CIMM – Questions and Answers Relating to the Temporary Public Policy to Facilitate the Processing of Temporary Resident Visa Applications in the Inventory – February 7, 2024

Q1. Have these temporary public policies resulted in an increase in asylum claims? If so, why does IRCC not cancel all visas issued under these policies?

The world is facing the worst global refugee crisis in recent history. Canada, like many other countries, is experiencing more asylum claims as the number of displaced people worldwide continues to grow.

Although a portion of these asylum claims were made by people who received a Temporary Resident Visa (TRV) under the temporary public policies, many travelled to Canada for genuine reasons and later claimed asylum and remained in Canada.

We will continue to examine how the public policies have impacted asylum volumes to inform future visa policy and processing initiatives aimed at reducing inventories.

Q2. How many people who were issued a TRV under these temporary public policies claimed asylum in Canada? Where were most of these claims made?

As of October 31, over 15,000 asylum claims have been received from people who were issued a visa under the temporary public policies. These claims account for approximately 14% of the total asylum claims Canada received this year. While the majority of these claims were from people who were issued a visitor visa, approximately 100 claims were made by those who were issued a PGP super visa.

Of the 15,000 claims, 8,000 have been made at Canada’s international airports and 7,300 have been made inside Canada after arriving.

61% of the 8,000 airport asylum claims have been made at the Montréal Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, and 37% have been made at the Toronto Pearson Airport.

Q3. How many of these visas have been issued in total and how many of the visa holders have arrived in Canada?

As of October 31, IRCC has issued almost 156,000 visas under the temporary public policies. Approximately 42% of these visa holders (66,500) have travelled to Canada and 89,500 visa holders have yet to travel.

After December 31, 2023, border officials resumed assessing these visa holders upon arrival at a port of entry according to standard entry requirements.

As long as they have a valid TRV, individuals holding these temporary resident visas can choose to travel to Canada at any time within the next 10 years, or may choose not to travel to Canada at all.

Q4. What is the Department doing to assist its provincial and municipal partners who are seeing a growing number of asylum claimants?

The Government of Canada appreciates the significant role that provincial and municipal governments across the country have played in providing temporary shelter to asylum claimants through solutions tailored to their local circumstances.

The Government of Canada is working collaboratively with its municipal and provincial partners to alleviate the pressures related to the increase in asylum claimant volumes.

If claimants do not have a place to stay and provincial and municipal shelters are full, IRCC will, where possible and within existing available space, provide temporary accommodations, meals, basic support services and transportation to an IRCC-funded hotel where capacity exists. The federal government has nearly 3,800 hotel spaces in Canada, which provide temporary accommodation for over 7,000 asylum claimants.

In addition, through the Interim Housing Assistance Program (IHAP), the federal government has provided almost $700 million to provinces and municipalities to address extraordinary interim housing pressures related to the increased volumes of asylum claimants since 2017. Earlier this year, IRCC announced an extension of IHAP with additional funding of $212 million. This additional funding will provide targeted federal support on a cost-sharing basis to enable provinces and municipalities to increase their interim housing capacity and reduce the risk of homelessness for claimants.

Asylum claimants are also eligible for federally funded health care coverage, through the Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP). Benefits under IFHP include basic health care services (such as doctor visits, hospital care and tests), supplemental services (such as limited vision care and urgent dental care) and prescription drug coverage (medications and products).

To help asylum claimants support themselves and their families while they await the outcome of their asylum claim, IRCC introduced a temporary public policy in November 2022 to provide open work permits to asylum claimants earlier on in the process. As of October 31, 2023, approximately 100,000 work permits have been provided.

Responding to the needs of asylum claimants requires collaboration and engagement, and the Government of Canada remains committed to working in partnership with provinces and municipalities to determine how we can best and most efficiently support them.

Q5. Some claim that these policies undermined the integrity of Canada’s immigration system and jeopardized the safety and security of Canadians. Why did IRCC decide to pursue these measures to reduce the inventory, especially if you knew the risks?

To eliminate IRCC’s long-standing TRV inventory and get back to acceptable processing times, decisive action was necessary to ensure that Canada remains a globally competitive destination for business, tourism and families.

