Canada is now witnessing a sharp decline in asylum claims both inside and outside of Canada after Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) took a series of new immigration and border control measures. The latest data provided by IRCC shows significant reductions across multiple categories, making a turning point on Canada’s new method of handling asylum claims.
Visa Rules Slash Claims from Mexican Nationals
One of the major change made by IRCC was visa requirements for Mexican Citizens, implemented in early 2024. The results were immediate: asylum claims made by Mexicans at Canadian airports fell by 97% between February and March 2024.
We can call this step as a game changer in reducing the stress on Canada’s asylum system and stopping non genuine claims.
Safer Borders Through the Safe Third Country Agreement
Another important step was the Additional Protocol to the Safe Third Country Agreement, which strengthened Canada’s border controls. Before the agreement an average of 165 people crossed between US/Canada ports daily in March 2023 but today it’s only 12.
Tightened Temporary Resident Visa (TRV) Scrutiny
In addition, IRCC tightened the scrutiny of Temporary Resident Visa (TRV) applications also known as Visitor Visa applications. This tighter process led to a 65% drop in asylum claims from TRV holders in July 2025 compared to July 2024.
This is the reason we are witnessing a high refusal rates among Canada visitor visa applications. International Students and work permit holders who want to invite their parents to Canada on visitor visa also seeing a high rate of refusals. In 2023 we have seen massive approval rates on Canadian visitor visa applications which led to these kind of problems and now even genuine applicants can’t get approval.
Between January 1 and July 31, 2025, asylum claims overall were 34% lower than during the same period in 2024, showing the broad impact of these reforms.
Provincial and Territorial Trends in Asylum Claims (2023–2025) inside canada
| Month | Quebec | Ontario | British Columbia | Alberta | Total Claims |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 2023 | 1,700 | 3,435 | 470 | 430 | 6,135 |
| Jul 2024 | 2,070 | 5,775 | 670 | 745 | 9,565 |
| Jul 2025 | 1,750 | 3,670 | 895 | 660 | 7,240 |
Quebec is famous in Canada for asylum claims, we can see from the table above that Ontario and Quebec process most asylum claims but saw a sharp decline in 2025. British Columbia and Alberta saw a decline but BC processed more claims than Alberta.
A New Era in Canadian Immigration Policy
The combined effects of these actions have reduced the unnecessary incoming of people at borders, limited the non genuine visitors, and improved the information sharing system between Canada and other partner countries.
Gone are the days when you can easily get Canadian visitor visa and claim asylum at port of entry or inside Canada. This abuse of the system led Canada to take stringent measures so that only genuine claims can be made and fraud is reduced. You can visit the data in depth here.
