Cabinet has granted border agents new powers to cancel temporary visas for suspicious foreigners considered likely to remain in Canada illegally, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.
The new rules under the Immigration And Refugee Protection Regulations, which took effect on Wednesday, follow a 2024 admission by the Department of Immigration that it had lost track of as many as half a million foreigners here.
“The department has identified areas where the cancellation regulations for temporary resident documents could be strengthened,” said a legal notice.
Amendments allow officers to cancel temporary resident or travel visas “if an officer has reasonable grounds to believe the holder will not leave Canada.”
Airlines had already been consulted, the department wrote in an analysis statement.
“Travelers may be turned back at the airport or at a port of entry in the case of their document being cancelled prior to their entry to Canada.”
“The department acts as quickly as practicable to inform foreign nationals.”
“The impacts to foreign nationals both outside and inside Canada could include having to leave Canada in cases of inadmissibility and ineligibility, being refused to board at the airport, refusal of entry to Canada at the port of entry or financial loss in cases where a foreign national has purchased their travel ticket and is no longer authorized to travel to Canada.”
Thousands of suspicious foreign students, workers and tourists, about 7,000 a year, would see their permits cancelled, said the immigration department.
Similar regulations are already enforced in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
The new regulations follow an admission last year by the immigration department that it could not find thousands of foreigners who remained in Canada after temporary permits expired.
“There are no accurate figures representing the number or composition of undocumented immigrants residing in Canada,” said an April 24 briefing note on undocumented migrants.
“Estimates suggest the population could be as high as 500,000.”
“The majority become undocumented by falling out of status when they cannot meet eligibility criteria for existing immigration programs after lawfully entering Canada and have overstayed their authorized period of stay.”
“Only a small portion of undocumented migrants are thought to have unlawfully entered or were trafficked or smuggled into Canada.”
Cabinet has gradually tightened regulations after Immigration Minister Marc Miller called Canada an “open country” in an interview with American media.
“There is no doubt that we have made a conscious decision to be an open country and a country that needs to grow,” Miller told US National Public Radio last March 27.
“The reality is we don’t have much of a choice.”
Miller subsequently introduced new rules following a public outcry over the impact of record-high immigration and illegal border-crossing.
“Those folks are not welcome to Canada if they are doing so in an irregular fashion,” he told reporters January 15.
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