Refugee Cessation: How Traveling Home Cost a Client Their Status
A citizenship application revealed circumstances that stripped away both refugee protection and permanent residence
A problem nobody saw coming. A former refugee, already well on her way to Canadian citizenship, discovered that certain choices she had made years earlier would cost her not just the citizenship she was applying for – but her refugee status and permanent residence as well.
How It Happened
Sarah filed her refugee claim in Canada back in 2009, seeking protection from persecution in her home country. In 2011, the claim was approved and she was granted refugee status. By 2012, her application for permanent residence had also been approved – Sarah was now a permanent resident of Canada.
In 2020, Sarah decided to take the next step and apply for Canadian citizenship. It was this application that triggered the chain of events that ultimately brought her to us.
While processing the citizenship application, the immigration authorities discovered that after obtaining permanent residence, Sarah had acquired a new passport from her home country and had traveled back there several times over the years.
From the perspective of Canadian immigration law, this told a clear story: Sarah was no longer at risk in her home country, and therefore no longer needed the protection she had been granted.
The legal basis for this is found in Section 108 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The section provides that a refugee claim shall be rejected – or refugee protection shall cease – if the claimant has voluntarily re-availed themselves of the protection of their country of nationality. On the Minister's application, the Refugee Protection Division (RPD) may determine that refugee protection has ceased.
And that is exactly what happened to Sarah. In December 2020, the Minister's application was filed with the RPD. In February 2022, the hearing took place.
The Minister's application was granted. No arguments – the need to visit a seriously ill relative, humanitarian circumstances, or otherwise – were able to change the outcome.
After that, Sarah's trail goes cold as far as our involvement is concerned. An attempt was made to seek judicial review at the Federal Court, but without our participation. According to the Federal Court's database, the application for leave was denied – meaning that even at the preliminary stage, it was clear the appeal stood no chance of overturning the decision.
The Federal Court's Position
An identical case was decided by the Federal Court recently, in June 2024.
Zhou v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2024 FC 895
The applicant, Mr. Zhou, arrived in Canada from China in 2015 and obtained permanent resident status as a protected person in 2018. In 2019, he acquired a new Chinese passport and used it to travel outside Canada, including to China.
In 2020, while re-entering Canada from one such trip, he told the border officer that he was returning from China, where he had traveled due to family circumstances.
In 2022, the Minister applied to the RPD for cessation of Mr. Zhou's refugee protection, and the application was granted. Mr. Zhou sought judicial review at the Federal Court.
The Federal Court conducted a detailed analysis of all the circumstances and upheld the RPD's decision. The applicant lost both his refugee status and his permanent resident status in Canada.
What If Citizenship Had Already Been Obtained?
Would the situation have been different if Sarah had already become a Canadian citizen before the issue came to light?
In that case, the authorities would still have had the ability to revoke her citizenship, although the process would have been considerably more complex.
It is worth noting that in virtually all cases of this kind, the cessation process is triggered when the individual applies for citizenship or for a renewal of their PR card. The time between obtaining refugee status and losing it can span many years.
The lesson is unmistakable: obtaining a new passport from your country of origin and traveling back after receiving refugee protection in Canada carries severe consequences – consequences that may not surface for years, but that will ultimately catch up with you at the worst possible moment.
Lawpoint Immigration advises clients on maintaining refugee status and represents clients in cessation proceedings and Federal Court judicial reviews.