is torture?
- Examples of torture
- Grounds for torture
- Agent of torture
- Danger of torture
- Making an objective assessment of the danger of torture
- Determining the past, present or future likelihood of torture
- Assessing risk to life or risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment
- Applying the standard of proof
- Assessing protection of the State (State agent and non-State agent)
- Assessing the objective risk to life or of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment
- Assessing the inability of the country of removal to provide medical care under subparagraph A97(1)(b)(iv)
- Asking key questions
- No nexus
- Assurances in the death penalty cases
- Initiation of a request for assurances
- Referral of cases when the issue of assurances is not resolved
- On receipt of assurances
- Where no assurances are obtained
- Decisions
- Writing guidelines
- Reasonableness standard in administrative review
- Avoiding bias or appearance of bias
- Handling PRRA decisions
- Submissions received after a PRRA decision is made
- Requests for reconsiderations of a negative decision
- Steps
- Factors to review when deciding whether to reconsider
- Oral hearings
- When to hold a hearing
- Credibility-based hearings
- Mandatory hearings
- Providing notice
- Including all issues of fact
- Scope of the examination
- Differences between issues of fact, issues of law, and issues of mixed fact and law
- Conducting a hearing: General guidelines
- Hearing procedures
- Recording the hearing
- Failure to appear
- Role of Counsel or representative
- Particular circumstances
- Minors
- Situations where a person’s disability, vulnerability and/or personal characteristics may require procedural accommodations and/or substantive considerations
- Gender considerations
- Cases involving sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC)
- When to hold a hearing
- Removals and stays of removals
- Country of removal
- Stay of removal
- Duration of regulatory and Ministerial stays
- Review of Ministerial stay of removal
- When to review: Change in circumstances
- Process for review of stay of removal
- Abandonment, withdrawal, and vacation
- Abandonment
- Withdrawal
- Vacation
- When vacation is initiated
- Adverse information should be disclosed
- Decision on vacation
- Vacation pending application for permanent residence or where person is a permanent resident