How a claim is made, and what happens first
Two things happen before anyone considers what you are afraid of. An officer decides whether your claim is eligible to be referred to the tribunal, and the burden of showing that it is rests on you. Only then does the claim itself begin.
Two time limits that end a claim before anyone reads it
The one year rule. If you entered Canada after 24 June 2020 and you make a claim more than one year after entry, the claim is ineligible. The year runs from the day after your first entry, so leaving Canada and returning does not reset it. This catches people who held status lawfully for years, as students or workers, and claimed only when their situation at home changed or their status here ran out.
The fourteen day rule. If you entered across the Canada and United States land border away from a port of entry, and you claim once that fourteen day window has closed, the claim is ineligible. Claiming inside it engages the Safe Third Country Agreement instead, which since 2023 covers the entire land border including the waters along it, so a claim inside the window is likely to be returned to the United States unless one of the listed exceptions applies. Waiting is not a strategy here, it is the trap. We read the window as closing at the end of the fourteenth day and we plan to the earlier reading, because the statute leaves the boundary arguable and the cost of being a day late is the whole claim.
The agreement does not reach every arrival. It applies to the land border. It does not apply to a claim made on arrival at an airport, or at a harbour port including a ferry landing, apart from a narrow in transit situation. If you arrived from the United States by air or by ferry, do not assume you are barred, because assuming it and delaying can run you into the one year rule instead.
Both grounds apply to claims made on or after the day Bill C-2 was introduced in Parliament, which we understand to be 3 June 2025. The statute fixes that date by reference to the Bill's introduction rather than by printing it, so we confirm it against the parliamentary record on any file where a few days either way would decide the outcome. The one year ground applies only to someone who entered after 24 June 2020, and the transitional rule governs the date of the claim rather than the date of entry.
| At a port of entry | From inside Canada | |
|---|---|---|
| Who takes the claim | A border services officer, at the moment of entry | The department, through its online portal, followed by an in person interview |
| Biometrics and documents | Taken at entry, with identity documents retained | At an appointment. A child under fourteen brings photographs instead |
| The Basis of Claim form | Given to you to complete, and filed with the tribunal after referral | Filed with the claim itself, through the portal or at the interview |
| Interim document | An acknowledgement of claim where eligibility cannot be decided at once, then a claimant document on referral | An acknowledgement of claim on submission, then a claimant document on referral |
| The removal order | Issued at the interview. Conditional, and not in force, where the claim is eligible | The same |
The tribunal cannot consider a claim until an officer refers it, and the officer who refers it also fixes the hearing date.
- Eligibility is decided first, and by an officer rather than the tribunal. The Act requires the officer to decide whether the claim is eligible to be referred and, if it is, to refer it.
- Consideration of eligibility can be suspended. Where a report has been referred for an admissibility hearing on security, human or international rights violations, serious criminality or organised criminality grounds, or where the officer considers it necessary to await a court decision on an offence carrying a maximum of at least ten years.
- If a claim is found ineligible, processing is terminated, and how fast the removal order bites depends on why. Where the claim was ineligible on the Safe Third Country ground, the order comes into force on the day notice is provided, with no grace period at all. Where it was ineligible on any other ground, it comes into force seven days after the decision. Unless stayed it is then enforceable. What remains is a pre removal risk assessment, unless barred, a humanitarian and compassionate application subject to its own bars, and judicial review.
- A person already under a removal order cannot make a claim. Which is why the order issued at the outset is conditional while an eligible claim is alive.
The Safe Third Country Agreement, and the eight exceptions
Since 2023 the agreement has applied along the whole land border, including the waters along or across it, rather than only at official crossings. A claimant arriving from the United States generally cannot have a claim referred unless they establish one of the exceptions. The wording of the Regulations is that the claimant must establish it, so the burden is yours.
