Thank you.
Lawyers for Secure Immigration is an immigration advocacy organization composed of immigration lawyers and other members of the legal community. We want to see Canada continue to welcome newcomers from everywhere. We want people who will support and strengthen our Canadian democratic values and our Canadian way of life. The mission is to keep problems originating from outside Canada from entering Canada in the first place.
We can make changes, such as changes to study permit eligibility rules and to prefer the people who will be less motivated to engage in criminality on Canadian soil. We can do more to guard against theft of Canada's most sensitive world-class intellectual property. We can do more to prevent the ongoing efforts of foreign interests that are actively seeking the destabilization of Canadian society by promoting hatred based on race, colour, ancestry or religious belief.
We can create financial disincentives that will target the enablers in Canada: the employers who allow unauthorized work and the schools who allow unauthorized study. We can do more to follow the money and illuminate the complex international path of finance that has successfully brought problems from outside Canada inside Canada.
Also, because no immigration system in the world is airtight and perfect, for the people who find a way to get around our immigration safeguards, we need more effective and swift removal measures.
Here's the illustration of a typical immigration problem where security gets undervalued by government. CSIS is mandated by section 14 of the CSIS Act to provide advice and information “relating to security matters or criminal activities” to IRCC, but it is IRCC that determines who will be allowed to enter Canada temporarily to visit, work or study and who will be granted permanent residency or citizenship.
Here's the thing. The CSIS 2024 public report says, “CSIS has been actively engaged in screening foreign nationals with ties to Canada who are escaping the conflict” in Gaza. Also, “the public policy aimed to provide temporary resident status to 1,000 eligible applicants from Gaza” at the outset was “increased to 5,000 in August 2024”, with no corresponding increase to the CSIS security services. CSIS says that inhabitants of Gaza, a territory dominated and governed by terrorists, present a clear and present danger to Canada and our allies.
Processing times have skyrocketed. Canadian relatives have lived with the fear of losing family members to the conflict.
Lawyers for Secure Immigration have supported Gazan family reunification, which can be done only with robust security safeguards: security first and compassion second.
By not resourcing security and background checks adequately, the government has delayed and continues to delay family reunification from Gaza. Only 654 people arrived under the Gaza program as of January 31, 2025. We must never do something like that again. Canada knew at the time that Gaza was dominated by Hamas, so why didn’t Canada provide the necessary security resources? That's the hole in our fence.
Lawyers for Secure Immigration is a private sector organization that specifically advocates for security in the immigration system.
I am open to questions.