The Decibel - Study permit delays leave international students in limbo

Episode Date: September 6, 2022

As of Aug. 15, nearly 170,000 study permit applications were pending with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. Although plans have been made to get many of these students to the start of their classes on time, many might have to be kept waiting.Will Tao is an immigration lawyer based in British Columbia who focuses on international student study permits. He tells us why we’re seeing so much delay in processing these permits and how the system often leaves applicants from the global south behind.

Hi, I'm Maina Karaman-Wilms, and you're listening to The Decibel, from The Globe and Mail. Students across the country are heading back to the classroom this week. But as of mid-August, there were nearly 170,000 students who were still waiting to know if they could come to Canada. That number comes from the IRCC, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. Many of those students have already been accepted to colleges and universities and sometimes have even paid tuition. Last week, Sean Fraser, who's the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, said they're working to fix the backlog. And through the month of August, we expect that we're going to process a little more than 104,000 additional study permits. There has been an

absolute explosion in demand when it comes to Canada's international student program in recent years. We're doing everything we can to process as many applications as possible to get people here on time. We don't have the exact number of students still waiting abroad who wanted to start classes this fall, but immigration lawyer Will Tao said there are people stuck in that position. So what I see from my clientele are extended wait times and applications that sometimes don't get decided even a year later. Will is the co-founder of Heron Law Offices in British Columbia, and he specializes in international student permits. He's going to help us understand why the process is taking so long and why the hurdles are different depending on which country

you're coming from. This is The Decibel. Will, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you so much for having us on the show, Monica. I appreciate it. You are, of course, an immigration lawyer, and you're in contact with many international students that are currently stuck in the application system. What have you been hearing from them as school is getting ready to start up again? I think they are very frustrated. They are going through a lot of mental health challenges, especially those who are overseas. And, you know, their plans may have already been delayed because of the COVID pandemic and various other things. And they're just wondering at what time their application will be decided.

And for many of them, it seems unrealistic that they're going to start classes in September. So the IRCC, which is the Government Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, they said they've received an unprecedented number of applications for study permits and for their extensions this year. So just to give a sense of numbers here, they said that they received 81% more applicants in the first half of this year compared to the first half of 2019. Why are we seeing such a high volume of applications right now? Canada has always been in high demand. I think our study permit program and our international student program comparatively offers many more benefits than other countries right now. And that's, you know, the ability for spouses to join on company permits, ability to work, things that other countries don't offer.

And then you have this immigration pathway to permanent residency that Canada promotes. And I think during the pandemic, through things like the TR to PR, it added that further promotion. When you say TR to PR, what is that? Yeah, so it's the temporary resident to permanent resident pathway. So the government essentially during the pandemic, recognizing that a lot of folks weren't being selected for immigration and were in Canada with some form of education and some work, decided to open up the pathway to permanent residency for several international graduates. And all you really had to do was graduate at the right time and hold a job at the time that they put in the application. So it lowered the requirements beyond the usual one year work in Canada.

And, you know, because of that, I think internationally, a lot of folks looked at that and said, hey, if that happened to a group there, it could happen to me. So let's, you know, try and get to Canada and hopefully that'll pathway to permanent residency. So, you know, Canada has done a lot to promote itself as trying to create opportunities for international students to become permanent residents. And I think that's one of the reasons why you're seeing the corresponding demand from students as well. Okay, so we are seeing such a high volume of applications then. Is it just the volume that's causing the delays here? Or are there other factors at play as well? Well, I think the big issue also is staffing on the immigration side. And you saw the minister recently announced that they're, you know, trying to hire 1000 plus more staff for visa offices. During the pandemic, a lot of these offices, especially in global South countries shut down,

a lot of workers went to working virtual. And that's why during the pandemic, you saw shifts towards the use of more automated systems. And I think they're moving very, very fast towards artificial intelligence as a solution for these type of issues. And it's because they realize the demand is so high and that the processing capabilities of human assessment on each application on a case-by-case basis is becoming less and less feasible. Well, let's talk about the study permits to start with, because that's how a lot of people first come to Canada. What is the wait time for a study permit now, and how does that compare with the usual wait times, Will? Yeah, so when it comes to wait times, I think we have to be careful as to

