Pakistani Refugee Who Returned to His Homeland Six Times Wins Chance to Keep Canadian Status

A Federal Court judge set aside a ruling by Canada’s Refugee Protection Division (RPD), saying it failed “to engage with a critical piece of evidence” when it revoked a Pakistani man’s refugee status after he returned to the country on multiple occasions.

Irfan Ahmad arrived in Canada under the “convention refugee abroad” program in 2014, citing his status as a member of the Ahmadi community, a persecuted Muslim minority group in Pakistan.

However, since attaining refugee status, immigration authorities found that Ahmad twice visited the Pakistani consulate in Toronto, both times to receive a passport. Between January 2016 and March 2022, Ahmad returned to Pakistan six times, spending 336 days in the country, the ruling notes.

The RPD, a division of the Immigration Refugee Board of Canada, found Ahmad “voluntarily re-availed himself of the protection of Pakistan” and “had not provided sufficient evidence to rebut the presumption,” the judgment reads. The tribunal found Ahmad’s description “of the agents of persecution ‘evolved depending on his audience,’” shifting between fear of religious extremists and government authorities on different occasions. The RPD found his statements to be inconsistent.

On February 18, Justice Avvy Yao-Yao Go ruled in favour of Ahmad, arguing that the RPD found inconsistencies “where none existed.” The judge added that the tribunal “compounded this error by failing to consider a key precautionary measure that the applicant took against the religious extremists while in Pakistan,” when Ahmad avoided going to a mosque.

“While the RPD noted the applicant’s evidence that he did not attend mosque or engage with the broader community,” Go wrote in her ruling, “the RPD never engaged with this evidence when conducting its analysis on the applicant’s intention…Rather, the RPD focused on the fact that the applicant had a ‘large wedding,’ the duration of his visits, and the fact that the applicant brought his family to Pakistan, and found these factors to indicate a lack of subjective fear of persecution.

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Go granted Ahmad his request for a judicial review and sent his case back “for redetermination by a differently constituted panel of the Refugee Protection Division.”

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