A growing number of international students and temporary foreign workers are turning to Canada’s asylum system to extend their stay after their visas expire.
Data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) show nearly 70,000 people who arrived on study or work permits have filed refugee claims since January 2023.
“What’s happening is that you do have a certain subset there that are now making what we call ‘unfounded claims’ for refugee status,” said Robert Falconer, a researcher on immigration at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy.
The rise reflects the high volumes of temporary residents admitted in recent years, as well as the narrowing pathway to permanent residency for many applicants.
The challenge is, Canada’s asylum system was not intended to serve individuals facing economic insecurity, Falconer says.
“We in Canada do not recognize poverty or economic opportunity as a rationale for claiming refugee status,” he said. “You may come from a very poor country, but if you’re not at risk of persecution, torture or death … we don’t recognize that as a reason to claim asylum.”
Spike in claims
Asylum claims by temporary residents have risen significantly year over year.
In 2023, 16,000 temporary workers and students applied for asylum. In 2024, nearly 31,000 did. This year, the number is on track to exceed 40,000.
To put these figures in perspective, a decade ago, the federal government processed about 16,000 asylum claims in total — not just those of former students and foreign workers.
In the past two-and-a-half years, the top nations of origin for asylum applicants who came to Canada via economic streams were India, Iran and Nigeria.
Falconer says it is understandable that applicants from lesser developed countries might want to find ways to stay in Canada after their visas expire.
“If you [come] from a place in the world where your GDP per capita is in the low $2,000s … and the average GDP [per capita] in Canada is $55,000 … that provides a pretty strong economic incentive to try to move to Canada,” he said, noting that the tightening of formal immigration pathways exacerbates the pressure to find alternative routes.
“If a 19-year-old Punjabi kid suddenly sees that door [to permanent residency] close … maybe they’re panicking because maybe their parents mortgaged the farm back in the Punjab [for them to come to Canada].
“Maybe they’re seeing that … claiming asylum might be a way to extend their time here in Canada and maybe, at best, might even get [them] a chance to find some pathway to permanent residency,” he said.
IRCC backlogs mean that simply claiming asylum can extend someone’s stay in Canada by a couple years.
The Immigration and Refugee Board had nearly 300,000 refugee claims in its inventory as of October 2025, up from about 140,000 in October 2023. Its most recent departmental results report says the average wait time for new refugee claims was about 22 months in April 2023.
As they wait for their claims to be processed, refugees are eligible to work.
“The system is so backed up right now, you can kind of see the logical leaps that somebody seeking to extend their stay in Canada [might] take in order to justify their own use of that system,” Falconer said.
‘Not a shortcut’
Holding a previous study or work permit does not disqualify someone from seeking asylum, an IRCC spokesperson told Canadian Affairs in an emailed statement.
The department says some temporary residents initially come to Canada as students or workers but later develop protection needs due to changes in their home country.
“Anyone seeking asylum in Canada will have their claim assessed for eligibility,” the spokesperson said, adding the asylum system “is not a shortcut to immigrate to Canada.”
Ottawa says that the assessment process is a balancing act.
“The Government of Canada supports fair and rigorous immigration procedures that protect Canadians and the integrity of our system, while upholding our international obligations to those in need of protection,” the spokesperson said.
Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner has said temporary residents negatively impact Canadians.
“There are over 3 million temporary residents in Canada, far more than our country can sustain,” Rempel Garner said in a Nov. 28 press release. “This has overwhelmed our healthcare system, crowded our housing market, and left no jobs for young Canadians.”
Falconer says the issue is one of perverse incentives: the processing delays creates an incentive for former students and work permit holders to apply for asylum.
“[Canadians] really like a very efficient federal government that can do things very quickly,” he said.
“For some of these international students especially, it’s the opposite incentive. [They] want a very gummed-up, byzantine process because the longer [they] draw this out, the [longer they] are able to at least work … and maybe even get a shot at permanent residency.”
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