Proof-of-citizenship applications surge, estimated wait time is almost 3 years

2026/09/15 Leave a comment

So the number after less than one year is already greater than the five-year estimate by PBO and IRGC. As Kurland notes, “They dropped the ball big time:”

Both the wait times and the number of people waiting for a decision regarding their proof-of-citizenship application has surged exponentially since Bill C-3 came into effect, according to new data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

More than 136,000 people are awaiting a decision, with estimated wait times now more than 33 months. They include people eligible for citizenship under the amended rules and those who are first-generation descendants. In the case of applications from outside Canada or the United States, the estimated wait time could take an additional three or four months.

The wait time has increased by eight months from this August, when it was estimated to be 25 months. The number of applications has also increased by 14,000.

Bill C-3, which came into effect in December 2025, amended the Citizenship Act to end the first-generation limit on citizenship by descent, meaning Canadians born outside the country can also pass their citizenship to their children who are born outside the country. It also expanded eligibility to people born before Dec. 15, 2025, if they can prove they’re directly descended from a Canadian citizen, and have verifiable documents showing that the citizenship was passed down – even if that ancestor left the country years ago.

Half of applications come from U.S.

According to data provided by the IRCC in August, more than 6,100 people have obtained proof of citizenship under these new rules since late 2025.

As of May 31, 51 per cent of all approved citizenship applications under the new eligibility criteria came from people born in the U.S., according to data provided by the IRCC.

One immigration lawyer says the new numbers are “staggering” and “far beyond the capacity of IRCC” to process in a reasonable timeframe.

Kyle Hyndman, an immigration lawyer from Victoria, B.C., told CTVNews.ca on Thursday, that a “significant” number of applications are coming from the south of the border.

“Both what’s happening in the U.S. politically – and also news coverage of the Canadian citizenship situation in the U.S. – have both spurred a lot of interest,” Hyndman said.

“That’s certainly part of the surge, and that’s put all kinds of pressure on every stage in this process,” he said.

…‘A predictable uptake’

Christine Beltempo, the current chair of the Canadian Bar Association National Immigration Law Section and a lawyer with the national law firm McCarthy Tétrault, told CTVNews.ca on Friday that she’s seeing many applications coming in from other countries besides the U.S., like Mexico.

“You’re creating additional bureaucracy for some people who actually are presumably, according to the new law, Canadian citizens,” she said, referring to people from countries like Mexico, who need a visa application to enter Canada, unless they get their citizenship certificate.

Outside of the U.S., the most approved applications are from Mexico, Bolivia, the United Kingdom and its territories, China, India, Bolivia, France, Australia and Italy, according to the IRCC’s data.

Beltempo called the surge in processing times “a predictable uptake,” following the amendment to Bill C-3, which is leading to “frustration” among applicants who were looking forward to this legislative change.

“What we’re seeing is disappointment, frustration, mixed emotions and certainly people finding it very difficult to plan their lives and their futures in Canada, without having a predictable amount of time before which they can actually get their documentation,” she said.

Beltempo added that the IRCC is facing backlogs in other departments as well, which needs to be examined by the federal government. She says it’s concerning for associations like the Canadian Bar Association, in terms of access to justice and other programs.

“I think it’s important to remind the public that this change came as a result of a court finding that the previous law was unconstitutional.”

‘When you’re Canadian, you have the right to be here’

Before Bill C-3 was amended, Canadian citizenship by descent was limited to first-generation individuals, born or adopted outside the country by a Canadian citizen. That restriction was subsequently struck down in a 2023 ruling by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, which found it unconstitutional.

Richard Kurland, an immigration lawyer and policy analyst from Vancouver, told CTVNews.ca Friday, that the sudden uptick in the number of applications and the increase in estimated wait times is a combination of the political tension between Canada and the U.S., in addition to the Bill C-3 amendment.

“They certainly drop the ball in failing to resource the citizenship people to process, resulting in three years and longer processing times,” Richard Kurland said. “When you’re Canadian, you have the right to be here.”

Kurland said despite people having a claim to Canadian citizenship, the province they enter cannot allow them access to health care, public education or employment without the paperwork from the IRCC.

“There’s no way that the (federal) government could not know that the inventories would become bloated (and) processing times would go through the ceiling,” he said.

“They dropped the ball big time.”

Meanwhile, multiple factors are to blame for an increase in the volume of applications outside of Bill C-3, an IRCC spokesperson told CTVNews.ca in a statement on Friday.

