Refugee status cessation and PRs applying for citizenship

[dpenabill]

Catching up . . .

As I have acknowledged, I have been lax following new cessation cases. There have been numerous cessation and cessation-related decisions within the last six months or so which have not been mentioned here in the forum. I will get to citing and linking several of them, with some commentary about them, but again that requires time and effort.

These include at least five cases in the last six months in which a Federal Court has set aside the RPD cessation decision for PR-refugees (and cessation was set aside for at least one refugee who did not have PR status). And in another case a former PR-refugee, whose status was ceased, has had the decision that denied their H&C PR application set aside.

There is much in these recent decisions that might appear to signal what is arguable based on Camayo (which now is also arguable based on these recent decisions) may be offering a way to avoid the strict and often harsh imposition of cessation.

In my previous post, in contrast, I more or less warned against relying on what's arguable based on Camayo.

The difference is context, which is the difference in what decision is being made and when, and who is making the decision. What a PR-refugee might argue with a lawyer's help (or otherwise engaging in lawyer-level advocacy if not represented by counsel), when they are facing cessation proceedings, is very different from what a PR-refugee needs to consider before making a decision to go home.

For a PR-refugee considering travel to their home country, whether that is to be at the side of a dying parent, to aid a sibling in trouble, or to rescue their child, they need to recognize that despite their reasons, the act of going home is explicitly considered an act of reavailment, and that is grounds for cessation of status. And, it is very, very important to also understand the risk the government will pursue cessation is high, while in contrast the odds of success (saving Canadian status) are not good . . . and even if they are eventually successful saving their status, the road getting through the process is likely to be damn long (from years to many years) and a very difficult haul.

So, in regards to what PR-refugees need to know and consider: don't go home unless it's worth losing Canadian status. (Yes, I am being repetitive.)

For those who do go home, if there is any movement toward the initiation of cessation proceedings, lawyer-up and let the lawyers sort through the facts and the reasons, let the lawyers wrestle with what is arguable based on Camayo, and very importantly, how to present that . . . first to the RPD, and if not successful there, to the Federal Court on appeal.

Note: I do not know to what extent a lawyer would (or pursuant to law or professional ethics could) assist a PR-refugee planning a trip to the home country. My sense is the better lawyers will draw the line at advising a PR-refugee to not go . . . but if you do go, call me when there's any sign of cessation proceedings.

At this point, I almost feel like it is better to say you can't travel to the home country, period.

Yes . . .
. . . unless the reason to go is more compelling than the need or desire to retain status in Canada. Life can throw some damn difficult choices at us, more so for some (acknowledging I have had it rather easy).

In particular, travel to the home country itself is considered to be an act of reavailment. And based on what we see in published decisions, travel to the home country is the main factor in regards to what triggers reavailment proceedings, and the frequency and duration of travel to the home country is the main factor considered in determining whether protected status has ceased.

Any use of a home country passport for international travel is likewise considered to be an act of reavailment, even if not used to travel to the home country. I have not reviewed every PR cessation case but enough to say it appears, nonetheless, it is the travel to the home country that tips the scales, at least in terms of negative outcomes. (Note that I have not followed cases involving cessation as applied to refugees who do not have PR status.)

Which, in regards to Yilmaz, brings up . . .

It's also mentioned the usual thing about renewal of passports but I don't see that this happened - rather the guy's passport was seized and only later returned to him.

Mr. Yilmaz renewed his home country passport during a three week trip there in 2022. This is noted in paragraph 8 of that decision. Yilmaz also obtained, previously, a one-way travel document from the home country and used it to travel there, which in regards to reavailment is essentially equivalent to obtaining and using a home country passport.

But, to be clear, renewing the home country passport, even without using it, is considered to be an act of reavailment.

And, again, just using a home country passport (sometimes their passport is returned to refugees) for any international travel is considered to be an act of reavailment, let alone using it to travel to the home country.

Overriding all this is the fact that the combination of using the home country passport with travel to the home country establishes a very strong presumption of reavailment. This is such a strong presumption, again as a practical matter (that is, despite what is arguable based on Camayo), that making the choice to go is effectively deciding the reason to go is more important than keeping PR status.

Caveat: this should not be taken to suggest that absent travel to the home country there is little risk involved in obtaining or using a home country passport. In particular, for any PR-refugee assessing the risks, in terms of employing game theory (probability mapping, gambler stuff) in their decision making, the mechanics may be a lot like being in a real hurry to make it somewhere on time and deciding how fast to go over the speed limit, but quantifying the risks of cessation is more difficult and there is a lot more on the line, a lot, lot more at stake.

