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Prime Minister Mark Carney marks Pride Season by participating in a flag raising ceremony on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Tuesday. But advocacy groups say the federal government’s new border law is putting people at risk of being sent back to countries where they face persecution. Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Mark Carney and MPs from other political parties came together to raise the Pride flag on Parliament Hill.
But an advocacy group that helps LGBTQ+ refugees come to Canada and the U.S says the federal government’s new border law is putting people at risk of being sent back to countries where they face persecution.
Devon Matthews, Rainbow Railroad’s chief program officer, said her organization is concerned about its working relationship with Ottawa as the federal government reduces the number of refugees it admits and cuts the organization’s funding.
She said it’s also alarmed by a new law requiring that refugee claims be made within a year of the claimant’s first arrival in Canada.
“It has nothing to do with the reasons why someone may have waited or why someone doesn’t meet the one-year bar,” Matthews told The Canadian Press.
“It actually is purely just a technical eligibility requirement that doesn’t serve to actually give the opportunity for the person to speak to the intricacies of why they may have had to wait.”
A former Middle Eastern international student who lived as an openly gay man in Canada is among those left in limbo by the new law.
Scores of asylum claimants warned they may face deportation after immigration law passes
The former student told The Canadian Press he filed a refugee claim after photos of his time here in Canada were discovered once he returned home, putting his safety at risk.
But he said that because he studied in Canada for two-and-a-half years starting in 2022, he has been told his refugee claim is ineligible under the new border law, C-12.
The Canadian Press has agreed not to name him or his home country due to risks facing his family members still there.
“I was supporting the LGBTQ community, and I was in a lot of events, and some stories from social media that leaked out in my society back there,” he said.
“So some incidents and … some pictures had fallen into bad people’s hands, and they threatened to inform the police and to beat me up. So it happened more than once, and when the last time, I felt that I can’t live like that and I will be living in fear.”
Several Middle Eastern countries have morality laws that punish LGBTQ people with prison terms. The refugee claimant said his family would also face social and economic repercussions because of his orientation.
“When you get discovered as a LGBTQ person, that’s it, that’s the end of your life. You can’t work, you can be arrested in your home,” he said. “And of course, the scandal for the family, because it’s not something that’s accepted.
“So I ran because if that happened, I would spend my life in jail. Or even if they didn’t put me in jail for a long time, that’s it for my career, that’s it for my life.”
He said his refugee claim was proceeding smoothly and had been approved for file review – a less intensive examination for low-risk refugee claims.
But when C-12 passed earlier this year, he became one of roughly 30,000 people who received letters saying their refugee claim may no longer be eligible because they first entered Canada more than a year before making their claim.
Immigration Minister defends proposed changes to asylum rules through border bill
The one-year rule applies to refugee claims made on or after June 3, 2025 and retroactively to first arrivals on or after June 24, 2020.
While refugee claims filed by people in this situation will not be sent to the Immigration and Refugee Board for review, they are still eligible for a pre-removal risk assessment, or PRRA. The PRRA has a historically low approval rate because it tends to be the primary appeal avenue for rejected claims at the IRB.
The PRRA process is primarily paper-based but interviews can be requested if an officer needs more information.
Immigration Minister Lena Diab told a Senate committee hearing in February that when it’s clear people should be able to stay in Canada based on documented evidence, “they get a ‘yes’ right away.”
The government has said it introduced the one-year rule in part because some people were making asylum claims in order to stay in Canada after their temporary visas expired.
Diab told the Senate committee that 37 per cent of refugee claims made between June 3, 2025 and Oct. 31, 2025 – roughly 19,000 documents – would be deemed ineligible under the one-year rule.
Suzy Newing, the Middle Eastern former student’s lawyer, said her client’s ineligibility is being challenged in court on constitutional grounds arguing that he has a right to an oral hearing – which is not guaranteed in the PRRA process – and anti-discrimination provisions.
Refugee tribuna…
Read the full article at The Globe and Mail →
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