“Complex cases often require substantial documentary evidence and additional verification, which can extend timelines,” the spokesperson wrote. 

“The current estimate should be understood in that context, rather than as a direct comparison with historical figures that were calculated using different inventories or methodologies.”

Source: Proof-of-citizenship applications surge, estimated wait time is almost 3 years

Filed under C-3, Citizenship Tagged with , ,

They came to Canada for safety. Now they’re suspected of supporting the regime they fled

2026/09/15 Leave a comment

Not the first time for this reporting. Valid concerns regarding conscripts who had little choice:

…Hundreds of applicants received similar letters on Aug. 6 and 7, according to Nahid Rahmati, a representative of the Unheard Conscripts Advocacy Network. 

The group seeks to represent people conscripted to the IRGC and advocate for them within the Canadian immigration system.

Rahmati said she’s never seen anyone receive a PFL and be accepted into Canada.

“I have seen lots of cases that have been rejected,” she said. “They got the PFL and they got rejected.”

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said in a statement it could not confirm the number of letters sent to permanent residency applicants in relation to potential IRGC ties.

CBC News spoke with several recipients of the letters, many of whom declined to speak on the record for fear of retribution from the government of Iran.

Letters part of ‘normal’ process

In a statement, Canada’s immigration and citizenship department said the listing of the guard as a terrorist entity prompts an “assessment of inadmissibility concerns where applications indicate a connection to the IRGC.”

“This is a normal part of applying Canada’s immigration law and does not mean that every person who served in the IRGC is automatically inadmissible.”

Conscripts said it is difficult to prove they did not participate in the IRGC after their mandatory service ended. The IRGC does not keep a list of people who left, according to Hossein Raeesi, a criminal and human rights lawyer who practiced in Iran for two decades.

“Someone who served compulsory military service with the IRGC is not considered as a member of the IRGC,” he said.

CBC News asked the Canadian government which documents it would accept as proof that an applicant was not a member of the IRGC beyond mandatory service. 

“There is no single prescribed set of documents that applies to every case,” the agency said in a statement.

Conscripts served under duress, lawyer says

Many of the conscripts served under duress, according to Arghavan Gerami, an immigration lawyer based in Ottawa. 

Two of her current clients have received PFLs and she worries Canada is expecting them to prove they tried to resist conscription….

Source: They came to Canada for safety. Now they’re suspected of supporting the regime they fled

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La stratégie d’IRCC en matière d’IA réduit les immigrants à des points de données

2026/09/15 Leave a comment

All true, but not all that relevant as given the numbers some forms of AI have to be used to reduce or manage processing times:

…Une demande d’immigration ne se limite pas à un ensemble de formulaires, de documents et de points de données. Derrière chaque dossier se trouve une personne qui a consacré des années de travail, d’études, de revenus et d’espoir à se construire une vie au Canada. Les documents remis à IRCC racontent l’histoire de ces personnes : leur parcours professionnel, leur famille, leurs épreuves, leurs réussites et, souvent, les raisons qui les poussent à chercher un avenir ici.

Lorsque ces parcours sont de plus en plus filtrés par des systèmes automatisés, les personnes immigrantes risquent d’être perçues davantage comme des données que comme des êtres humains. Une efficacité accrue peut certes aider les gouvernements à gérer de grands volumes de demandes, mais elle ne saurait se substituer à leur compréhension.

En fin de compte, le problème ne réside pas simplement dans le fait que l’IA prenne ou non la décision définitive. Il s’agit plutôt de savoir si l’IA modifie la perception qu’a le décideur à l’égard d’un être humain avant même que sa décision ne soit prise.

Neslihan Sriram-Uzundal est doctorante au Département des sciences de l’éducation et chercheuse engagée à l’Université Concordia.

Source: La stratégie d’IRCC en matière d’IA réduit les immigrants à des points de données

… An immigration application is not limited to a set of forms, documents and data points. Behind each file is a person who has devoted years of work, education, income and hope to building a life in Canada. The documents given to IRCC tell the story of these people: their professional career, their family, their trials, their successes and, often, the reasons why they are looking for a future here.

When these paths are increasingly filtered by automated systems, immigrants are more likely to be perceived as data than human beings. Increased efficiency can certainly help governments handle large volumes of requests, but it cannot replace their understanding.