What is arguable . . . before the RPD versus before the Federal Court:

I hesitate to wrestle with this here or now, because it is intensely weedy, but I feel compelled to at least note, or warn, that not only what is arguable based on Camayo a matter for lawyers to sort out, but to caution where that goes (what are the better arguments to make) will likely vary considerably depending on whether the case is before the RPD (which is more or less the trial phase) or before a Federal Court on appeal (which reviews the decision, not for whether the outcome is wrong but for errors in the RPD's analysis and reasoning).

The objective before the RPD is to persuade the panel there are reasons to find in favour of the PR-refugee based on the Camayo factors. That argument carries little if any weight before the FC. Even if the FC totally disagrees with the conclusions reached by the RPD, and even if the FC totally buys that the decision should have gone the other way, that is not enough to win in the FC, not anywhere near enough.

Understanding this is key to appellate advocacy, which is very different from trial advocacy (even though in regards to matters adjudicated administratively, like cessation, many lawyers do both).

 

[yellowpepper]

You're always right to raise this first - we need to make clear how things actually work (no matter how much we may dislike it) so that a casual reader won't misinterpret or walk away with the wrong impression. It'd be horrifying if someone read a single page - or even just one post - of this thread, and did the wrong thing based on the assumption that "what should be" in that post is the same as "what actually is" and was stripped of PR as a result..

Yep. I suppose on this point, we're mostly preaching to the choir here...

The silver living I see here - if the FC had struck it down, as the FC's decisions are not precedent setting, it's possible that the gov't might not have appealed and let Slepcsik win, but then ignored it in cases involving other people.

But a win at the FCA can't be ignored as easily, since those decisions actually are precedent setting.

Of course the only other travel doc* a refugee has access to would be the Canadian Refugee Travel Document (RTD), which explicitly says that it is not good for entering the home country (well, in more formal or legalistic terms, but you get the idea).

So if one can't use the either travel docs that one would normally have access to, then that means one would be attempting to enter the home country without any travel doc at all.

I guess in some cases that might work at an official port of entry/border crossing (e.g. using your birth certificate to cross the Canadan-US border back when that was allowed, in theory the US allows a US citizen who can prove their identity to enter with just a fine or something at worst, so Denise Harvey could use her birth certificate and Canadian DL to cross a PoE and likely get accepted - though in Harvey's case she'd probably be arrested as soon as she formally landed on US soil).

Most of the time though I imagine if you aren't using an actual travel doc like a passport, you're force to engage in a very dangerous game of crossing a land or water border without going through a proper port of entry. (And by dangerous I mean you could very well lose your life. The 2022 example of the Patel family: Jagdish, Vaishaliben, Vihangi, and Dharmik come to mind here.)

At this point, I almost feel like it is better to say you can't travel to the home country, period.

* Normally the way a person possesses multiple travel documents is if either they're a diplomat or official with some international organization that is allowed to issue their own passports (e.g. one has a UN-issued passport for official UN purposes) - but it'd be highly unusual for a person to suddenly become a refugee. Else, the person has multiple nationalities and uses another country's passport - but in this case that person also wouldn't be a refugee (since they'd be expected simply to not only flee to their other country, but even call upon the other country to protect them). I'm excluding some weird cases here (like BN(O) passport holders who've lost their residency in Hong Kong somehow, or folks who only hold Taiwan ROC passports without household registration in what's technically termed the Taiwan Area) but I think these would be rare enough that we don't have to consider them unless we see a real life example of it happening.

I know someone who travelled to Uganda via Kenya as they have a refugee travel document that prohibits them from traveling to Uganda. They have not faced any issues upon return to Canada but you are playing with fire.

 

[dpenabill]

For clarification . . . some tangential observations . . .

I know someone who travelled to Uganda via Kenya as they have a refugee travel document that prohibits them from traveling to Uganda. They have not faced any issues upon return to Canada but you are playing with fire.

I'll suggest that "playing with fire" understates the risk if preserving status in Canada is a priority.

It is worth cautioning that for a PR-refugee who travels to their home country, even if there was no hint of a problem when they returned to Canada, no hint at all, there is no way of knowing that they do not face any cessation issues arising from their travel there unless they have obtained Canadian citizenship, that is, they can't know their status is safe until they become a Canadian citizen. In many cessation cases there was nothing to alert the PR-refugee that they would face cessation proceedings when they returned to Canada, and sometimes not for years, sometimes even many years, after their return to Canada. For more than a few it is only after they apply for citizenship they learn they face cessation proceedings, and for some it was not until months or even a year or more after applying for citizenship they learn they face cessation.

