Visa Requirement: Refugee Claims

Immigration And Refugee Board Dept: The Prime Minister said the visa requirement was one of Canada s only legal options at the time for responding to bogus claims, but under new federal legislation and policies, alternatives can be found, according to Globe and Mail. When Ottawa imposed the requirement for temporary visas for Mexican visitors, Citizenship and Immigration released statistics showing that the number of refugee claims from Mexico had increased from 3,400 in 2005 to 9,400 in 2008. It further noted that independent assessments of claims by the Immigration and Refugee Board produced an overall acceptance rate of 11 per cent for Mexican refugee claims and we would ultimately like to see visa-free travel with Mexico, Mr. Harper said. But we don t want a re-occurrence of the problems we had in the past. In an opinion piece that ran in The on Wednesday, the Mexican president-elect noted that the 2009 decision to impose visa requirements on Mexican citizens was met with disappointment in our country. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.