where the applicant is located and what type of streams they're applying from, because there is no one global wait time, because depending on how your application is streamlined or whether it falls under any special programs, that can impact the amount of time it takes to process. So what the streamlining has done is it has made those applications from low risk countries and also from visa exempt countries extremely fast. For visa exempt applicants, and these are individuals that need to just apply for an electronic travel authorization, which is like an online form that they can get authorized to travel for, versus if you're an applicant from a visa requiring country, which tend to be global

south countries and other countries where the relationship's not as strong. Those folks are, you know, they have, they're presumed to immigrate. They're presumed that they want to stay here unless they can prove otherwise. So when we're talking about wait times for study permits, does it then depend on what country you're applying from? It depends on what country you're applying from. It depends on also your country of citizenship, because sometimes you could be applying from a country, but you're a temporary resident in that country. And we've seen a lot of that in the Middle East, but also in Europe, where you have a lot of folks who've done their first studies or perhaps

moved there when they were young or never obtained full status. And those are the folks that tend to be left out of the system. So what I see from my clientele are extended wait times and applications that sometimes don't get decided even a year later. and fall out of the artificial intelligence systems because they need the further review from a human because of, you know, essentially profiling on the basis of their country of citizenship, residence and their histories. When you say extended wait time, you mentioned over a year there. Is that typical? We're talking a year plus? Oh, yeah, there are some applications that can take a year plus.

And again, these are ones that are complex. They have multiple refusals or they get reopened after you go to court for them successfully. So I won't say that they're the norm. In terms of the people that you're hearing from these days, I guess, is there a country or a few countries that really seem to stand out where a lot of people are not getting their applications through from? Well, I represent a lot of folks from Africa, the Middle East. India has been our largest source country for the last several, several years. Before, I think it was China, but in the recent years, it's always been India. And India, of course, there's a bit of a lack of transparency right now even over what type of applications will get processed quicker right so for example canada created this much lauded system called the student direct stream where if you're you know a citizen of select countries your application presumably according to instructions is processed faster and one of the reasons for

their stress and challenges right now these programs also ask for the payment of first year tuition. So the full payment of first year tuition, which could be upwards of $40,000, $50,000. And these are often funds the individual doesn't have necessary liquid. So in order to get those funds, you have your student, you know, taking out perhaps student loans or, you know, somehow their family members are leveraging land. Or, you know, there are things that are occurring behind the scenes in the country of residents to support that ability to pay first year tuition. Now, once that tuition is paid, then becomes a challenge with institutions because institutions often have refund policies tied to refusal letters, right? So we're not giving your money back until you show us that you've been refused. Right.

And there are some schools are offering some leeway, some deferrals, but there's a limit to that. So you have a lot of students now with September classes starting who've paid first year tuition with classes starting. And but because they haven't received a refusal letter yet or even a decision letter, school's not giving back their money. And if there's no deferral for them, that money may not ever come back. I'm wondering what we know about how these decisions are made. So as you

say, some students, even if they've been accepted to schools they apply to, even with grants and scholarships, their study permit hasn't been accepted or they haven't heard back. They may be paid tuition, still haven't heard back. What do we know about how the IRCC makes these decisions about who gets a study permit? Well, there's the legal test of whether the individual can leave Canada and have their authorized stay. So we know that immigration has a set number of reasons that they will point to if the answer is no, that we don't believe you're going to leave, right? It could be your ties, family ties.

It could be your purpose of visit. It could be your finances. It could be your immigration status, travel history. And that is what we call Chinook reasoning. And a lot of the offices, most of the offices now have adopted this software tool that allows them to refuse on bulk numerous applicants. What is the Chinook? Is Chinook the name of the system there? Where does that come into it? Chinook is the name of the system, right? And they're layering on these automated tools that now they can set these rules. And if these rules essentially, if you fit under a lower tier risk category, because you have a visa from the United States and you have no negative history and you're a single applicant, you know, a visa from the United States, and you have no negative history,

and you're single applicant, and you will be streamlined. But for other applicants, you get pulled out of it and then put into what are called, essentially, they're boxes for officers to have to do manual review on, right. And so that's the current system, where easy cases are being streamlined, but difficult cases or cases with some negative history are being processed with a closer eye, but also the delays that we're speaking of. But I mean, yes, that's true. But I mean, we know that the department needs to process these with some level of speed here. If this is something that speeds it up, I mean, if there are certain people that are going to be streamlined because they don't have these red flags necessarily on things that they're being checked for,

