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 Refugee programs

Introduction
Criteria (questions) for considering refugee claim
Top source countries for refugees coming to Canada

- There are several programs to assist refugees - those who fear to return to their counties. Statistical information is available at the bottom of this page. For practical reasons we concentrate on the main program on which a vast majority of refugees are landed in Canada: "convention refugees" - those who are outside of their country of citizenship and have well founded fear to return due to at least one of five grounds: 1) their race; 2) their nationality/ethnic origin; 3) their religion; 4) their political opinion; 5) membership in a particular social group. Please note: to make a claim on this program a person has to be in Canada first. These claims will not be accepted at Canadian visa offices abroad.

It is interesting to point out that among numerous sources on Immigration to Canada, including Internet, there is almost none or very limited clarification - how this program practically works, since a vast majority promote the independent and business immigration programs. Many companies simply do not have experience in this field, so they say nothing about it. We consider that - since over 20,000 of this refugee claims are processed within Canada and hundreds of our clients have gone through it - it is important not to omit this program as one of the options available.

The refugee program has some notable "strangeness" in how it's applied. Analysts and critics have pointed out that for purpose of refugee protection - if someone's life is in danger (especially on one of five convention grounds cited above) - why claims are accepted only from those who are in in Canada (fearing to return home) and all of those who are sometimes in more serious danger, but outside of Canada are rejected. (This long standing policy was adopted into the law by Canadian Parliament, not by the department of Immigration). This paradox is one of several that a competent observer will find in our government's immigration policy. Well, who said that life should be "fair" in some universal sense of the word? This paradox is even deeper, if one considers that almost all refugee claimants in Canada got here using false passports or some other form of misrepresentation (such as-claiming to be mere visitors, while in fact secretly hoping to stay in Canada upon arrival ), yet - if they would come in straight forward honest manner to the same Canadian immigration officer outside of Canada, the claim would be certainly rejected, not on the merits, but simply due to the policy reasons.(*note 1-below##) Every person knowledgeable about politics knows many dubious and questionable practices that exist in politics, they are as old as civilization itself. So - recognizing the realities as they are, we have to concentrate on specific issues - what help the legal community (lawyers and professional consultants) can offer to those who are in Canada and are in the process of making a claim for a refugee status. The good thing is that every claimant has ample time to prepare his case. While such claim is initiated for our client inland (inside Canada) or at the port of entry - the thorough understanding of workings of our legal system is very a important factor to prepare the claimant properly. Vast majority (over 90%) of successful claims use professional legal help.

Our company has prepared and represented hundreds of such claims at the Immigration and Refugee Board (division of the Canadian government responsible for making crucial decision: to accept or reject such claim). Professional representation is the established norm in the process. Our government even provides financial assistance to pay for legal help to claimants with limited financial resources through special government-funded provincial agencies (Legal Aid).

The question of proper decision and steps on making a refugee claim is based, accordingly, on the following main factors:
1. The person is physically in Canada or is able to arrive to the port of entry (Canadian airport or US-Canada border).
2. The person understands that only well founded fear of persecution related to one in five grounds that we described above can be a proper reason for a successful refugee claim.
3. The person has considered other alternatives (independent, or professional immigration, family class sponsorship) and for some valid reason can not use those programs.
4. The person is a citizen or a permanent resident of one of the refugee producing countries. Apart from top 10 that we cite below, there are about 40 or 50 of such countries. Statistical chances to be accepted vary depending on the country and timing of the claim (situation in the home country may change to better or worse).
5. The person has usually (not necessarily) limited financial resources or limited knowledge of English or limited travel options, which makes applying for independent immigration quite problematic.
6. The person is prepared for detailed and thorough (takes usually longer then 12 months) process of the refugee status determination, and we offer professional legal assistance to our clients in this process.

If the decision of the Immigration and Refugee Board is positive, the landing (permanent resident) visa issuance in Canada is almost automatic for the claimant and his family members (the spouse and children), who may be outside of Canada at the time.

If you think you satisfy the above criteria - you may proceed to our services description page, where we tell more about our help in this process and then - apply now## section - where you can make the first step in this process.

REFUGEE CLASS BY CATEGORY - Principal Applicants and Dependents

Refugees by Top Ten Source Countries- Principal Applicants and Dependents

*(note one) important remark: Canada has programs for "designated groups" of "government" and "privately" sponsored refugees. Those programs are very specific, time-constrained and usually linked to those countries, which have sizable "local diaspora" in Canada and certain political reasons to do so (don't forget about that, please). For such reasons during the war in Yugoslavia in 1990's several thousands of refugees were airlifted and landed in Canada. No such help was provided for much larger scale humanitarian tragedies in several African countries, Iraq or Afghanistan. On the other hand - we should not forget that Canada's resources are limited as well, it is impossible for Canada to provide large-scale help for hundreds of millions of displaced and unfortunate people. Canada's population is slightly over 30 million and - even with pro-immigrant attitude - it's very hard to absorb immigrants over 1% of this size yearly. That means - our total absorption maximum is nearly 300,000 per year, that compares to about 3 million for the USA. So - apart from specific, narrowly targeted groups in designated regions the refugee protection program is not available to individually persecuted people in vast majority of countries, unless that person can physically come to Canada, where citizen of every country is eligible to make a refugee claim.