In the end, the problem is not simply whether or not the AI makes the final decision. Rather, it is a question of whether AI changes the decision-maker’s perception of a human being even before his decision is made.

Neslihan Sriram-Uzundal is a doctoral student in the Department of Educational Sciences and a researcher at Concordia University.

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Matlow: Jew-hatred has never stopped evolving. Antizionism is its latest iteration

2026/09/14 2 Comments

Good commentary:

…It’s easy to chant “Free Palestine” or imagine a single democratic state where everyone has equal rights and lives happily ever after. But seven million Israeli Jews aren’t disappearing. Neither are Palestinians. That’s the trouble with reality: it’s messy, painful and terrible at slogans. The only paths are compromise and co-existence – or forever war. 

Meanwhile, Jews are once again feeling the walls closing in. In Canada, reported antisemitic incidents are at record levels, but stats don’t capture the Star of David tucked under a shirt, the kippah left at home, the Jewish artist dropped from an event after failing a Zionism purity test, or the many Jews pushed out at school or at work. For me, queer spaces used to feel safest. Now they’re where I feel most anxious.

And what recourse do Jews even have when our institutions see us as too powerful – or too deceptive – to deserve the same anti-racist protections as other minorities? Why speak up when you’ll just be accused of “weaponizing antisemitism”? Eventually, a lot of Jews shut up. But silence doesn’t mean there’s nothing to say. It tells you the price of saying it. 

Jews need allies. Nobody wants to be called a “genocide apologist” for standing up for Jews. But that’s how antizionism persists in plain sight: fear of looking racist has become a pretty ingenious way to get people to tolerate Jew-hatred. 

Politicians keep denouncing antisemitism without confronting where the “scourge” is coming from. The answer is uncomfortable because, as the old horror-movie line goes, the call is coming from inside the house. 

Jew-hatred has always been a good stress test for society’s values. So yes, this is about protecting Jews. But it’s as much about protecting a culture where facts still matter, words still mean something, people are allowed to disagree, and minorities deserve solidarity even when they’re politically inconvenient. 

The real divide isn’t pro-Israel versus pro-Palestine, Jews versus Muslims, or left versus right. It’s between reality and ideology, curiosity and certainty, and actually being anti-racist rather than just looking the part. 

Because the real test of our values isn’t how we treat the people we’ve decided are the good guys. It’s whether we apply them to the people we’ve decided are villains.

Rachel ‘Archie’ Matlow is a journalist and author.

Source: Jew-hatred has never stopped evolving. Antizionism is its latest iteration

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Christopher Dummitt: Racism accusations can’t stifle the truth about diversity

2026/09/14 Leave a comment

Of note (and having read both the Usher and Kaufmann pieces, Kaufmann did control for career length and discipline:

…To be fair, there are real criticisms to make of the report. Usher’s point that the MLI press release foregrounds numbers more dramatic than what the full report supports is a legitimate complaint about framing. But it is definitely not evidence of “the worst piece of social science” anyone has ever seen.

What the MLI report is doing is useful: engaging openly with a debate that much of higher education won’t admit is a debate at all. My guess is plenty of academics privately entertain the possibility that equity doesn’t automatically produce excellence, but they don’t publicly say so because it means risking your reputation. As a result, the only people left asking are on the political right, who can then be dismissed, as Usher shows, simply with an accusation of racism, a charge that delegitimizes the question before it’s even considered.

Usher did exactly this to another MLI report four years ago, one I co-authored with Zachary Patterson of Concordia University. That report surveyed ideological conformity and self-censorship in Canadian universities, including whether professors believed diversity should be valued over their discipline’s core intellectual standards.

For asking that question, we too were accused of racism. Usher published a critique alleging assorted methodological problems; when we replied, showing he’d missed the sections addressing every one of them, he simply didn’t respond.

In the case of my report, and again now with MLI’s “The Equity Excellence Trade-Off,” Usher didn’t fact-check the report. He fact-checked the room — and the room agreed with him. Why wouldn’t it, given what we know, on average, about the ideological make-up of the profession?”

Source: Christopher Dummitt: Racism accusations can’t stifle the truth about diversity

Filed under DEI, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

He’s been in Canada for 27 years. Now a former refugee faces deportation over trips back home

2026/09/14 Leave a comment

Well, if you have gone back repeatedly to your country of origin, hard to claim still being a refugee. Time should count less than behaviour:

…An obvious response is that permanent residence is not citizenship. Legally, that distinction matters. Permanent residence can be lost on statutory grounds that generally do not apply to Canadian citizenship.

