Canadian govt approved less than a quarter of Indian refugee claims

THE VAST MAJORITY OF CLAIMS ARE FILED BY INDIAN SIKHS, SAYS A DAILY CITING REFUGEE CLAIM ANALYSIS BY CANADA BORDER SERVICES AGENCY

in 2017 and has more than doubled to 2,932 so far this year.

The board is an independent administrative tribunal responsible for deciding immigration and refugee matters.

The IRBC did not respond to queries from the Hindustan Times seeking clarifications on these figures and reasons behind such claims being made and rejected. A recent column in the Canadian daily, National Post, had cited a refugee claim analysis by intelligence and analysis section of the Canada Border Services Agency or CBSA stating “the vast majority of these claims are filed by Indian Sikhs” and that a “frequent basis of claim cited by Indian nationals is the fear of arbitrary arrest or abuse by the police based on accusations of supporting militant organisations “And, these claims have also increased substantially since the Justin Trudeau Government came into power in Ottawa. The Immigration and Refugee Board or Canada currently has 3,799 claims pending before it.

Vancouver-based immigration lawyer Richard Kurland felt more claimants were unable to substantiate their cases, as he said, “In India, an important part of the refugee case is proving the person cannot go elsewhere in India to live safely. India is a big place, and so many cases will fail on that basis.”

He speculated that another reason for the number of claims rising was the “Trump trampoline”, referring to the immigration policies of the Donald Trump Administration that “may be a factor is the number of people previously residing in the United States, who decided to claim in Canada.”