Canada claims spike in students applying for asylum

Canada’s Prime Minister and Immigration Minister have claimed that the student visa route is increasingly being used for asylum claims, with figures showing around 13,000 applications so far this year from existing study permit holders.

In an interview with Global News, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there was “an alarming trend” of international students in Canada claiming asylum.

Figures obtained by Global News show that people in Canada had 12,915 asylum claims between January 1st and August 31st this year on study permits (11,605) or study permit extensions (1,310). This represented just over 10 per cent of the 119,835 refugee claims made in that period.

The outlet has requested historical data from 2015 from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship (IRCC) to see how that compares to previous years.

However, earlier this year the Globe and Mail reported that that there were 1,515 refugee applications from study permit holders in 2018, which would suggest that there has been a six-fold increase since then.

“There’s a growing number, and it’s frankly quite alarming given the volumes of people that come to this country, in theory, with the proper financial capacity to live and to pay their tuition fees, which are four times what Canadians pay,” said Minister Miller in the interview.

“We see that it happens often within the first year of the time they’re here … often for less valid reasons than others, notably to drop the tuition fee down to Canadian rates. Some opportunism’s being used and exploited there.”

He said that colleges and universities accepting international students have to improve their screening and monitoring protocols to identify abuse of the system.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reiterated those comments in an interview. “We need to be able to properly identify who needs most help, who is there as a true asylum seeker. Other people using the asylum path as a shortcut to gain Canadian residency or citizenship is something that we need to continue to push back against,” he said.

Canada has introduced a cap on post-secondary study permits below the master’s level in the current year at approximately 35 per cent below the number issued in 2023.

The government recently announced a further 10 per cent cut in the cap for next year and confirmed that master’s and PhD students will be included in the limits in 2025.

Announcing those measures, the Prime Minister said, “Immigration is an advantage for our economy - but when bad actors abuse the system and take advantage of students, we crack down.”

Other measures implemented in the International Student Program in the last year include a doubling of the maintenance funds required for study permit applications, a new provincial attestation letter system to go with the cap system, measures to verify letters of acceptance and removal of post-study work rights from students at public-private colleges.

The rise of asylum claims was cited by the government of Canada as a reason for removing electronic travel authorisation from some Mexican citizens earlier this year, a move which institutions in Canada and agencies in Mexico said would impact business.