Immigration minister defends border bill’s restrictions on asylum claims

Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Lena Metlege Diab participates in a family photo following a cabinet swearing in ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, on Tuesday, May 13, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby

OTTAWA — Safeguards have been written into the government’s border bill to ensure civil rights and due process are upheld in proposed immigration regulations, Immigration Minister Lena Diab said Wednesday.

Critics and advocacy groups are calling the wide-ranging border security legislation a threat to civil liberties in the immigration and asylum system.

One proposed change in the legislation would prevent people from making asylum claims if they’ve been in Canada for more than a year.

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That change would not affect applications that have been submitted already but would be retroactive to June 3, assuming the bill becomes law.

Diab said there would still be opportunities for asylum seekers who have been in Canada for more than a year to make their case through measures like pre-removal risk assessments.

“There’s a lot of applications in the system and so this is will streamline it to ensure that those newcomers, or those people that really need our protection and use the asylum system, are processed faster,” she said.

The 127-page bill, unveiled Tuesday, would give authorities new powers to search mail and expand the Canadian Coast Guard’s role to include security activities.

There are several other immigration measures are in the bill.

They include giving authorities the power to cancel or suspend immigration documents for health or national security reasons, closing a loophole that allows people to make an asylum claim 14 days after crossing the U.S. land border, and allowing Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to share the personal information of immigrants and refugees with provincial and territorial governments.

Immigration lawyer Zool Suleman said the information-sharing proposal poses a threat to the civil liberties of all Canadians.

“Everybody thinks they have nothing to hide. You’d be amazed at how much we do want to hide in terms of the personal lives that we lead in this country and that we have a right to lead in the country,” he said.

“The real issue is that the government should not be delving into your private life unless they have cause. And so what this bill is really doing is threatening the civil liberties of everybody in Canada.”

Diab said the legislation includes a number of safeguards to protect personal information. She said the goal is to streamline information-sharing between branches of government that process immigration, citizenship and passport applications.

“These programs cannot share information together. So this at least will give us that ability to do that, but also share information with the provinces and territories where the need arises,” she said.

Diab said information-sharing arrangements with provincial and territorial bodies would be outlined in agreements stating which information can be shared and when.

“Most Canadians probably think this is the sensible thing to do and in fact most probably think it exists already. Well, it does not,” Diab said.

Diab said the final decision on cancelling or suspending immigration documents in the event of a health or public safety emergency would be made by cabinet.

“I think people, Canadians, should feel safe that we are putting all these safeguards in. But again, as I said, it’s all part of protecting our country and protecting our system,” Diab said.

Suleman said he has worried about a government giving itself this kind of power since the 2001 Immigration and Refugee Protection Act became law.

“People had predicted that this is the direction in which the government would go when it was passing this framework legislation. And what we find more than two decades later is it’s exactly where the government has gone,” he said.

“They’ve taken on more and more authority for themselves with less and less safeguards for refugees and immigrants.”

The legislation says that some asylum cases -- such as those of migrants crossing by land from the U.S. -- will no longer be sent to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada for review.

“You will be subjected to a much lower level of review and much lower levels of safeguards. Essentially, what the government is trying to do for many, many refugee claimants is move to a paper review basis, not an oral review basis to determine their claims,” Suleman said.

The government has been trying to cut the backlog in immigration and refugee applications and is reducing the number of permanent and temporary residents being admitted to Canada.

Roxham Road in Quebec became a focal point for the immigration debate during the first Donald Trump presidency, with thousands of people claiming asylum after crossing the Canadian border onto the small rural road, about 50 kilometres south of Montreal.

More recently, the government has reported an increase in the number of international students making asylum claims when their visas expire.

Diab said the asylum system can’t be used as a shortcut to immigration.

“If you want to immigrate to Canada, we have rules. We have processes. Please use them,” she said.

David Baxter, The Canadian Press

With files from Jim Bronskill

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 4, 2025.