Removals from Canada are the last legal procedure for unsuccessful immigrants and visitors, most of whom have exhausted all legal remedies to stay in Canada. However, one does not have to be discouraged from trying to defer their removal, if they have grounds to either stay longer or receive permanent residence in Canada.
If you were invited to the Canadian Border Service Agency (CBSA) for an interview and were told that you are subject to a removal order which is now in force, call your legal counsel immediately. Your counsel might start preparing a Deferral Letter, which is a counsel’s submissions to the immigration enforcement authorities reasoning the grounds for a postponement of removal. If you have an ongoing permanent residence case in one of our immigration departments for consideration, then your counsel will ask the CBSA authorities to postpone your removal until the time of the finalization of your permanent residence case. If you don’t have any pending case at immigration, then your counsel may assess your situation and launch an application for permanent residence and defer your departure from Canada by asking the authorities to grant you additional time for the completion of your permanent residence case. Even if you don’t have any reason to remain in Canada, but need some time to finalize your affairs before departure, you still may ask for the additional time to remain.
What are the grounds for deferral from removal?
If you have children and they are at school, a postponement of removal would be justified by the children’s’ completion of a school semester or even an academic year. Children’s’ best interests are usually considered serious grounds for putting a removal order on hold.
Medical problems are also grounds for deferral, especially if you can prove that the medical treatment in your country of nationality is of a lower quality than in Canada.
Other compassionate grounds to postpone or cancel f the removal for an indefinite time may exist, depending on your unique situation. Your counsel, if they are experienced and knowledgeable, will conduct a thorough interview and obtain details of your history in Canada and determine what factors are important to submit in the Letter of Deferral.
Example Case:
A failed refugee claimant, who exhausted all other legal remedies in an attempt to stay in Canada permanently after the rejection of his refugee claim, decided to go underground and remain in hiding. For over 8 years he worked illegally and avoided bumping into police. (If the police catch you for any offence, even speeding in a car, and see that you are an illegal immigrant, they will immediately report you to the CBSA.)
Eventually, his friends persuaded him to come to our office for help. After conducting an interview, it was revealed that he, during the years in hiding in Canada, developed a relationship with a Canadian woman. The couple had lived together for more than 3 years and had two Canadian children together. However, the Canadian partner never applied to sponsor her common-law illegal immigrant partner because both were afraid that he would be arrested and deported immediately. After the interview we urgently prepared a sponsorship application and sent it to one of our immigration processing centers. Then, we scheduled a personal interview with a CBSA officer where we explained the situation and the existence of the sponsorship application. At that time, the CBSA officials did not have discretion to delay our client’s removal and we therefore applied for a deferral in writing. The argument was that our client would comply with the removal because he would not jeopardize his permanent residence case based on sponsorship, by hiding from the authorities. He simply needed to delay his removal until his sponsorship case was finalized. Additionally, in interests of his children, his presence was required in Canada. We calculated the time needed for the finalization of his permanent residency which was approximately 12 months and asked for deferral for 8 months, which was granted.
