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<\/p>\nEarlier this week, Prime Minister Mark Carney and MPs from other political parties came together to raise the Pride flag on Parliament Hill.<\/p>\n
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But an advocacy group that helps LGBTQ refugees come to Canada and the U.S says the federal government\u2019s new border law is putting people at risk of being sent back to countries where they face persecution.<\/p>\n
Devon Matthews, Rainbow Railroad\u2019s 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\u2019s funding.<\/p>\n
She said it\u2019s also alarmed by a new law requiring that refugee claims be made within a year of the claimant\u2019s first arrival in Canada.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has nothing to do with the reasons why someone may have waited or why someone doesn\u2019t meet the one-year bar,\u201d Matthews told The Canadian Press.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt actually is purely just a technical eligibility requirement that doesn\u2019t serve to actually give the opportunity for the person to speak to the intricacies of why they may have had to wait.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The Canadian Press has agreed not to name him or his home country due to risks facing his family members still there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo some incidents and \u2026 some pictures had fallen into bad people\u2019s hands and they threatened to inform the police and to beat me up. So it happened more than once, and when the last time happened I felt that I can\u2019t live like that and I will be living in fear.\u201d<\/p>\n
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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.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhen you get discovered as a LGBTQ person, that\u2019s it, that\u2019s the end of your life. You can\u2019t work, you can be arrested in your home,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd of course, the scandal for the family, because it\u2019s not something that\u2019s accepted.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I ran because if that happened, I would spend my life in jail. Or even if they didn\u2019t put me in jail for a long time, that\u2019s it for my career, that\u2019s it for my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said his refugee claim was proceeding smoothly and had been approved for file review \u2014 a less intensive examination for low-risk refugee claims.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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The PRRA process is primarily paper-based but interviews can be requested if an officer needs more information.<\/p>\n
Immigration Minister Lena Diab told a Senate committee hearing in February that when it\u2019s clear people should be able to stay in Canada based on documented evidence, \u201cthey get a \u2018yes\u2019 right away.\u201d<\/p>\n
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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.<\/p>\n
Diab told the Senate committee that 37 per cent of refugee claims made between June 3, 2025 and Oct. 31, 2025 \u2014 roughly 19,000 documents \u2014 would be deemed ineligible under the one-year rule.<\/p>\n
Suzy Newing, the Middle Eastern former student\u2019s lawyer, said her client\u2019s ineligibility is being challenged in court on constitutional grounds arguing that he has a right to an oral hearing \u2014 which is not guaranteed in the PRRA process \u2014 and anti-discrimination provisions.<\/p>\n
She said there are a variety of reasons why an LGBTQ+ person might not make a refugee claim within a year of first arriving in Canada.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, perhaps they came to Canada before recognizing or expressing or coming to terms with their sexual orientation, and then they start to express that here. That might not necessarily happen within one year of coming to Canada,\u201d Newing said.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThey might have known (their orientation) all along, but managed to hide it in their country of origin. And then the one-year bar essentially forces the timing for when they would come out to their family members, because that\u2019s often when the risk materializes \u2026 when individuals would come out to their family members when they\u2019re here in Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many Federal Court challenges of refugee claims being deemed ineligible under the new law have been referred to file review, so a judge is expected to rule broadly on the constitutionality of the one-year rule.<\/p>\n
The Middle Eastern refugee claimant will now have to wait for either a PRRA or a court decision to learn whether he will be allowed to remain in Canada.<\/p>\n
He said that even if he is allowed to stay, his trust in Canada has been shaken.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow I feel like I\u2019ve been attacked by everyone, by the government, by the Canadian people and they just want people to leave,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cKicking those people out, you are killing them because they are not returning back to live happily and fine and everything. You are pushing them back to their deaths.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matthews said Rainbow Railroad saw its largest-ever number of requests for help in 2025 \u2014 more than 20,000, a 51 per cent increase over 2024. She said the organization is on track to receive even more pleas for help this year.<\/p>\n
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Matthews said Rainbow Railroad is considering increasing its political activism in response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this week, Prime Minister Mark Carney and MPs from other political parties came together to raise the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":734633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,264161,44,77355,3275],"class_list":["post-734632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-lgbtq2","tag-news","tag-political-activism","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=734632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/734633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}