Yet that does not make time irrelevant. One year of residence compared to 27 years of residence may be connected to the same immigration status, but they’re not socially or emotionally equivalent. Over decades, people become embedded in families, communities and workplaces in ways immigration categories alone cannot capture.

Slepcsik’s case is also striking because some of the conduct considered in the reavailment analysis involved family obligations. A journey undertaken to care for an injured sibling or attend a funeral can become part of the evidence considered under refugee law, while the person making that journey may understand it primarily as an obligation to someone they love.

Migration does not require people to stop caring about where they came from in order to become attached to somewhere new. People can sustain relationships and responsibilities across borders.

None of this means permanent residence should be treated as citizenship, or that the conditions attached to refugee protection should cease to matter with time. But when legal rules point one way and nearly 30 years of work, family and attachment point another, what weight should each carry?

Slepcsik’s case does not provide an easy answer. It asks something more basic: when immigration law decides whether someone may remain after decades of residence, how much should time count?

Source: He’s been in Canada for 27 years. Now a former refugee faces deportation over trips back home

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with ,

Ottawa ends permanent residency exemption for refugees with undeclared family

2026/09/14 Leave a comment

Of note (H&C approval rates are about 50 percent according to latest public data):

…A department spokesperson said in an emailed response that affected people can now apply instead for an exemption on humanitarian or compassionate grounds. The spokesperson said this is an “appropriate” way to provide accommodations that ensures the integrity of the immigration system.

The policy was last extended in September 2023. A memo drafted for the immigration minister at the time said about 2,000 applications had been received and that there was “minimal risk” to program integrity. The memo reported a 90 per cent approval rate.

Most of the applications received over the first two years of the policy found family members were not declared “through no fault of the clients,” according to the memo.

Jamie Liew, a University of Ottawa law professor, co-authored a 2017 study on the gaps that existed before the exemption was created. She said the end of the policy came as a shock and she was under the impression it was working “pretty well.”

“Now, this avenue has been pulled. And it will leave a lot of families separated indefinitely and possibly permanently,” Liew said.

Liew said humanitarian and compassionate applications are not sufficient remedies because their estimated processing time currently stands at more than 10 years. 

“The wait period for these applications (is) unforgiving, and then the grant rates themselves are very low. Humanitarian and compassionate applications are not known for being very easy to get status with,” Liew said.

Sreenivasan said the Canadian Council for Refugees was informed of the policy’s end on Wednesday. The organization sent a letter to Immigration Minister Lena Diab Friday saying they are shocked and deeply dismayed by the lack of consultation.

Sreenivasan said she wants Diab to reconsider the decision, release information to show whether there were problems with the program, and launch consultations aimed at fixing any problems….

Source: Ottawa ends permanent residency exemption for refugees with undeclared family

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with , ,

9/11

2026/09/11 2 Comments

25 years ago, I was working in the LA consulate, waking up to the attack and glued to the TV to follow events, sending local staff hope while Canadian-based staff worked on various consular and related issues in a very uncertain context.

Driving to the downtown consulate, the 101 was deserted, a 10 minute drive rather than more typical 30 minutes or so.

And when air traffic slowly restarted, worrying about the few aircraft in the air.

Gradually, things “returned” to a new normal.

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Trump’s Census Overhaul Would Exclude Some Immigrants and Remove Questions on Race

2026/09/11 Leave a comment

Not surprising. The Harper government’s replacement of the Census in 2011 by the National Household Survey represented a similar tendency to reduce data-based discussions on equality and equity in addition to a general ideology against what it viewed of government intrusiveness:

The Trump administration on Wednesday proposed to no longer count immigrants without green cards in the 2030 census or ask about race and ethnicity, part of an overhaul that would redefine who counts as a U.S. resident in the eyes of the federal government.

The sweeping measures would upend a process that helps determine the allotment of congressional seats, billions of dollars in federal funding and policies to address systemic disparities.

The proposed regulation, published online on Wednesday, would not count noncitizens without green cards in the 2030 census, a significant departure from the process stipulated by the Constitution to occur every 10 years. Historically, the census has asked Americans about their race and ethnicity and counted all U.S. residents regardless of their immigration status.

The overhaul also would bar the U.S. census from asking Americans about their sexual orientation.

