THUNDER BAY — The Federal Court of Canada has ruled an immigration officer's decision to deny a Temporary Resident Permit (TRP) to an international student was unreasonable.
The student, a citizen of Ghana, studied at Confederation College from 2020 to 2023.
When she learned she had inadvertently overstayed her study permit, she applied for a TRP to normalize her status but was refused in April 2024.
Because that left her unable to apply for a post-graduate work permit without returning to Ghana, she went to court seeking a judicial review of the case.
The woman was 20 when she enrolled in the Developmental Service Worker program at Confederation in September 2020, and completed the first part of her studies online from Ghana due to COVID-19 restrictions.
In 2021, armed with a temporary resident visa that expired in June 2023, she moved to Thunder Bay to continue the program in person.
An officer at the port of entry provided her with a study permit that expired in July 2022, but she didn't appreciate the difference between that permit and the visa, and believed she was authorized to study into 2023.
The student also switched to a different program at the college, not realizing she would need to extend her study permit in order to complete her new two-year program.
In her application for a TRP, she highlighted the fact she did not recall ever being asked by the college for a copy of her study permit, and that she was unable to get any guidance about the expiring of her permit and visa because academic advisors were not scheduling appointments during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But upon realizing her mistake, she had immediately reached out to international student advisors and to a legal clinic, and when she received advice that she was no longer authorized to work, she stopped working.
Her application for temporary residency outlined how the lack of a permit would leave her without a clear pathway back to Canada, and that she would likely lose the job that was being held for her.
The woman submitted letters of support from the college's Dean of International Education, from a friend and from a landlord who promised to let her stay rent-free until she was allowed to work again.
She also had support from a company with which she had been employed as a home support worker, noting her skills and the need for staff in the healthcare industry.
Her main submission was that a ruling she had worked illegally without status would bar her from applying for a post-graduate work permit for six months, leaving her in a conundrum because regulations required her to apply for that permit within six months of finishing her studies.
Notes entered by the immigration officer handling the case showed he decided the onus was on the student to know the conditions of her permit, and that she had not provided documentation to prove she would experience difficulty if she had to return home to apply for a new one.
The judge who heard her appeal, however, noted that "TRP decisions are highly discretionary and are intended to address short-term, pressing issues that allow individuals to obtain temporary residence despite their inadmissibility or other non-compliances with immigration laws."
She also observed that the government's own guidelines show deciding on a TRP involves determining whether the individual's purpose for entering the country balances Canada's social, humanitarian and economic commitments, and that an officer may consider whether an applicant's presence in Canada outweighs any risk to society.
The judge found the officer in this instance failed to consider the student's evidence including the repercussions of returning to Ghana to reapply, the impact COVID-19 had on her access to advice, and the letter from her employer attesting to its need for her.
She said the officer had either ignored or misunderstood the woman's predicament, and had failed to consider "whether this was the very kind of harsh consequence stemming from a strict application of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that a TRP was intended to remedy."
