CIMM – 6.2 – Admittance of Afghans – February 8, 2023
IRCC’s response to a request for information made by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration on February 15, 2022
Question
Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan: Minister, what are the metrics, then? What kind of monthly metrics are we looking at? How many people do you think you're going to bring in a month?
Hon. Sean Fraser: The effort is not to measure a particular number of people every single month. If you were to do the math, you would see that the commitment of 40,000 by next year is what the publicly stated target has been. That would put you in the ballpark of somewhere around 1,250 to 1,500, depending on the month. That doesn't mean that the same number is there every month. Some months it will be more; some months it will be less.
Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan: Minister, can you please table with the committee what numbers you think are going to be coming in?
Hon. Sean Fraser: If you're asking for a written response to rough timelines of folks, it won't specify, every single month, the exact number that's scheduled, because there are circumstances that require flexibility month to month.
Response
The Government of Canada has committed to resettling 40,000 Afghan persons to Canada by the end of 2023. Specific arrival data is impossible to project, given intangibles such as COVID-19 and safe transit arrangements. As seen in the table below, the number of persons arriving monthly can vary from hundreds to thousands.
Year | Month | Government Assisted Refugees | Privately Sponsored Refugees | Grand Total |
---|---|---|---|---|
2021 | August | 1,845 | - | 1,845 |
September | 960 | 65 | 1,025 | |
October | 1,235 | 110 | 1,345 | |
November | 340 | 70 | 410 | |
December | 735 | 1,180 | 1,915 | |
2022 | January | 745 | 40 | 785 |
February | 1,040 | 175 | 1,215 | |
Grand Total | 6,900 | 1,640 | 8,540 |
*All values have been rounded to the nearest 5 and values 10 or under suppressed for privacy reasons.
Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada is continuing to process applications as efficiently as possible. Significant resources have been added, including setting up a dedicated telephone line, with extended hours, to serve Afghan clients seeking information and assistance, waiving application fees, and mobilizing the global network to process and issue visas on an urgent basis.
The Government of Canada’s priority has been getting people safely out of Afghanistan during the humanitarian crisis while ensuring the safety and security of Canadians. The Government of Canada has no military or diplomatic presence in Afghanistan, which presents challenges in how we collect and verify applicants’ information in the absence of in-country biometric screening capacity.
As with all applications, Afghan refugees need to meet eligibility and admissibility requirements before they are accepted for resettlement to Canada. Until full in-country processing is feasible, IRCC has an innovative and robust solution in place, using a multi-stage approach to security screening in Afghanistan, which ensures that the necessary initial client security screening can be completed prior to departure.
This has involved introducing new, agile approaches to help bring people to Canada, despite challenges faced on the ground. In some cases, this had led to completing elements of the screening process while Afghans are transiting through third countries.
IRCC has introduced an enhanced process to collect additional biographic information from clients while they are still in Afghanistan. The department began collecting enhanced biographic data from clients in Afghanistan in January of this year.
Clients with no admissibility concerns after enhanced biographic screening may be facilitated onwards to a 3rd country where biometric screening and completion of an inadmissibility decision will be made before onward travel to Canada.
IRCC has been processing applications as efficiently as possible, and will continue to be as flexible and facilitative as it can in terms of the requirements regarding documentation, without compromising security and while respecting exit control requirements of the host country.
In addition, IRCC is actively exploring solutions with like-minded countries and partners to conduct biometrics in Afghanistan, should conditions become favorable.
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