While the proposal is likely to face legal challenges, the changes would not only remove undocumented immigrants from the official population count used to determine congressional seats, but also immigrants who are in the United States legally and have yet to secure green cards or citizenship. As a result, areas with more immigrants, which tend to vote Democratic, could lose representation and federal funding….

Source: Trump’s Census Overhaul Would Exclude Some Immigrants and Remove Questions on Race

Filed under Multiculturalism, Trump administration Tagged with

PISA 2025 Results (Volume I) – Immigration Aspects

2026/09/11 Leave a comment

Most of the articles on the latest PISA have focussed, understandably, on on continuing decline in scores across most jurisdictions. This section contrasts immigrants and native-born, showing that immigrants outperform the native-born. Unfortunately, not able to access the relevant data tables:

A fair education system gives students with an immigrant background an equal opportunity to thrive at school and realise their full learning potential compared to those without an immigrant background. PISA defines immigrant students as students whose mother and father were both born in a country/economy other than that where the student took the PISA test. Non-immigrant students are students who have at least one parent born in the country of assessment. This section examines the extent to which the countries and economies that participated in PISA 2025 ensure that all students are on a level playing field, regardless of their background. 

Overall, the results presented in this chapter show that non-immigrant students tend to outperform immigrant students in all PISA subjects in many, though not all, countries and economies. However, this raw performance gap is rarely a function of immigrant status alone. Instead, these students often navigate intersecting layers of disadvantage (Bowleg, 2012[48]; Cerna et al., 2021[49]) In some countries and economies, students with an immigrant background are disproportionately likely to come from socio-economically disadvantaged families compared to non-immigrant students (OECD, 2023[3]). Furthermore, a significant proportion of these students face the additional challenge of navigating an education system in a language different from the one they speak at home, a challenge that is particularly acute for first-generation immigrants and for those who arrive to a new country/economy later on in their educational trajectories (OECD, 2023[3]).

Once socio-economic status and the language spoken at home are taken into account, the picture often changes. In many education systems, immigrant students actually outperform their non-immigrant peers, demonstrating remarkable academic resilience and a strong drive to succeed (Cerna et al., 2021[49]; OECD, 2023[3]). This reversal suggests that the educational vulnerabilities associated with an immigrant background are not inevitable, but are instead largely shaped by features of education systems, as well as linguistic barriers.

Moreover, several countries and economies combine a large share of students with an immigrant background (i.e. over 30% of students) with high average levels of performance (Australia, Canada*, Macao (China), New Zealand* and Singapore) (Tables I.B1.2d.1 and I.B1.2d.10). PISA results support the view that policies aimed at dismantling cultural and linguistic barriers – through targeted language support, intercultural education, and the promotion of inclusive school climates that value diversity – can improve the outcomes of immigrant students (Cerna et al., 2021[49]; OECD, 2023[3]; Tarozzi, 2012[50]). At the same time, these results should be interpreted in light of differences in immigrant student profiles across countries and economies. In some systems, immigration policies and selection mechanisms may shape the socio-economic background, language proficiency and other characteristics of immigrant populations, and may partly explain the positive outcomes observed among immigrant students.

Education systems around the world vary greatly in terms of how large their immigrant student population is (Table I.B1.2d.1). In almost half of the countries and economies in PISA 2025 (42 out of 87), the share of 15-year-old students with an immigrant background is small (less than 5%). But in 24 countries and economies, the share of immigrant students is higher than 15%; in 14 countries and economies it is higher than 25%; and in Luxembourg, Macao (China), Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, more than half of students have an immigrant background. On average across 29 OECD countries with available data, 18% of students have an immigrant background. The composition of immigrant student populations can also vary considerably within countries and economies, with students differing by country of origin, language spoken at home, socio-economic background, and cultural proximity to the host country. As a result, average outcomes for students with an immigrant background may mask important differences between immigrant sub-groups within the same education system.

Students with an immigrant background can be distinguished between first- and second-generation immigrants. First‑generation immigrants are students born outside the country of assessment and whose parents were also born outside the country of assessment. Second-generation students are students born in the country of assessment but whose parent(s) were born outside the country of assessment. The share of second-generation immigrants is 10% and the share of first-generation immigrants 8% on average across OECD countries in PISA 2025 (Table I.B1.2d.1).

These differences in the size and composition of immigrant student populations provide important context for interpreting performance gaps between immigrant and non-immigrant students across education systems.

Source: PISA 2025 Results (Volume I)

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