Data from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) shows the country dramatically increased deportations last year, spending tens of millions of dollars, to remove more people than the country has seen in a decade.
Federal figures from the CBSA show Canada removed more than 18,000 people in the 2024-25 fiscal year.
The majority of which were asylum seekers spending about $78 million in the process, many of those refugee claims were rejected.
Canada saw a dramatic increase in the number of people deported in the last year while sending the total number of removals soaring to the highest it’s been in a decade.
But Aisling Bondy, president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, says those appeals are difficult.
“It’s a very legally complex process. Not everyone is going to have access to the lawyer they need to file that kind of an application,” Bondy said. “When a person makes a refugee claim, they are issued a deportation order at the time they make their claim. The question is when does that deportation order come into force? A person cannot be deported while their claim is in process. If their claim is refused, there are some options for appeal.”
Meanwhile, CBSA spokesperson, Kelly Cameron, said the agency is currently removing around 400 people from Canada every week.
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This rise in deportations comes during a push from the federal government to tighten immigration targets.
Bondy says this could mean the agency is ramping up efforts to make the process of remaining in Canada more difficult.
“We’re also very concerned this may be a ramp-up in anticipation of parliament passing Bill C-2 or C-12, also known as the ‘border bill.’ One of the clauses in that bill, is that a lot of people will be permanently banned from filing a refugee claim in Canada,” Bondy said.
The cost of a person’s removal varies.
CBSA says escorted removals cost $12,500 on average and are necessary for medical reasons or to minimize risk to the safety of the person, the public, and official personnel.
The agency suggests these numbers reflect a jump in the number of foreign nationals admitted to Canada, and a “surge in refugee claimants.”
Topping the list of deportations from the past fiscal year were of people holding Mexican or Indian citizenship or were ‘remaining nationals’ which are people from countries not listed in the top ten most common.
The agency says the Federal Border Plan gave over $30 million to carry out these removals.
CBSA statistics show while the vast majority of removals were of refugee claimants, only about seven per sent of those were due to criminality or organized crime.
CHCH News reached out to the agency but the CBSA declined to comment at this time.
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