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Delaying Decisions on Post-Graduate Work Permit Refusals Have Cruel Implications + Creates Backlogs

(First of all – Happy New Year! I might not be very happy in this post, so I’ll get it out of the way first).

For the past month, we have been dealing with several inquiries from folks who have been refused Post-Graduate Work Permits (PGWPs).

These have mostly been for small administrative issues such as a failure to send a proper final transcript, pay appropriate fees, or uploading issues. Some other cases are those where there is one semester that was not a final semester and that was part-time, usually do to some school scheduling or academic issue. Many had increasing mental health challenges due to COVID-19 related issues, such as the passing away of family members and the need to travel back for those arrangements.

The crux of the problem is that these applications are being refused more than 180 days after the Applicant completes studies. Why is this significant? Well, even though an Applicant is able to restore their status within 90 days of losing their status, at 180 days after the completion of studies, the restoration to PGWP option ceases to exist. Applicants are required to apply for a PGWP within 180 days of completing studies.

Restoration, becomes therefore meaningless as an option outside of the 180 day window. This leads to two applications flooding the system.

  1. Reconsiderations –  many of which (time and time again I find) fail to address the legal test for reconsideration as set out by IRCC and as I have discussed in this past blog.
  2. Temporary Resident Permits – we have been retained for several of these of late and unfortunately it is heading to the 8 month + range for a just graduated student to wait which is simply not feasible for most.
  3. Unnecessary Return to Studies with Unclear Implications of Past Studies – many students go back to school – which makes sense from a Diploma to Bachelors level (perhaps) but for many who graduated from a Bachelors or higher, it really makes little sense to force them to take another program. These decisions are being made rushed, finances are being secured urgently (but with huge impact to families) – all to have to remedy a small admin or one part-time semester issue. It truly is overdoing things.

IRCC needs to urgently render timely decisions on study permit refusals – I would argue 90 days from a student’s completion of studies (i.e. less time if the student applies later) is an absolute maximum time that can be taken (freeing up another 90 for restoration in a feasible time). Given the use of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) in this space, it should free up Officers to consider some of these cases where there may be admin issue to see if it can be addressed in reconsideration or in applying discretion, rather than having to put students in the loop. Right now, the Courts, are taking a position there is no discretion so litigation is of limited use to force change.

If in fact, the refusal of PGWPs is now a policy directive to try and tackle the backlog or filter the number of PGWP holders perhaps this should be communicated. Students could choose to transition out of classes back home, or return back after graduation, rather than stick around in limbo waiting for a TRP.

Too many mental health issues are being burdened by students who simply are going things that students go through, such as taking part-time classes to better their education outcomes or to save money. Students are making honest mistakes following confusing immigration application instructions. They should not be punished the way they currently are under our Canadian immigration system.

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to engage with me on Twitter or email me at info@heronlaw.ca with your thoughts.

#intled #cdnimm

 

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IRCC Makes Positive Changes to the Post-Graduate Work Permit Program – February 2019, But First A Little Personal History About Pushing Change

Part 1: First – A Little Personal History about Pushing Change

In advance, I want to make clear that I am not writing this first section to make it appear as if I had anything to do with the changes announced today. This was done by concerned students, stakeholders, schools, other lawyers, and great IRCC policy people engaged in this issue. I am writing this because I’ve been asked by a number of young mentee law students/pre-law students recently (and other fellow junior lawyers) how I got so engaged with international student issues. Rather than just simply copy and paste the website changes, I thought the process of my interest, advocacy, and how it all plays in – may be of interest to some readers.

Since IRCC implemented their clarified directive Study Permits: Assessing study permit conditions I had a feeling that new instructions on the PGWP would be coming. A month ago, Immigration Representatives confirmed to me by email that this was the case:

Actively pursuing studies

A month later, on Valentine’s Day no less, IRCC placed some little cards into the brown paper bags tied into the back of plastic chairs of international students (sorry – as you can tell I’m getting off topic and nostalgic, as I write) .

As frequent readers of this blog will know, I have been advocating for PGWP changes for several years now, having assisted many clients in various stages of challenges with this program – ranging from eligibility concerns, to initial applications at Inland Offices, VOs, and POEs, to the Federal Court, and reconsideration requests. I gave talks, wrote a lot of articles, had student clients who speoke to media, and advised schools – all because of the uncertainty. At one of my talks I think I described being an international student in Canada as being caught in a rough ocean with a life jacket on and a PR island that often appears too far to swim to.

The past few years began to see a lot of challenges in the area. Refusal rates began to climb and international students, especially from those with non-traditional study programs or for reasons outside of their control had to take leaves in order to complete their studies. While I was successful in restoring several international students who had been refused, either for having their study permits lapse or having paid less than the required fees, the case law during the time (notable FC cases from Raj Sharma and later Ravi Jain), started to close the door on that process.

