Immigration

  • October 17, 2025

    Beware of immigration fraud and misrepresentation

    Canadian immigration is increasingly being targeted with fraudulent schemes, misrepresentation, identity theft, and passport-related crimes. Applicants and unscrupulous consultants exploit weaknesses in the system by using forged documents, stolen identities, sham marriages and misleading claims to obtain immigration status.

  • October 16, 2025

    Carney says Liberals’ impending crime bill will propose more bail reverse onuses & stiffer sentences

    Next week Ottawa will propose Criminal Code reforms — including new reverse onuses for bail, a ban on conditional sentences for a number of sexual offences, and stiffer sentences for repeat convictions for auto-theft, organized crime and home invasion, says Prime Minister Mark Carney, who added that his government is also poised to unveil new border security measures on Oct. 17.

  • October 14, 2025

    The birthright citizenship debate: Will my child be a U.S. citizen?

    The relevant words that will determine the answer to this question are “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” These words appear in the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and are the qualifying phrase relating to those who can claim U.S. citizenship based on birth in the U.S.

  • October 09, 2025

    New federal Bill C-12 features immigration reforms carved out from contentious ‘strong borders’ bill

    The federal government has removed about half of its controversial 140-page omnibus “strong borders” bill (C-2) and inserted excised measures into a newly introduced 70-page “immigration and borders” bill (C-12), which proposes many of the same immigration changes that critics had called on Ottawa to scrap.

  • October 08, 2025

    Fraser calls provinces’ demand to scrap Ottawa’s SCC arguments on notwithstanding clause ‘untenable’

    Attorney General of Canada Sean Fraser has pushed back against the demands of five premiers that Ottawa should drop its novel arguments at the Supreme Court that there are substantive constraints on governments’ powers to invoke the Charter’s s. 33 “notwithstanding” clause — arguments that those five provinces contend “represent a complete disavowal of the constitutional bargain that brought the Charter into being” in 1982.

  • October 08, 2025

    Importance of sufficient funds for study permit applications in Canada

    In the case of Mohammadi v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2024 FC 598, an 18-year-old Iranian national who wished to complete Grade 12 at a private high school in Ontario submitted a study permit application in which he showed parental funds of $168,000 to cover $32,500 in costs for tuition and room and board.

  • October 07, 2025

    Feds aim to downsize Temporary Foreign Worker Program, noting increased penalties

    The federal government has announced measures to reduce reliance on the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program, including a 50 per cent overall reduction in applications to the program and 70 per cent in the low-wage stream. This was done, the statement read, “in context of the tightening labour market in September 2024.”

  • October 07, 2025

    Attorney General Sean Fraser tells SCC the law needs to protect people with ‘no voice’

    There was a celebratory mood at the opening ceremony for the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2025-26 court year, but Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Sean Fraser and other legal leaders delivered a sober message to the Ottawa courtroom packed with lawyers and judges.

  • October 07, 2025

    Lawyer ordered to pay costs for non-disclosure of gen AI use and citing fake precedents in court

    In a cautionary case for litigation lawyers who use generative artificial intelligence (AI) for court submissions, a Federal Court associate judge recently hit an immigration lawyer with personal costs for submitting two defective AI-generated precedents and for breaching the Federal Court’s requirement to disclose any generative AI use in court filings.

  • October 07, 2025

    The I-94 question: Entering the U.S. as a Canadian and understanding your obligations

    In today’s stricter enforcement environment in the U.S., it is imperative that travellers be both aware of and attentive to their status when admitted to the U.S. Making assumptions about status can lead to endless and significant problems. Never has “assuming” facts been more perilous than it is for today’s traveller entering the U.S.