OTTAWA — The variety of immigration instances being delivered to Federal Courtroom has greater than quadrupled since 2020 — and a few immigration attorneys are linking the surge partly to the federal authorities’s use of synthetic intelligence and automation to clear visa software backlogs.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada insists that know-how is to not blame and that a number of elements are driving the increase in authorized challenges of the division’s selections.
About 6,400 immigration instances have been delivered to Federal Courtroom in 2020, a determine according to the pattern over the earlier decade. The caseload spiked sharply in 2021, when 9,700 instances have been despatched to the court docket.
Greater than 28,000 instances have been filed with the court docket final yr and greater than 6,600 have been filed within the first quarter of 2026. The overwhelming majority of those instances will not be refugee issues.
Jacqueline Bonisteel, an Ottawa-based immigration lawyer, stated the division is leaning extra on know-how to hurry up selections on immigration information — and the standard of these selections is slipping because of this.
“The usage of new know-how and automation instruments, it simply signifies that a human officer isn’t spending as a lot time with the information as they as soon as did,” she stated.
5 years in the past, Bonisteel stated, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada would provide an in depth rationalization of every choice to reject a visa software.
“It may be transient, however you’d have some sense that an officer engaged with the proof that was filed,” she stated.
“And now with these automated choice making instruments, you normally don’t get a lot in any respect. There’s these canned strains that we see in nearly each refusal choice.
“There’s no signal of engagement with the proof. And that basically appears to be a results of the know-how and officers being below strain to simply flip selections by means of, with out going into depth and taking an in depth take a look at what was truly filed.”
Taous Ait, Immigration Minister Lena Diab’s press secretary, advised The Canadian Press that IRCC’s AI and superior analytics instruments work below human oversight always. She stated the AI instruments help with duties like “triaging functions, figuring out routine instances, producing summaries for officers” and answering consumer questions with chatbots.
“AI performs no function in decision-making on immigration functions. As a matter of reality, all refusal selections are made by educated officers following a full human overview. When an software is refused, candidates obtain correspondence explaining the explanations for the choice,” she stated in an emailed response.
The division’s first AI technique, launched earlier this yr, says IRCC is utilizing the know-how to scale back software backlogs and wait instances.
The technique says that AI can be utilized to make assessments, advocate choices and flag “easy, low-risk information” for an expedited human choice. Whereas the doc says AI instruments can advocate choices, it maintains these instruments don’t “refuse or advocate refusing any functions.”
Regardless of this, immigration attorneys who spoke to The Canadian Press stated they’ve tracked a decline within the high quality of decision-making at IRCC.
Nalini Reddy, an immigration lawyer in Winnipeg, stated one in every of her shoppers noticed her customer visa software rejected on the grounds that her Canadian household ties urged she would overstay her visa.
Reddy stated this tells her the applying supplies weren’t correctly reviewed as a result of whereas the girl’s accomplice is Canadian, her youngsters, household and mates are all within the Philippines. She stated somebody who examined the proof wouldn’t have denied the visa.
“That form of factor has occurred so many instances in information that I’ve seen up to now … three, 4 years, whereas that was actually an uncommon incidence up to now. However now it’s commonplace,” she stated.
Reddy and different immigration attorneys level to a program IRCC makes use of referred to as Chinook. Authorities paperwork describe it as a Microsoft Excel-based program designed to “simplify the visible illustration” of consumer data.
The identical paperwork say this particular program doesn’t use AI or make suggestions about software selections.
Andrew Koltun, a St. Catharines, Ont., immigration lawyer, stated software program can fail to see nuances in a visa software, leading to extra selections that may result in court docket challenges.
Koltun argued the present system is solely shifting IRCC’s backlog to the Federal Courtroom.
He stated that he had an Afghan refugee consumer who was initially refused after an officer didn’t take a look at all of the proof.
“We succeeded in judicial overview, it was despatched again. The second choice simply copy-and-pasted the primary causes after which made the identical error. So we’re again at Federal Courtroom,” Koltun stated.
“However now, whereas earlier than his choice bought heard in a yr, now we’re previous a yr and a half and we haven’t even been scheduled for a court docket listening to.”
Ait disputes the attorneys’ declare that synthetic intelligence and automation is driving the spike in immigration litigation.
“The rise in litigation earlier than the Federal Courtroom can’t be attributed to a single issue. Lately, IRCC has obtained software volumes that exceed the variety of admissions areas obtainable below the 2026-2028 Immigration Ranges Plan,” she stated in an e mail.
“On the identical time, the division has processed and finalized document numbers of functions throughout a number of strains of enterprise. Greater software volumes, bigger inventories and a rise within the variety of selections rendered total might contribute to a corresponding improve in litigation.”
Retired Federal Courtroom chief justice Paul Crampton advised CBC Information in September 2025 that the Federal Courtroom is coping with a systemic useful resource shortfall that’s contributing to issues with processing an “extraordinary” surge in immigration instances.
He stated that most of the instances within the court docket backlog are associated to selections on visa functions from exterior of Canada and the general rise within the variety of folks trying to come right here is resulting in an increase in refusals and authorized challenges.
Crampton retired in October and his alternative has not but been named.
Reddy argued that the rising strain on the Federal Courtroom is wiping out any effectivity good points from the usage of know-how at IRCC.
“I believe it’s short-sighted as a result of it’s not inflicting any financial savings of sources wherever. It’s simply shifting them round and on the finish of the day, my notion is that it’s making a far, far worse state of affairs when it comes to utilization of sources,” she stated.
Bonisteel agreed that the rise within the variety of folks trying to come to Canada and tighter immigration ranges might partly clarify the caseload surge on the Federal Courtroom.
Immigration instances account for the overwhelming majority of issues heard at Federal Courtroom — 86 per cent of instances final yr. Koltun stated that having simply 44 Federal Courtroom judges shouldn’t be sustainable.
“I believe the one precise sturdy answer is to considerably improve court docket sources, to be sincere,” Koltun stated. “I’d say double the variety of judges.”
The federal government lists one Federal Courtroom choose emptiness as of Could 1.
Bonisteel stated she thinks a brand new legislation that requires refugee claimants to make their claims inside a yr of their arrival in Canada will drive up the Federal Courtroom backlog even additional.
After Invoice C-12 turned legislation, the federal government issued about 30,000 letters to refugee claimants telling them their claims may be deemed invalid below the brand new guidelines.
“A complete inhabitants has simply develop into ineligible to make a refugee declare they usually’re going to diverted to the pre-removal danger evaluation course of, and people selections we all know are challenged in excessive numbers,” Bonisteel stated.
“That’s one other facet of this too that’s going to proceed to make this an issue.”
The one venue to problem a pre-removal danger evaluation choice is the Federal Courtroom.
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