| The exception | |
|---|---|
| (a) | A family member in Canada who is a Canadian citizen. |
| (b) | A family member in Canada who is a protected person, a permanent resident, or a person whose removal has been stayed specifically under the Minister's humanitarian or public policy power. A stay from another source, such as a risk assessment notification, a judicial review or a court order, does not qualify, so this exception is narrower than it looks. |
| (c) | A family member in Canada aged eighteen or over whose own claim has been referred to the tribunal, unless that claim has been withdrawn, abandoned, rejected, terminated or nullified. |
| (d) | A family member in Canada aged eighteen or over holding a valid work or study permit, other than certain permits that are excluded or invalid. |
| (e) | An unaccompanied minor, meaning under eighteen, not accompanied by a parent or legal guardian, with no spouse or partner, and with no parent or legal guardian in Canada or the United States. |
| (f) | Holding a valid Canadian document, being a permanent or temporary resident visa, a temporary resident permit, a travel document, refugee travel papers, or a temporary travel document. Transit documents do not count. |
| (g) | Being a person who may enter Canada without a visa but who would need one to enter the United States. |
| (h) | Being returned to Canada after the United States refused entry without a claim being decided there, or being a permanent resident ordered removed from the United States and returned here. |
A separate provision applies where the claimant establishes that they are charged with, or have been convicted of, an offence punishable by the death penalty in the United States, or charged with or convicted of such an offence in another country. It has no location limitation in its operative text, so do not read it as confined to land ports of entry, and it turns on a charge or conviction in the country concerned rather than on a general risk of the death penalty somewhere.
Two details that decide cases. The definition of family member used here is wider than elsewhere in immigration law and includes an uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, grandparent and grandchild as well as the immediate family, and it separately includes a legal guardian, which is a qualifying relationship in its own right. And the United States, for this purpose, excludes Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam and any other United States possession or territory. We found no general public interest exception in the Regulations, and no published list of the documents required to establish an exception, so we prepare that evidence from first principles on each file.
Every ground of ineligibility
| Ground | |
|---|---|
| (a) | Refugee protection has already been conferred on you under the Act. |
| (b) | A previous claim of yours was rejected by the tribunal. |
| (b.1) | You entered Canada after 24 June 2020 and claimed more than one year after entry, the year running from the day after your first entry. |
| (b.2) | You entered across the Canada and United States land border away from a port of entry and claimed after the prescribed time limit, being fourteen days. |
| (c) | A previous claim was found ineligible, or was withdrawn or abandoned. |
| (c.1) | You made a claim in another country before claiming here, confirmed through an information sharing arrangement. |
| (d) | You have been recognised as a Convention refugee by another country and can be sent or returned there. |
| (e) | You came directly or indirectly from a designated country, other than a country of your nationality or former habitual residence. This is the Safe Third Country ground, and that qualifier matters, because a national or former habitual resident of the United States arriving from the United States is not caught by it. |
| (f) | You have been found inadmissible on grounds of security, violating human or international rights, serious criminality or organised criminality. |
For the last of those, serious criminality bites only where the conviction, in Canada or an equivalent offence if committed here, carries a maximum of at least ten years.
What has to be proved
- A Convention refugee. A person who, by reason of a well founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion, is outside each of their countries of nationality and is unable, or by reason of that fear unwilling, to seek that country's protection. Or, having no country of nationality, is outside their country of former habitual residence and unable or unwilling to return.
- A person in need of protection. A person in Canada whose removal would subject them personally to a danger, believed on substantial grounds to exist, of torture. Or to a risk to life, or of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment, where four further conditions all hold, namely that they are unable or unwilling to seek that country's protection, that the risk exists in every part of the country and is not faced generally by others there, that it is not inherent or incidental to lawful sanctions unless those disregard international standards, and that it is not caused by the country's inability to provide adequate health or medical care.
- The two tests are not the same shape. A Convention refugee needs only to be outside the country in question. A person in need of protection must be in Canada. And the four conditions attached to risk to life are cumulative, so each has to hold.
- Exclusion. A person to whom section E or F of Article 1 of the Refugee Convention applies is neither a Convention refugee nor a person in need of protection. In broad terms that covers a person already treated as a national of another country of residence, and a person for whom there are serious reasons to consider they committed serious crimes or acts contrary to the purposes of the United Nations.
- We do not set out the internal flight or state protection tests here. Both are real parts of the analysis. The tribunal's own legal chapters on them could not be read in full, and we would rather work from the source on a file than publish a formulation we have not verified.
