Practice Areas

The Refugee Protection Division (“RPD”) of the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) is empowered to determine the refugee claims of those foreign nationals who claim refugee status from within Canada. If the RPD rejects a claim, an appeal may be made to the Refugee Appeal Division (“RAD”) where a decision will be made whether to allow or deny the appeal. The cases of those unfortunate claimants whose cases are denied by the RPD and well represented by us to reverse the decision of RPD for either referring back to the RPD for further hearing or granting Conventional Refugee status directly by RAD.

Failed sponsorship applications may be made by the permanent resident or Canadian citizen who has applied and submitted their application to sponsor in support of the foreign national’s application, who are either spouses, dependent children or parents and grandparents of the permanent resident or Canadian citizen for their permanent residence. These appeals must be filed within 30 days of receipt of the refusal letter.

In some cases, the immigration authorities will detain a foreign national and hold them in prison pending their potential removal from Canada, or pending some other immigration process. Immigration detention is considered to be an exceptional measure and the Immigration Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board will regularly hold hearings known as detention reviews to decide if someone who is detained should be released from detention. We provide successful representation for the release of detainees or alternate form of detention.

A further resource for those who are inadmissible or otherwise do not qualify for a visa under the regular immigration categories is to apply for an exemption to the criteria of the immigration laws on Humanitarian and Compassionate (H&C) grounds.