There was also a huge health toll, one that was lost in the rhetoric of blame placed on international students in mainstream media. I talked a bit about it with journalist, Melanie Green here.

International students, many already dealing with separation anxiety, isolationism, and culture shock, not only pay often times 3 to 4 times the tuition than domestic students, but also face other barriers limiting their ability to work and seek access to crucial settlement services.

From a personal perspective, my own spouse was at the time going through the international student experience as were her colleagues (and I was footing the bill of course!) I saw these issues affect a lot of her friends, especially the financial challenges. Personal experience goes a long way into building a passion for practice.

Looking back, given  I was having a conversation about this with IRCC program managers such under three years ago about the need for change – it has indeed been a long time coming.  It has been incremental – but now there is a clear list of DLIs on the website, as discussed earlier, the aforementioned actively pursuing studies requirement was clarified, and now this.

I am very proud of IRCC for stepping up for international students. Without further ado, here are the changes.

Part 2: The Changes

IRCC’s changes can be found here and are titled “Program delivery update: Processing Instructions for the Post-Graduation Work Permit Program.”

There are two major changes from IRCC and one change that I would also add to the list, around the leave provision.

Change 1: Deadline to Apply Extended from 90 Days to Six Months

There is now a six month period, instead of a 90 day period in which to apply for a Post-Graduate Work Permit. This gives a lot of flexibility for students to further explore after graduation whether they want to continue studying or apply for a post-graduate work permit. It also removes a lot of the uncertainty which arose when a student was told they had completed their studies but did not formally graduate until several months later, creating confusion on the 90 day period starting point. Six months will make that much better.

One of the things I do see arising out of this is change is a lot of schools that were previously thwarted (or had negative fallout) from four-month add on programs now integrating it into their programs. The raison-d’etre is that these programs could assist into entry-to practice and help students secure employment without killing valuable time off their PGWPs. It may also encourage some students to continue studies rather than graduate and apply for PGWPs.

This could create problems though if a student applies at month 4 of 6, makes a mistakes, and becomes ineligible for restoration. Furthermore, I think IRCC and related stakeholders do have a role to play with respect to sussing out that interplay between R.222(1) (a) IRPR which could invalidate the student status of individuals who intend to apply for a PGWP at month 4 or 5 but not continue their studies. These students could lose status unknowingly.

The possible solution? Visitor Record Extensions may need to be employed to bridge between end of student status and prior to a PGWP application.

Change 2: No need to hold a valid study permit while applying for a PGWP

This is a big one – which unfortunately came off the backs of several deserving applicants who were refused. Previously, students whose study permits were going to expire before they were able to apply for PGWP had to extend their status, creating a weird scenario where they had graduated but still had to apply to maintain student status at the institution. This also affected a lot of students who decided to leave Canada right after they graduated and apply abroad, forgetting to extend their study permits.

This was also the main issue in my colleague Ravi Jain’s case of Nookala v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2016 FC 1019 which unfortunately for awhile closed the door.

Now the language is hold or held a study permit.

This also opens the door for restoration at least within the six month period. This goes again to the importance of applying earlier (rather than later) for a PGWP in most circumstances.

I would like a little more clarity around Restoration and think it should be a separate section on the program guidelines.

Change 3: Leave Exception – Discretion to Issue PGWP Where Not Continuous Full-Time Studies

IRCC has added to their instructions information about leave which specifically carve out an exception for those students who took a leave.

The Instruction state:

Leave from studies

If the applicant remained in Canada while a student and took leave from their studies during their program, the officer must determine if the applicant was compliant with the conditions of their study permit, as outlined in Assessing study permit conditions. Officers may request additional documents to complete their assessment. Per paragraph R220.1(1)(b), students must

  • be enrolled at a DLI
  • remain enrolled
  • be actively pursuing their course or program of study

If the officer determines that the student actively pursued studies during their leave, the student may still be eligible for the Post-Graduation Work Permit Program (PGWPP).

If it is determined that the student has not met the conditions of their study permit, they may be banned from applying for a post-graduation work permit for 6 months from the date they stopped their unauthorized study or work, per subparagraph R200(3)(e)(i).

This suggests that in addition to leeway – there could also be individuals banned from applying, depending on the time elapsed before graduation. However, as we know there is also a final semester rule that does provide some comfort to international students who are part-time in their final semester.

