{"id":14011,"date":"2026-01-09T14:45:54","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T19:45:48","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2026-01-23T13:52:53","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T18:52:53","slug":"allegations-against-csis-immigration-refugees-and-citizenship-canada-the-canada-border-services-agency-and-public-safety-canada-in-relation-to-their-role-in-processing-immigration-applications","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/nsira-ossnr.gc.ca\/en\/investigations\/investigation-summaries\/allegations-against-csis-immigration-refugees-and-citizenship-canada-the-canada-border-services-agency-and-public-safety-canada-in-relation-to-their-role-in-processing-immigration-applications\/","title":{"rendered":"Allegations against CSIS, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the Canada Border Services Agency, and Public Safety Canada in relation to their role in processing immigration applications"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<section id=\"gm01a859e\" class=\"wp-block-gutentor-m4 section-gm01a859e gutentor-module gutentor-advanced-columns\"><div class=\"grid-container\"><div class=\"grid-row\">\n<div id=\"col-gm236fca\" class=\"wp-block-gutentor-m4-col col-gm236fca gutentor-single-column  grid-lg-12 grid-md-12 grid-12\"><div id=\"section-gm236fca\" class=\"section-gm236fca gutentor-col-wrap\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Allegations against CSIS, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the Canada Border Services Agency, and Public Safety Canada in relation to their role in processing immigration applications <\/h2>\n\n\n\n<!--  \n * Locate code in WPCode Snippets - title:  Investigations Summaries - NSIRA number from tags\n * Shortcode: [nsira_files]\n * Description: Extracts tags following the pattern '00-00' or '00-00-00' \n * and displays them with the \"NSIRA file:\" label.\n-->\n\r\n    <style>\r\n        .nsira-file-inline {\r\n            margin: 15px 0;\r\n            font-family: inherit; \/* Uses your theme's existing font *\/\r\n            line-height: 1.6;\r\n        }\r\n        .nsira-file-label {\r\n            font-weight: 700;    \/* Bold \"NSIRA file:\" *\/\r\n            color: #333;\r\n            display: block;      \/* Label stays on its own line *\/\r\n            margin-bottom: 2px;\r\n        }\r\n        .nsira-file-data {\r\n            color: #000;\r\n            display: block;      \/* Numbers appear on the line below the label *\/\r\n        }\r\n    <\/style>\r\n\r\n    <div class=\"nsira-file-inline\">\r\n        <span class=\"nsira-file-label\">NSIRA file:<\/span>\r\n        <span class=\"nsira-file-data\">07-405-1<\/span>\r\n    <\/div>\r\n\r\n    \n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Background<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Under subsection 45(2) of the&nbsp;<em>Canadian Human Rights Act<\/em>, the Canadian Human Rights&nbsp;Commission (CHRC) referred 58 individual and group complaints to NSIRA. This matter&nbsp;constituted&nbsp;the first time NSIRA had received a section 45 referral from the CHRC.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The complainants, Iranian nationals, alleged that the Government of Canada&nbsp;discriminated&nbsp;against them&nbsp;on the basis of&nbsp;national or ethnic origin or race due to the delays in the&nbsp;processing of their temporary or permanent residency visa, or Canadian citizenship.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Under section 46 of the&nbsp;<em>Canadian Human Rights Act<\/em>, NSIRA is obliged to conduct an&nbsp;investigation and return a report to the CHRC. It further provides that on NSIRA\u2019s report, the&nbsp;CHRC may dismiss the complaint or&nbsp;proceed&nbsp;to deal with the complaint.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">NSIRA\u2019s role in section 45 referrals is confined to scrutinizing the components of a matter that&nbsp;are based on considerations relating to the security of Canada and report findings of its&nbsp;investigation into classified information to the CHRC in an unclassified manner. NSIRA does not&nbsp;possess&nbsp;the authority to exercise the CHRC\u2019s statutory discretion to refer the matter to the&nbsp;Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Investigation&nbsp;<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During its investigation, NSIRA considered the evidence given by witnesses and submissions of&nbsp;their counsel during an investigative interview, and the documentation and submissions&nbsp;submitted by the government parties, including classified documents disclosed to NSIRA by&nbsp;CSIS, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the Canada Border Services&nbsp;Agency (CBSA) and Public Safety Canada.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Importantly, NSIRA heard evidence from the government parties in relation to a particular&nbsp;mandatory indicator developed by the CBSA and used by IRCC officers in deciding referrals for&nbsp;security screening of Iranian immigration applications. Prior to reforms made by August 2018,&nbsp;one indicator was based entirely on Iranian nationality, coupled only with the age and sex of the&nbsp;applicant. Where an applicant met the criteria, IRCC officers would automatically refer the file&nbsp;to the CBSA and CSIS for security screening. The evidence showed that the government&nbsp;abandoned mandatory indicators in 2018 because of efficacy concerns and because it&nbsp;contributed to delays.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">NSIRA further noted that IRCC did not keep a record of the&nbsp;particular indicator&nbsp;on which the&nbsp;referral was based.&nbsp;This hindered NSIRA\u2019s ability to investigate the other indicators that may&nbsp;have affected the processing of a complainant\u2019s immigration application.&nbsp;That being said,&nbsp;NSIRA&nbsp;acknowledged that an indicator tracking code system was being piloted at the time of&nbsp;the investigative interview.&nbsp;This technical solution would allow for the tracking of the IRCC&nbsp;officers\u2019 decisions to refer immigration applications for security screening through a coding&nbsp;system&nbsp;identifying&nbsp;the reason for the referral.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Conclusion&nbsp;<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">NSIRA found that:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>the mandatory age and sex indicator used by IRCC in processing immigration applications&nbsp;until May 2018 relied exclusively on nationality,&nbsp;age&nbsp;and sex, which are listed as prohibited&nbsp;grounds of discrimination in section 5 of the&nbsp;<em>Canadian Human Rights&nbsp;Act<\/em>;&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>the mandatory age and sex indicator produced a disadvantage (including in terms of&nbsp;delays)&nbsp;to those Iranians who were subjected to security screening and to those whose own files&nbsp;were linked to these&nbsp;applicants;&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>at the material times at issue in this matter, the application of that mandatory indicator&nbsp;was&nbsp;not justifiable on national security grounds; and&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>the security screening process applicable to citizenship applications in this matter did&nbsp;not&nbsp;produce a disadvantage based on grounds&nbsp;enumerated&nbsp;in the&nbsp;<em>Canadian Human Rights Act<\/em>,&nbsp;as citizenship applications received by IRCC are sent to CSIS for security screening,&nbsp;regardless of the applicant\u2019s country of birth.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">NSIRA submitted its report to the CHRC so that it can assess whether there is a reasonable&nbsp;basis in the evidence for a referral to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal or whether to&nbsp;dismiss the complaints.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":7790,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-nsira-subpages.php","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[145,47,84,77,89,87],"class_list":["post-14011","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","tag-07-405-1","tag-47","tag-cbsa","tag-csis","tag-ircc","tag-ps"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.9 - 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