The accumulated TRV inventory was hindering IRCC’s ability to process visas in a timely manner, which was impacting Canada’s attractiveness to business travellers and visitors, and has kept families and loved ones separated. IRCC’s temporary public policies (TPP) to streamline the processing of older TRV applications were put in place to return to competitive processing times so applicants can receive decisions on their visitor visa applications faster. This policy has been successful in clearing most of the older TRV cases in our inventory; of the 240k eligible applications in the inventory, 227K applications received a final decision.

Although the temporary public policies facilitated the issuance of visas and accelerated the timeline for final decisions on eligible applications, other steps were still required before final decisions were made and visas were issued. No changes were made to the security and biometrics screening process. All eligible applications were assessed and screened based on standard security and health requirements.

These measures were also time limited, and they only applied to applications submitted on or before January 16, 2023. IRCC mitigated a sizeable risk by excluding higher-risk applications from these fast-tracking measures, such as those of people who have had their last temporary or permanent resident application refused within the past four years.

When making decisions on policies or measures to implement, IRCC carefully assesses the benefits and risks of all available options as well as the risk of inaction. Maintaining public trust by providing efficient and dependable service while protecting the integrity of our immigration system and the safety and security of Canadians is at the core of our decision making.

While IRCC understood that this decision could result in a temporary increase in overstays or asylum claims, IRCC weighed this risk against the priority of improving processing times for TRV applicants, and the long-term, invaluable benefits this will provide to our economy, travel and tourism, and Canadian families.

Q6. Why was the temporary resident visa inventory so large?

Previous international travel restrictions and border closures prevented IRCC from processing and finalizing most of its TRV applications for an 18-month period, as most visitors were not allowed into the country due to the COVID­19 pandemic. However, during this time, people continued to apply for TRVs.

When the Government of Canada lifted its pandemic travel restrictions, IRCC experienced a surge in new applications, which created an unprecedented volume of applications in our processing inventory. There is also a growing number of humanitarian crises that require IRCC’s urgent response and significant resources.

As people around the world continue to apply to visit, study and work in Canada in record numbers, IRCC continues to face the long-term impacts of these events on our processing inventories.

Q7. What else is IRCC doing to improve processing times?

The Government of Canada has implemented a number of initiatives to reduce the TRV inventory and improve processing times, including

• mandating electronic applications, which allows IRCC to better manage its workload by distributing cases across our global processing network
• hiring and training additional employees throughout 2022, through $85 million in funding for backlog reduction
• investing $74.6 million over five years to boost application processing as announced in Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy

Furthermore, IRCC expanded electronic travel authorization (eTA) eligibility to citizens of 13 additional countries who have either held a Canadian visa in the last 10 years, or who currently hold a valid US non-immigrant visa. Introducing visa-free air travel to known travellers is diverting thousands of applications from Canada’s visa caseload, allowing us to process visa applications more efficiently.

IRCC will continue to focus on modernizing our program and service delivery, so Canada can continue to be a destination of choice for people all over the world.

Q8. How do the temporary public policies work? How did IRCC streamline the processing of TRV applications?

Foreign nationals must meet basic requirements to get a TRV and to enter Canada at a port of entry (airports, land and marine borders). Typically, they must have a valid passport or other travel document, be in good health, and have no criminal or immigration-related convictions. They must also have enough money for their stay and must satisfy an immigration officer that they will leave at the end of their authorized stay.

For eligible TRV applicants, IRCC introduced a policy to waive the assessment that a temporary resident (visitor, student or worker) will leave Canada at the end of their authorized stay, as well as the financial assessment that determines if they have enough money for their stay. For eligible PGP super visa applicants, IRCC introduced a second policy to waive the assessment that they will leave Canada at the end of their authorized stay, while maintaining financial requirements to be met by the sponsor in Canada

These assessments were waived both during the visa application process, as well as at the port of entry examination when a person is travelling to Canada on that visa for the first time. The original temporary public policies were set to expire on December 31, 2023.