IRCC’s Guidelines on Leave provide more insight on how this may apply in practice:

D. Leave from studies

Students may be required or may wish to take leave from their studies while in Canada. For the purpose of assessing if a student is actively pursuing their studies, any leave taken from a program of studies in Canada should not exceed 150 days from the date the leave commenced and must be authorized by their DLI.

A student on leave who begins or resumes their studies within 150 days from the date the leave commenced (that is, the date the leave was granted by the institution) is considered to be actively pursuing studies during their leave. If a student does not resume their studies within 150 days, they should do either of the following:

If they do […]

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List of Post-Graduate Work Permit (PGWP) Eligible Schools in Alberta

A colleague, Anna, recently posted this to the CBA Immigration Law listserve which I felt was worth sharing.

She inquired to Alberta Educational authorities about the list of eligible schools and received this following list:

Public Institutions

Alberta College of Art and Design

Bow Valley College

Grande Prairie Regional College

Keyano College

Lakeland College

Lethbridge College

Grant MacEwan University (MacEwan University)

Medicine Hat College

Mount Royal University

Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT)

NorQuest College

Northern Lakes College

Olds College

Portage College

Red Deer College

Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT Polytechnic)

The Banff Centre

University of Alberta

University of Calgary

University of Lethbridge

 

Publicly-funded Independent Institutions

 

Ambrose University (formerly Ambrose University College)

Burman University (formerly Canadian University College)

Concordia University of Edmonton (formerly Concordia University College of Alberta)

The King’s University (formerly The King’s University College)

St. Mary’s University (formerly St. Mary’s University College)

 

The Independent institutions listed above are the ones “that operates under the same rules and regulations as public institutions.”  Private Career Colleges, Seminary institutions, bible colleges, flight schools, or language schools DO NOT operate under the same rules as publics

Source: Alberta Education and http://advancededucation.alberta.ca/post-secondary/institutions/public.aspx

Thank you to Anna Kuranicheva, staff immigration lawyer at the Edmonton Community Legal Centre www.eclc.ca for her work digging up this list and confirming this.

I think all provinces should make their lists public and clear and Alberta joining B.C. is a great step.

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Restoration Problems – Studies to Begin at a Later Date

I wanted to share a recent response to an inquiry I was provided CIC and why I think it creates unreasonableness – call it reasonableness in the unreasonableness.

Here is the scenario. For whatever reason, your client’s Application for a Post-Graduate Work Permit is refused or never submitted. The client’s study permit has also expired. The 90-day after meeting graduation requirement period in which to apply for a Post-Graduate Work Permit has also lapsed. Restoration is the only option. The restoration date is calculated either 90 days from the expiry of your status (in the event an extension/work permit application was never submitted) or 90 days after you receive a refusal of your application (in the event an extension/work permit application was submitted).

Let us also assume that it is now September. Fall program registration has ended. The program you are interested in starts in the  New Year.

My question was below:

Question:

I have a general question about restoration of student permits for studies to begin at a later date.

Individuals who have their post-graduate work permit (PGWP) applications refused and are no longer eligible for a PGWP due to expired study permits and passage of time have the option to restore their status (in-Canada) as a student on the basis of a student permit extension, which itself is based on a new offer of acceptance.

However if the offer of acceptance is for studies to begin at a later date (i.e. a later semester) is it possible to have a student stay in Canada on a study permit, on deferred enrollment, while not actively pursuing studies for that period of time?

I was unable to find the answer to this on CIC’s available material on study permits and the new study permit rules.

Response:

The determination of whether or not a study permit can be issued for individuals who have applied for a restoration of status with a letter of acceptance for a program expected to commence on a date in the future (e.g. a later semester), rests with the officer assessing the application. It may be determined that a study permit can be issued based on the date the program is expected to commence, or the study permit may be denied because the period of time before the program commences is not considered reasonable. If the study permit is denied the individual must leave Canada and can apply for a study permit at a later date.

The students who have lost their status may also apply for a restoration of status as a visitor. If the restoration of status is approved the individual could remain in Canada, however, they will not be authorized to study, and will still be required to apply for a study permit outside of Canada a later date as per R213.

This is the particular section I have trouble with: “It may be determined that a study permit can be issued based on the date the program is expected to commence, or the study permit may be denied because the period of time before the program commences is not considered reasonable.”

With processing times for a restoration of status frankly “up in the air,” how does one time the restoration application? Without legislative guidance, what does “reasonable mean.” For me, reasonable is three months but for the Officer that may be unreasonable.

It will be interesting to see if there are any refusals from the application of this discretion. Would be fun to challenge this in the Federal Court.

 

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Will Tao is an Award-Winning Canadian Immigration and Refugee Lawyer, Writer, and Policy Advisor based in Vancouver. Vancouver Immigration Blog is a public legal resource and social commentary.

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