‘It’s an access-to-justice issue’: Advocates fear new refugee registration portal will deter and delay access to asylum in Canada

Anyone who wishes to seek asylum from within Canada must now create an online account and file their claims through a computer portal — a change that advocates warn will create chaos and make asylum less accessible.

According to an email from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to refugee lawyers this week, the Canadian Refugee Protection Portal, or CRPP, has been launched as the only means for people already in Canada to submit a claim, starting Oct. 6.

Through the system, claimants can create an account, complete a questionnaire and submit supporting documents, including their completed basis-of-claim form — online. It’s also where requests to attend refugee-claim interviews as well as appointments for immigration medical exams and fingerprinting can be made.

“The CRPP improves client service and increases the efficiency of refugee claim processing in Canada, focusing on refugee intake, by allowing claimants to submit their claim online,” officials said in the email.

“The CRPP also ensures that clients submit complete information, which reduces correspondence between the department and clients and allows IRCC to make faster eligibility decisions.”

The digital shift has caught refugee lawyers off guard as they say they found out about the change through the email from the government Wednesday, without prior consultation.

Some are already foreseeing problems down the road for claimants in accessing the asylum system online due to language and technological barriers.

“It will lead to some people just not claiming refugee status and to just being here in Canada,” says Toronto refugee lawyer Raoul Boulakia. “We all want the system to work, but it’s prudent to work together, not to surprise people.”

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada did not return a request for comment before deadline.

According to the Immigration and Refugee Board, 8,624 new claims were received in the first six months of this year, with a total of 63,420 pending cases in the system, from a peak of 87,270 at the end of 2019, before the pandemic slowed and restricted travel to Canada.

Canada received a surge of claims since 2016 driven by the anti-refugee policies under former U.S. president Donald Trump that pushed many migrants to come to this country in search of protection through unguarded land border entry points.

In 2019, the Liberal federal government provided $204 million over two years to address the rising intake of refugee claims, money that allowed the refugee board to hire more adjudicators and support staff to process cases.

The global pandemic has wreaked havoc on Canada’s immigration system, but the refugee board has been shielded from the chaos because of those COVID-19 travel restrictions and has seen its refugee intake fall significantly.

In response to the pandemic, Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino has been bent on modernizing the overall immigration system by “improving our technology, by digitizing more of our operations and increasing the amount of processing happening virtually.”

“The CRPP will be a big change for clients and counsel; however, it is necessary in order to address the large percentage of incomplete claims IRCC receives,” the immigration department said in its email to refugee lawyers.

“Our expectation is that the portal should assist in reducing processing times for eligibility decisions, which also means more timely referral of refugee claims to the IRB and work permit issuance.”

A 2018 independent review called for structural overhaul of the refugee board, but shifting the submission of asylum claims online wasn’t studied or recommended in the report.

During the pandemic, due to lockdown, the immigration department began accepting asylum bids by claimants or through their lawyers by email, allowing them to correspond and submit documents through Canada Post’s epost portal.

University of British Columbia law professor Efrat Arbel said the refugee system, as it is, is already hard to navigate as migrants must scramble to secure necessary documentation, basic translation services and legal support to proceed.

Added to that now will be securing internet access, having a laptop scanner, filling out forms on a portal and uploading documents, she said, and any mistake could lead to bureaucratic nightmares.

Refuge claimants usually consult lawyers to assist their claims, but would have friends or community groups help them fill out forms before their counsel goes through the file to make sure everything is completed properly.

With the new portal, claimants must create an account under their own email address, fill out webforms page by page, step by step. It could be hard for their counsel to sit in front of the computer with them because they are only covered by legal aid for limited hours.

The shift to requiring that everything be done online creates yet another barrier for asylum-seekers, said Arbel, who teaches refugee, prison and constitutional law.

“I worry that this requirement will hinder the ability of asylum seekers to make their claim in a timely and effective manner and might end up creating this broader barrier that prohibits those with legitimate and pressing protection needs from advancing their claims in the best way possible,” she said.

Also, any delay in the online registration will also cause delays for would-be claimants to access social and community services, government assistance and the work permits they need to work legally while awaiting their claims to be heard.

“I think we can absolutely foresee delays and those delays have profound consequences for the lives of the individuals who are impacted by them,” Arbel noted. “I absolutely anticipate bureaucratic burdens as a result of mistakes made, but almost more importantly, the mistakes carry enormous weight.”

Boulakia said he was trying to help a client through the new portal to initiate an asylum claim online but had to quit because it was too cumbersome with a lot of detailed information being requested on the front end.

“You’re literally typing on the form on the internet and trying to get this done. You’re going to make lots of mistakes. You’re going to write something that’s going to be full of incoherent things or incomplete when you’re pressed to get yourself registered,” said Boulakia.

“Inevitably there will be a lot of gaps. And you’ll be trapped with that, so you’ll get rejected for that.”

Calling the change an “utter surprise” and a “tectonic move,” Toronto immigration lawyer Robert Blanshay said he has already heard from colleagues who got blocked out from the portal, and he can’t imagine how claimants can navigate the system on their own.

“The bottom line is that it’s an access-to-justice issue. My goodness, this is just to initiate a claim,” said Blanshay, who also sits on the executive committee of the Canadian Bar Association’s immigration division but only speaks on his own behalf.

“If this blocks or delays or jeopardizes one human’s ability to express their desire to initiate a refugee claim, we have a problem on our hands. The system is supposed to be designed to make it easier and quicker, not more difficult, more complex and slower.”

According to the immigration department email, those who have already made a claim through the previous email system do not need to transfer their case to the new portal.

Nicholas Keung is a Toronto-based reporter covering immigration for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @nkeung