Q9. What happens now that the visitor visa temporary public policy is revoked? Will people who were issued a visitor visa under this policy still be allowed to come to Canada?

The cancellation of the visitor visa temporary public policy will not impact those who were already issued a visa, and they can continue to travel to Canada until their visa expires.

For those who have already been issued a visitor visa through this TPP, the Government of Canada continued to facilitate their first entry into Canada until December 31, 2023. Border officials have now resumed assessing these travellers upon arrival at a port of entry according to standard entry requirements.

IRCC will no longer be issuing visas under the visitor visa TPP for the remaining 11,000 applications that are still pending a decision. These applications will be processed in accordance with our standard temporary resident visa requirements.

Q10. Why did IRCC decide to revoke this policy a month before its December 31 expiry date when there were still 11,000 applicants pending a decision?

This policy has been successful in clearing most of the older TRV cases in our inventory; of the 240k eligible applications in the inventory, 227K applications received a final decision. This has helped IRCC deliver on its commitment to speed up the processing of TRV applications, allowing us to better respond to the growing number of people who want to visit Canada.

The remaining cases are considered complex and will require more time to process because they require more in-depth security screening; are missing documents, biometrics or medical screening; or have inadmissibility concerns.

Q11. Does IRCC expect the revocation of this temporary public policy will make a difference in the rising asylum claims?

IRCC decided to revoke the TPP for the remaining 11,000 temporary resident visa applications in inventory and will process them in accordance with standard visa requirements.

We cannot speculate on the reasons why people claim asylum or on any future trends.

Q12. Why didn’t the Government of Canada revoke this policy earlier if there were concerns about rising asylum claims?

The policy was implemented to reduce the backlog and lower processing times, which was a major Government of Canada priority.

IRCC committed to work with the CBSA to monitor and report on outcomes, which would inform future visa policy and processing initiatives aimed at reducing inventories. The minister of IRCC has the authority to impose or rescind public policies at any time.

We will continue to examine the effects of this public policy and work with our provincial and municipal colleagues to help alleviate any pressures that they are facing as a result of the higher volumes of asylum claims.

Q13. What is the current status of IRCC’s overall TRV inventory? How have the TPPs helped reduce the TRV inventory and improve processing times?

To keep Canadians up to date on our progress in reducing the inventories, IRCC publishes monthly data on its website.

As of October 31, 2023, IRCC processed 94% of TRV applications subject to both TPPs. The remaining 11,000 visitor visa applications will be processed in accordance with standard requirements, as the TPP to facilitate the processing of TRV (visitor visa) applications in inventory is no longer in effect as of December 7, 2023.

Although no longer in effect, this policy has played a vital role in clearing most of the older TRV cases in our inventory, and has helped the department lower processing times from 159 days when the TPPs were first introduced, to 85 days between February and the beginning of November 2023. It has also helped reduce the percentage of TRV applications in IRCC’s backlog (processed outside of service standards) from 74% in October 2022 to 58% in October 2023.  

It’s important to note that TRVs are demand-driven, meaning that an unlimited number of people can apply at any time. Because thousands of applications enter our inventory on a daily basis, IRCC will always have an inventory of TRV applications. The department continues to work toward maintaining a healthy and manageable level of inventory that will allow us to deliver our services faster to help reunite families, and better support business travel, tourism, students and workers.

Although there are a number of factors that can affect processing times, many outside IRCC’s control, we’re committed to reducing the overall age of our inventory so applicants will receive more timely decisions on their applications. IRCC’s latest streamlining efforts, as well as other planned, complementary facilitative measures have allowed us to clear most of the older TRV applications in our inventory, which has made a positive impact on processing times.

Q14. Why were the temporary public policies only for applications submitted on or before January 16, 2023? Why that date?

IRCC chose that specific date because an internal decision memo outlining different options to help clear the TRV inventory backlog was made public on January 16, 2023, before a decision was made. To protect the integrity of our visa program, IRCC decided that only applications submitted on or before January 16 would be eligible to be processed under the temporary public policies so people did not use this information to apply for a TRV for reasons other than visiting.

Source: UNHCR Global Trends Report 2022 (unhcr.org)