The process, the deadlines and the appeal
| Step | Deadline |
|---|---|
| File the Basis of Claim form, port of entry claim | Fifteen days in the Regulations, extended to forty five by tribunal practice notice made under the Regulations. Both figures are correct at different levels |
| Ask for more time on that form | An application to extend the time limit must reach the tribunal no later than three working days before the forty five days expire |
| If the form is late | A special hearing is held to decide whether the claim is abandoned, and the tribunal issues a Notice to Appear giving its date, time and place. Abandonment bars any future claim |
| The hearing | Fixed by the officer who refers the claim. The sixty day timeline in the Regulations is qualified by the tribunal's operational limitations |
| File an appeal to the Refugee Appeal Division | Fifteen days from receiving the written reasons. Not extended by practice notice, though the appeal division may extend it for reasons of fairness and natural justice on application |
| Perfect that appeal | Thirty days from receiving the written reasons in the Regulations, extended to forty five by practice notice, with receipt deemed seven days after the reasons were mailed. That deeming governs the start of both clocks |
| Judicial review in the Federal Court | Fifteen days from notification or from becoming aware of the decision, and only after any appeal right has been exhausted |
Two of these figures are disputed between the Regulations and the tribunal's practice notices, and the practice notices are described as temporary. We work to the earlier figure and confirm the current position on every file rather than relying on the concession.
- The hearing runs in a set order. You affirm, you testify, any witnesses testify, representations are made, and a decision follows. Interpretation is provided where needed, you may represent yourself, and attendance is mandatory.
- Who cannot appeal. A designated foreign national. Anyone whose claim was determined withdrawn or abandoned. Anyone whose claim was rejected as having no credible basis or as manifestly unfounded. Anyone whose claim proceeded only because of a Safe Third Country exception. A national of a designated country of origin at the date of decision, though no country is currently designated. And on the Minister's applications to cease or to vacate protection.
- The appeal is normally on the record. The appeal division decides without a hearing on the tribunal's record. New evidence is limited to what arose after the rejection, or was not reasonably available, or could not reasonably have been expected to be presented. A hearing may be held where documentary evidence raises a serious credibility issue, is central to the decision, and would justify allowing or rejecting the claim.
- Neither appeal deadline is absolute. The appeal division may extend both the time to file and the time to perfect, for reasons of fairness and natural justice, and there is a route for a late notice of appeal. Missing a date is serious and it is not always the end, so it should be met with an application rather than with resignation.
- Judicial review does not always stay a removal. The automatic stay attaches to judicial review of an appeal division decision, and not to judicial review of a risk assessment or a humanitarian refusal, and not at all in several excluded situations.
Withdrawing or abandoning a claim closes the door permanently
A claim that has been withdrawn or abandoned makes any future claim ineligible. There is no second attempt, and that is why a missed form deadline is so serious on this branch.
Withdrawal is also now immediate in its effect. Where notice is given that a claim has been determined to be withdrawn, the removal order takes effect that day rather than after a period of grace. Where a claim is found abandoned instead, the order comes into force fifteen days later. Health coverage is cancelled on withdrawal and on an abandonment finding, though we do not claim the dates coincide precisely, because that is not published. Withdrawing to pursue something else is sometimes the right decision, and it is never one to take without advice about what it forecloses.
What you can do while you wait
| Position | |
|---|---|
| Work | An open work permit is requested inside the claim, with no separate application and no fee, the exemption being in the Regulations. It will not issue until the claim is found eligible, the medical examination is completed and passed, and biometrics are taken. |
| Study | A separate application, also free by regulation, needing a letter of acceptance from a designated institution. A child in kindergarten, primary or secondary school needs no permit and may register using their claimant document. |
| Keeping either permit alive | Extend before expiry. If you apply in time you may continue while it is processed. If it lapses first you must stop, and a fresh application is needed. |
| Health coverage | The Interim Federal Health Program covers hospital and professional services, vision and emergency dental care, prescription medication and the immigration medical examination. There is no application and it follows your status. It starts on the date your eligibility document is issued, and that includes the acknowledgement of claim you receive on submission or at the port of entry, so coverage begins before referral rather than at it. |
| When coverage ends | When provincial coverage begins, when you leave Canada, if you withdraw the claim, if the tribunal finds it abandoned, or if it is found ineligible and no risk assessment is available to you. After a positive decision it runs ninety days. |
| Travel documents | Held by the department until a final decision is made on the claim. |
| Leaving Canada | Returning to the country you fear risks the claim being rejected, or protected status being lost if you already have it. Beyond that, we could not source the current position on travelling to a third country or on re-entry, so we do not state one. |
If a claim is found ineligible, the free work permit ends with it and a fresh paid application is required.