Which leads to another repetitive caution: before applying for citizenship, any PR-refugee who has traveled to their home country should consult with an immigration lawyer with experience handling refugee cases and who reviews their particular circumstances in detail. Even IF there has been no hint of a cessation issue.

For those inclined to take their chances (which of course many likely are if they have returned to the country they've fled), at the least they should wait to make a citizenship application more then five years after their last travel to the home country, that is, when they do not need to disclose the travel in making the application. Remember, citizenship applicants are required to disclose all countries they have traveled to during the entire eligibility period and, which should be a no-brainer, they should not make a citizenship application in which they make a misrepresentation by omission (leaving out travel to the home country).

Note: in many circumstances it may seem easy, and it might even be easy to more or less get away with not disclosing the home country travel in the citizenship application. But there is also a real risk they will, in effect, get caught. Remember, many refugees applying for citizenship are screened more thoroughly than others. And the fact that some do not face issues is little or no assurance that is how it will go for another.​

Clarification regarding "a refugee travel document that prohibits them from traveling to Uganda:"

I will not second-guess what you know about this particular individual's refugee travel document, but it would be very odd if a RTD issued by Canada prohibited travel anywhere. Generally the Canadian version is not valid for travel to certain countries, usually the refugee's home country. Even though the RTD does not authorize travel to the home country, that does not prohibit travel there.

Moreover, technically a refugee is not prohibited from traveling to their home country by any law or rules; indeed, it is the home country that dictates who can legally travel there, not Canada. But travel to the home country usually constitutes reavailment, which is grounds for cessation of refugee status, which in turn automatically terminates PR status . . . this is not imposed as a penalty even though the impact is in effect punitive (and for many harshly so).

That is, there is no provision in law that says the refugee cannot travel to their home country. But doing so has consequences. My sense is that this underlies some of the confused messaging refugees get and a common failure among many of them to recognize they should not travel to their home country even though it is not prohibited.

Many refugees are informed, for example, that they cannot obtain or use a home country passport, but then learn their home country will issue them a passport and that they can in fact use it to travel to their home country, that there is no law or rule prohibiting them from obtaining and using a home country passport.

What they really need to understand is that obtaining a home country passport, and especially obtaining and using one to travel to the home country, can be considered to be acts which, in effect, mean the refugee is embracing the home country's protection, so the basis for their refugee status is ceased and if deemed ceased by the Canadian government, that automatically terminates Canadian PR status for a refugee.

My sense is that for many refugees, perhaps most, protests that they were not aware of what reavailment is or what it means, let alone the consequences, are very likely true. The term "reavailment" is not even listed as a word in most online dictionaries.

Meanwhile, as previously noted, there have been a lot of new cessation decisions in the last six or eight months which have not been mentioned here.

Several FC Decisions Setting Aside Cessation . . .

I will get to citing and linking a number of previously uncovered cessation decisions, in a separate post, but want to note upfront that many of these decisions go in favour of the PR-refugee and to CAUTION that despite the favourable rulings these cases should not be taken to suggest, not at all, that there is any less risk of cessation for those who travel to their home country. One of the decisions issued just last week, for example, involved the RPD finding cessation for a PR-refugee who made just one trip into her home country for just one week to visit her ill and hospitalized mother. While that was set aside by the FC, PR-refugees should be aware that alone, just one week to visit an ill and hospitalized parent, was enough for CBSA to pursue cessation and the RPD to cease this PR's refugee status, automatically terminating her PR status, and for the Minister to pursue upholding that outcome in the appeal. This is the decision in Ghale v. Canada, 2026 FC 751, at https://canlii.ca/t/klcz3 which was decided June 8th.

 

[dpenabill]

Update of Cessation Cases

I have already mentioned the long awaited Slepcsik decision, which was actually issued last year, in November. Slepcsik v. Canada, 2025 FC 1840, https://canlii.ca/t/kgkv2 As I previously noted, Justice Gleason rejects the constitutional challenges, which is undoubtedly a disappointment for many.

That decision may be what opened the door to a number of other cessation decisions that were, I suspect, more or less on hold pending the outcome of constitutional challenges raised in Slepcsik.

There is plenty about that decision that is interesting, but the gist is the denial of the constitutional challenges. Will this be appealed further to the Federal Court of Appeal? I do not know. Even it is, that will take a long time.

I also just mentioned, in the previous post, Ghale v. Canada, 2026 FC 751, at https://canlii.ca/t/klcz3 in which Justice Battista set aside a cessation that had been based on just one trip for one week to visit an ill and hospitalized parent.

