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Business Standard
24-04-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Canada work permit delays: What's happening to thousands of migrants?
Thousands of migrant workers in Canada, including Indian nationals, are stuck in a legal vacuum after losing their work permits due to growing delays in the paperwork renewal process. Without valid permits, they are unable to work or access healthcare, despite paying taxes and having arrived in the country legally. One of them is Devi Acharya, who moved from India to British Columbia in October 2022 with her husband and son. She was employed in housekeeping at Prince Rupert's Highliner Hotel, a job she said she enjoyed. The family recently bought a house. But after applying for a new labour market impact assessment (LMIA) in September, they received no response. As a result, their work permits expired. They now live in Canada without work authorisation and no access to provincial health insurance. In March, Acharya suffered a miscarriage. She did not go to the hospital because she couldn't afford another medical bill. 'If I got medical attention on time, maybe we could have saved the baby,' she told Reuters. Her son Navdev, now five, is also unable to attend school. 'Two years before we were dreaming of making Canada home,' she said. 'And now it's shattering.' Her case is just one among many. What is driving the crisis? The delays stem from both stricter immigration rules and growing political pressure to reduce the number of temporary residents, said Ravi Jain, a Canada-based immigration attorney and member of the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association (CILA). 'The government brought in much stricter rules to stem the number of temporary residents in general. About 10 years ago, there were 300,000 temporary residents and today there are over 3 million,' Jain told Business Standard. 'This fairly dramatic increase has led to a public backlash which political parties are responding to leading up to the federal action taking place shortly.' Darshan Maharaja, a Canada-based immigration analyst, told Business Standard that visa processing has not kept up with demand. 'At one point, it was reported that there were 2.4 million pending applications. As of December last year, LMIA applications received in March were being processed,' he said. 'A lot of political pressure has built up on the immigration policy, which required the government to cut down the numbers in different kinds of visa policies such as international students and foreign workers. In some cases, existing work permits are not being renewed.' Why are the backlogs growing? According to Jain, backlogs are largely due to volume. 'We see significant numbers of foreign nationals who wish to stay in Canada. Many were duped by non-lawyer immigration consultants who promised a guaranteed pathway from study permits to work permits to permanent residence.' He warned migrants against relying on unauthorised consultants. 'If migrants are at risk of losing their legal status, they should consult a proper lawyer. All members of our association, including myself, must be a lawyer. Be wary of consultants who refer to themselves as lawyers but are not.' Maharaja added, '??If there is a risk of losing legal status, migrants would be well advised to take recourse to legal means only to extend their stay in Canada, as otherwise they may be unable to secure a visa in the future.' With elections underway in Canada, Maharaja said there has been no announcement of any temporary relief or solution. Impact on employers Employers are also affected by the uncertainty, according to Jain. 'Employers are quite concerned about keeping employees they have come to rely on and this is very difficult for them,' he said.
NDTV
22-04-2025
- Politics
- NDTV
Why Migrants, Including Indians, Are Losing Work Permits In Canada
Ottawa: Thousands of migrants living in Canada, including Indians, are losing their work permits due to long delays in the paperwork renewal process, as growing backlogs and changing rules hinder efforts to maintain legal status. Despite paying taxes, migrants in Canada can't work legally or access medical care and other services if they lose their legal status. Among those who lost their permit is Devi Acharya, who moved to Canada from India with her husband and son in October 2022. Acharya miscarried in March because she did not go to a hospital, as she could not afford another medical bill. She does not have health coverage for the same reason she cannot work -- her work permit expired while she waited for a labour market impact assessment, and if she sought medical care, she could be handed a hefty bill. "If I got medical attention on time, maybe we could have saved the baby," she told Reuters. Acharya was working in housekeeping at Prince Rupert's Highliner Hotel in British Columbia before she lost her job. she liked the work and recently bought a house with her husband. They applied for new labour market impact assessments in September, her immigration consultant told Reuters. They have received no response, and their work permits have expired. They are in Canada legally but cannot work. Their son, Navdev, now five years old, cannot go to school. "Two years before we were dreaming of making Canada home," she said, "and now it's shattering." Canada's Migrant Crisis Canada has long blamed migrants for straining services and resources amid housing shortages and rising rents. Ottawa is trying to reduce the number of migrants and is reportedly relying on people to leave voluntarily to meet its targets. Living undocumented in Canada is rare in part because it is so difficult to access services without status. The labour market impact assessment processing time for temporary workers hoping to become permanent residents in Canada has been increasing since at least fall 2022. It has almost tripled from 58 business days in September 2023 to 165 business days in March 2025. Quoting an email from Service Canada-- which processes these applications-- Reuters reported that as of April 1, 2025, the department was still processing labour market impact assessment applications submitted a year earlier. "We are seeing a backlog now of more than a year. ... It's the first time we are seeing such a delay," said immigration consultant Kanwar Sierah. It is not known exactly how many people have lost their work permits due to delays so far, but Reuters spoke to at least four families who are in this distress. According to Canada's immigration department, migrants can keep working as long as they get a labour market impact assessment needed to maintain their status within 60 days of applying to renew their work permit. But the department does not have guidelines for people who lost status because of long waits. The department has attributed the lengthier waits, in part, to an influx of applications, but would not provide the number of applications pending by month. The number of people applying for work permits within the country has grown compared to last year, as has the share of those applications that Canada is refusing, data from Canada's immigration department shows. Experts say changing rules, as well as more applicants, may be contributing to the growing backlog. "People are losing their immigration status", Sierah said, and added that some people are working under the table for exploitative employers or falling victim to "unscrupulous actors" who give them bad advice, for example, by urging them to apply for asylum when they may not have a strong case. Canada's Liberal government pledged to give undocumented people status but then backtracked and said it would provide it on a small scale for people working in certain sectors. Prime Minister Mark Carney, who leads polls ahead of an April 28 election, promises to cap immigration for now.