I mean, doesn't it make sense? Isn't there a reason why things are done this way at the IRCC? Oh, there's a reason why. And, you know, they've noticed huge increases in their efficiency. You know, imagine you had a job in Canada that we were all applying to and the employer as their first step you know filter out they saw everyone's country of origin and country of citizenship and where you know they had the stats you know how historically the refusal rates for each stat for each country and then they were just starting to sort people out and only certain people were getting interviews because and we know that happens you know know, in practice it happens, right? But if it's government endorsed

and if it's like a system that actually works this way to limit some folks and allow others, it has the potential of being eventually something that is almost difficult for any lawyer to penetrate because they can keep these rules and their algorithms and their basis for these decisions all behind closed doors under the guise of privacy. And we on the outside are just left with applicants that are very deserving with scholarships,

as you mentioned, just because they are from Nigeria, just because they are from Ghana, just because they are from the UAE, but they don't have permanent resident status there because they're Palestinian and stateless, that are not being allowed into Canada because we are filtering them out. I think in the last year when we've been talking about immigration, a lot of the conversation has really centered around Canada's special programs for the resettlement of Afghan citizens. So 40,000 people from Afghanistan we've promised to settle, of course, for Ukrainians as well, fleeing war, coming to Canada. I wonder, is there any

connection between like the backlog for international students and our promises to bring in so many other people? There is some growing concern and probably that, you know, when you focus on one group, obviously resources are, there's only limited and finite resources that they may get shifted around. But at the same time, I mean, I think the key then becomes your communication, your calm strategy, your guidelines, you know, but I don't think there's immigration generally in all of our lives. If something happens, you have to let those in your immediate family that you care about know what's going on. And that's what we're asking the government to do more of.

Bringing it back to the big picture of how we tackle this backlog, the federal government has recognized the issue, set policies in place to do something. It said it will provide $85 million to speed up the process, set up a task force to get things running smoothly. We talked about the new hires that are happening at the IRCC as well. From everything that you've heard, do you think that this is going to be enough to start fixing these issues? I mean, I don't see applicants ever being fully happy because I think the demand just far outweighs the supply. I mean, I don't think adding a couple, you know, 1000 more staff is going to change things. But I think the big, the big thing that could change everything is technology. Because if immigration leverages technology, in the right way, in an ethically correct way, that has proper review that has proper standards, you can start creating machines that don't require human intervention to start deciding cases at how many times more the pace of a regular worker.

You were just mentioning how like the Chinook system and things actually kind of work in as in the opposite, right? How tech was the issue there? Yeah, for sure. And I think that if I was the government right now, I would put a semi-pause and again, communicated to the applicants and just say, listen, just for the next year, we need some time to build. We're starting up this new initiative. We need some time to do this properly, get the proper consultations because the benefits will outweigh this one-year delay. If you communicate that properly and then you spend this one year talking to every single person, you know, experts and you have your data scientists and you have your internal and external consultants, you could build something very, very special. And that could be the blueprint for the future. And so then for the students you're talking to now who are still waiting to hear, I guess, what do you say to them? The number one advice I have is just take care of your mental health. And, you know, I think a lot of students here will have been, you know, the voice, the primary voices in their head are their parents or some agents or some people here in Canada telling them it's all OK, that, you know, it should all be fine.

You're going to get it for sure. Just adding a little bit of dose reality to that, that unfortunately right now, you know, those questions are the answers to those those questions are out of your control and a good balance of mental health and realism is good during these times. Will, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. You're very, very welcome. Thank you. That's it for today. I'm Maina Karaman-Wolmes. Our summer producer is Zahra Kozema. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Kasia Mihailovic is our senior producer, and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.