Operational Bulletin 542 – August 20, 2013

Background

At Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), only Citizenship and Immigration (C&I) officers can:

• Write A44 reports and,
• Issue removal orders.

This is in accordance with the provisions of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA). 

Senior Immigration Officers (SIOs) do not have this delegated authority. Given this background, officers of the Backlog Reduction Office (BRO) network require a formal process for:

• Alerting a local office of a possible unreported inadmissibility or,
• The absence of a removal order in Humanitarian and Compassionate (H&C) applications for which the SIOs rendered a negative decision 

Issue

This Operational Bulletin (OB) provides direction to officers about the refusal of any Humanitarian and Compassionate (H&C) application where:

• There is a possibility of an unreported inadmissibility or,
• When the applicant holds no legal status in Canada and has no removal order either

Officers would need to refer these cases to a Citizenship and Immigration (C&I) Officer for further investigation.

This Operational Bulletin applies to officers of the:

• Backlog Reduction Office (BRO) network and,
• Their associated local CIC offices 

Sequential Procedural Instructions for Processing these Cases

Situations could arise where an SIO refuses an H&C application at Stage 1. Additionally, the client:

• Would not appear to have legal status and,
• Would not be subject to a removal order OR,
• Might have another unreported inadmissibility

In these situations, the SIO would:

• Finalise the refusal on all applicable systems
• Process the notification of the refusal in the current manner
• Create a Non-Computer Based (NCB) entry in the Field Operations Support System (FOSS), where the SIO would:
• Acknowledge the refusal of the H&C
• Mention that the file has been forwarded to the BRO’s sister CIC office for reviewing the inadmissibility
• In the event that the Federal Court of Canada conducts a judicial review of the negative decision, the BRO holds most of the refused H&C applications for a period of 30 days
• After the lapse of 30 days, the BRO forwards the completed files to their sister CIC local office
• Because of the close proximity between the BROs and their sister local CIC offices, the Federal Court of Canada would face no issues in retrieving the files from the local CIC offices, to fulfill the requirements for its cases
• A C&I Officer would conduct all desk investigations
• The C&I Officer would need to assess whether the situation of the refused applicant requires further action
• Further action could include:
• Writing an A44 report
• Issuing a removal order by CIC
• Referring the case to the Canada Border Services Agency or,
• Concluding the desk investigation and closing the file
• The C&I Officers would need to record their evaluation of the matter i.e. their decision concerning the SIO’s referral
• For this, the C&I Officers would need to use the existing notes on the:
• FOSS (NCB)  and the,
• NCMS
• After doing this, the C&I Officers would need to record further course of action, if applicable

Note:

• Sister office means that the file would be forwarded from: 
• BRO-Niagara Falls to Niagara Falls CIC
• BRO-Toronto to Etobicoke CIC
• BRO-Montreal to Montreal CIC and,
• BRO-Vancouver to Vancouver CIC
• New Project Code Title: SIO Refusal to C&I for Removal Order
• Officers must not remove this project code
• This is because CIC requires this statistical data on an ongoing basis
• Therefore, the SIO should:
• Describe the reasons for referring the case to the CIC
• Detail the suspected inadmissibility in the notes on:
• Field Operations Support System (FOSS) and,
• National Case Management System (NCMS)

Source: Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC)