Recent trends in study permit application refusal reasons and appeals

Credit to Author: Canadian Immigrant| Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2023 21:42:38 +0000

The Government of Canada continues to try and meet our ambitious immigration quotas through new policies and pathways, including a recent announcement to extend Post Graduation Work Permits (PGWPs) for recent international graduates in Canada in an effort to provide them with more time to transition to permanent residence status. However, these recent policy announcements do not affect foreign nationals outside of Canada who are applying for study permits to come to Canada for post-secondary studies. Applicants must still convince visa officers that they meet all requirements to be issued a study permit, and continue to face application rejections if they fail.

Study permit applicants who receive refusal decisions from a visa officer often have no other recourse but to file an ‘Application for Leave and for Judicial Review at the Federal Court of Canada’. There are many different study permit refusal reasons, but often these reasons centre around concerns that the applicant will not leave Canada at the end of their studies due to various factors. During the process of appeal, the Federal Court judges whether the visa officer’s refusal reasons were reasonable. When assessing whether a certain refusal reason is reasonable or not, there is usually a long line of jurisprudence (sometimes conflicting, sometimes in agreement) that provides context and helps to inform. Here are some recent trends in jurisprudence:

1. Applicants who are single, mobile, with no dependents

Many recent decisions out of the Federal Court discuss whether a visa officer’s findings that an applicant is “single, mobile, not well established, and has no dependents” is a reasonable ground for refusal. These decisions add to a long line of established jurisprudence on this topic.

Recent Federal Court findings agree with past decisions and emphasize that an applicant’s lack of a dependent spouse or child should not be considered a negative factor without further analysis by the visa officer. In other words, a visa officer can consider an applicant’s marital status and lack of dependents only if their refusal reasons also contain an analysis as to why these factors would lead to an applicant overstaying in Canada. Study permit applicants are often young adults who are applying to Canada for post-secondary studies – most applicants are single, mobile, and without dependents, and therefore visa officers should not be able to refuse applicants based solely on these descriptors or it could lead to an unacceptable degree of arbitrary decision making.When analyzing an applicant’s familial ties to their home country, the visa officer should also consider an applicant’s parents and/or siblings rather than focusing on their lack of a spouse or children.

2. Purpose of study

Visa officer refusal reasons that centre on purpose of study tend to focus on analyzing the applicant’s study plan, including their past education and employment experience, their choice of program of study, and whether their studies will benefit their future career pathway.

Federal Court jurisprudence on purpose of study tends to be fact-specific. Nevertheless, here are some broad concepts from recent decisions:

– It unreasonable for visa officers to determine that an applicant already has “an acceptable combination of education, training and/or experience in their respective field” without addressing the applicant’s reasons for pursuing further studies.

– It can be unreasonable for visa officers to provide their own opinions on an applicant’s career choices, future intended career path, and educational background.

– Applicants have a duty to present their case with respect to how their proposed studies will benefit their future career path. Applicants should take care to provide specific reasons, and not general assertions, as to how their chosen program of study will benefit them.

Visa officer refusal reasons tend to be boilerplate, short, and minimal given the high volume of applications they deal with on a day-to-day basis. Nevertheless, their reasons must still be transparent, intelligible, and justified in order to be found to be reasonable. Certain grounds for refusal, such as finding that an applicant is single with no dependents or finding that an applicant’s purpose of study is not compelling, can be arbitrary and unreasonable if the visa officer does not take care to “connect the dots” and explain the reasoning process behind their decision making.

Nicole Chan is an Associate Lawyer with Larlee Rosenberg, Barristers & Solicitors.

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