About 1400 people loose their Canadian PR for noncompliance every year

The government data says, 1 in 10 succeeds to win back their permanent residency status, under humanitarian grounds, following an appeal to a tribunal court. 

Immigration Lawyer, Lawrence Wong, who obtained the data through an access to information request,  in an interview with the Toronto Star said, “The tribunal is supposed to be immigrants’ last resort as the Parliament has given it the discretionary power to give immigrants a second chance if they breach the law,”, who obtained the data through an access to information request.

“But that second chance in reality is hard to come by. The national sentiment is pretty much the same. If you are an immigrant, don’t make a mistake. If you do, we want to see you kicked out.”

This is the first time, that the loss of permanency at the ports of entry have been officially made public, showcasing the extent of residency noncompliance among the immigrants, trying to make a comeback to the Canada, after lengthy stays overseas, explained Wong.

According to the immigration law of Canada, permanent residents of the country, has to be physically present in Canada for at least 730 days in a consecutive 730 days in every five years, to continue their PR status.
In case, of failure to do this, the PR rights of the resident gets revoked by the government.

As per the latest statistics available, the CBSA (Canada Border Services Agency) stopped 1423 permanent residents a year on an average at the border for failing to adhere to the residency requirements from 2010 to 2014. It is a stark contrast to 260,000 newcomers accepted annually.

When the former Conservative Immigration minister Jason Kenney took over the department and cracked down the fraud, the number of removal orders saw a sharp increase to 1413 in 2014 from 605 in 2008.

Quebec, officially has the highest number of removal orders for residents not meeting the residency obligations in Canada.

About 3575 immigrants were issued removal orders for residency noncompliance in between 2008 and 2014 at Pierre Elliot Trudeau airport in Montreal. Contrarily, Toronto’s Pearson airport bid adieu to 439 ex-residents and Vancouver International Airport sent back 972 people.

However, analysts say these numbers do not include the number of people who were revoked of their permanent residency owing to criminal charges and misrepresentation or people who voluntarily relinquished their Canadian residency status.

(Reporting by Debarati Mukherjee)