First Trump’s travel ban, now Canadian immigration delays
Mohammad Rafatinasr should be enjoying the prime of life.
He’s recently married, just bought a home for the first time with his wife in Coquitlam, B.C., and is making a mark in his field of engineering, where his PhD research on the topic of net zero emissions buildings has earned him international accolades.
Instead of celebrating his achievements and settling down, he’s stuck in limbo while he waits for Canada — his home for the past six years — to stop considering him a foreigner.
Rafatinasr made headlines last year when he was barred from getting on a plane from Vancouver to Las Vegas to present research because of U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order barring admission of people from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Iran, where he was born. Last week, a revised version of the travel ban was given the green light by America’s top court.
The incident sparked outrage and seemed to reinforce Rafatinasr’s decision to come to Canada five years prior. After he was turned away at the airport, he posted on social media, saying he was disappointed the U.S. hadn’t admitted him, but proud to be on track to pursue Canadian permanent residency. A year and a half later, Rafatinasr is still waiting for his permanent residency to come through — and the process of applying, then waiting, has weighed more heavily on him than Trump’s travel ban did.
“That travel disruption was one-time stress,” Rafatinasr said. “But the stress of Canada processing my application is little by little by little. It’s affected every aspect of daily life.”
Rafatinasr isn’t alone. He’s one of hun- dreds of Iranian nationals who have been waiting for permanent residency for a year or more, sparking a campaign that has called on the government to stop the delay, which they see as a form of discrimination. Their cause has been championed by Vancouver MP Jenny Kwan. The government recently acknowledged that permanent residency applications for Iranian nationals have been delayed for several years, but said the processing time is now in line with the average.
“Security screenings were one, but not the only, factor that resulted in a notably higher processing time than average for Iranian nationals last fiscal year,” Scott Bardsley, senior communications adviser to the minister of public safety, wrote in an email statement. “Canada Border Services Agency has improved its performance through prioritization and process enhancements, including the use of overtime and additional hires.”
The problem isn’t limited to Iranian nationals. Data released monthly by Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada show the number of permanent residency approvals per application varies widely depending on the country of citizenship of the people applying. In 2017, an average of 88 permanent residency applications were approved for every 100 received. For Iranian nationals, it was 65 approvals for every 100 applications. With the exceptions of North Korea and Syria, the countries listed in the current iteration of the U.S. travel ban — Somalia, Libya, Yemen, Venezuela and Iran are the other five — have lower-than-average approval ratios, and they have been declining each year since 2015.
In response to questions about the application numbers, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada sent the Star a statement, part of which was identical to the statement sent by the ministry of public safety.
“There is a high degree of collaboration between Canada and the U.S. on migration management and perimeter security,” a portion of the statement read. “Our top priority is protecting the safety, security, and health of Canadians. For this reason, every immigration applicant is reviewed from a security and criminality perspective.”
Rafatinasr’s application has been stuck on the security check step for months now, and he’s frustrated with the feeling that Canada may see him as a security threat when he’s been actively contributing to Canadian research and the economy for half a dozen years.
“I feel like no one really is listening,” he said. “Or at least, if they’re listening they don’t really want to take any action.”
Kwan said she’s met many Iranian nationals in the same boat. She called those she’d met “extremely talented.” Many of them, like Rafatinasr, obtained advanced degrees in Canada and want to stay to work here.
“The United States and their policies, frankly, are discriminatory, there’s just no other way to describe it,” she said. “And for Canada, we have now identified a problem where applications are delayed. Canada just needs to get on with it. We want these talents to stay.”
“I feel like no one really is listening. Or at least, if they’re listening they don’t really want to take any action.” MOHAMMAD RAFATINASR COQUITLAM, B.C. RESIDENT