Here are some other recent cessation decisions not previously covered here:

Bahrami v. Canada, 2026 FC 433, https://canlii.ca/t/kk7w1

This is an April 2, 2026 decision by Justice Turley setting aside the RPD's cessation decision. Similar to the Ghale case, the FC here concluded the RPD made unreasonable adverse credibility findings and these were sufficient to render the RPD's cessation decision unreasonable.

This involved an individual who came to Canada as a minor, when he was just 15. He was still a PR more than a decade later when he was in his late 20s and obtained a home country passport and used it to travel to the home country three times. He stated he did not even know he was a refugee, that his PR status was tied to refugee status, as his parent had concealed the fact he was a refugee from him.


Asrat v. Canada

Justice Turley also decided another cessation case in the PR-refugee's favour, a case involving two trips to the home country, setting cessation aside in Asrat v. Canada (Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness), 2026 FC 476 (CanLII), https://canlii.ca/t/kk9xw

Here too, the FC found that the RPD improperly made adverse credibility findings.


Fahs v. Canada

Justice Sadrehashemi also set aside a cessation in Fahs v. Canada, 2026 FC 782, https://canlii.ca/t/klgbl decided just a few days ago, June 11, 2026

The RPD concluded that because the precautionary measures taken by Fahs (an elderly man, actually even a bit older than me), while traveling in the home country to visit sick and dying siblings and attend their funerals, did not "amount to him being in hiding," and thus were insufficient to rebut an intent to reavail home country protection. Justice Sadrehashemi references one of the problems with the RPD's analysis:

"First, the RPD required that Mr. Fahs demonstrate that the efforts he took amounted to living in hiding. This is not the requirement."​

It warrants noting that even though there were a number of trips in this case, which might have made it a difficult case for the PR-refugee, there are multiple FC decisions, cited by Sadrehashemi, clearly stating that it is not necessary the precautionary measures the refugee takes amount to being in hiding, so the RPD's approach was clearly unreasonable.

Summary Thoughts Re These Four Decisions Setting Aside Cessation:

I will be frank, even in the cases involving multiple trips to the home country, just CBSA pursuing cessation, let alone the obvious approach taken in these RPD cessation decisions, gives the impression that these cases are either about punishing refugees for traveling to their home country at all or about an unspoken presumption of fraud, more or less assuming those who travel to the home country did not deserve refugee status in the first place. Neither of which is acceptable under the law. Fortunately, Canada has a system in which the Federal Courts will review these decisions. But, these cases illustrate the nature and scope of CBSA's cessation decisions, as well as the nature and scope of RPD's cessation decisions, and the message is clear: best to not travel to the home country if at all possible.


Some More:

Armughan v. Canada

Perhaps the shortest ever FC cessation decision is Armughan v. Canada, 2026 FC 47, https://canlii.ca/t/kk9xp in which Justice Battista upheld cessation, rejecting the applicant's "sole argument . . . that the RPD unreasonably failed to assess his lack of subjective knowledge that his actions could result in the revocation of his Canadian status."



Hovsepian v. Canada

A cessation case with a twist, Hovsepian v. Canada, 2026 FC 781, https://canlii.ca/t/klgc4 in which the PR-refugee had already lost PR status, due to a breach of the Residency Obligation, before the cessation proceedings, illustrating how long this individual was living in their home country.


Canada v. A.B.

In Canada v. A.B., 2026 FC 168, https://canlii.ca/t/kj17m it was the Minister who appealed a RPD decision rejecting the government's cessation claim.

One aspect of this case that looms large is the government's position before the RPD that to rebut the presumption of intent to reavail, the PR-refugee needed to establish their presence in the home country (to visit ill parent) "was absolutely necessary," which Justice Pentney rejects, citing FC decisions rejecting this standard, and notes that such a standard would be contrary to the FCA decision in Camayo . . . another illustration, or at least suggestion, that the government is aggressively and zealously pursuing these cessation cases. This is no time for PR-refugees to test the water: do not go home.

A 2025 Case Not Covered Here: Alaybiyi v. Canada

Justice Strickland set aside cessation in Alaybiyi v. Canada, 2025 FC 289, https://canlii.ca/t/k9hmg back in February 2025

While this individual made four trips to their home country, all those were YEARS before the change in law in 2012; at the time she made those trips they could have no effect on her PR status. She could not know that those trips would be a basis for taking away her PR status because there was nothing in the law that would do that. More than a decade later, in June 2021, the Minister brought the cessation action. (I wonder whether it was a citizenship application that triggered this cessation proceeding, given how many years after the travel it was commenced.)

Cases like this, which involve cessation based on acts done when cessation was not applicable, in effect retroactively applying a change in the law, confirm I am no expert. I really do not understand how or why Canada does this (well, this was a Harper-baby, which perhaps explains too much).