Canadian immigration lawyers are sounding the alarm over what they describe as an unprecedented transfer of backlog from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to the Federal Court. According to newly released court statistics, immigration-related filings leapt from roughly 6,400 in 2020 to more than 28,000 in 2025, with over 6,600 additional cases already submitted in the first quarter of 2026. Eighty-six per cent of matters before the court are now immigration disputes. Practitioners interviewed by The Canadian Press trace the surge to IRCC’s growing reliance on artificial-intelligence-powered triage tools—most notably “Chinook”—that batch-process visa applications and generate templated refusal reasons.
![Automation blamed as Federal Court immigration caseload quadruples since 2020]()
Applicants who want to avoid winding up in that ballooning litigation queue can turn to experienced facilitators such as VisaHQ, which provides step-by-step visa and eTA services, real-time document checklists and personalized application reviews for Canada; their platform (https://www.visahq.com/canada/) helps travellers submit complete, policy-compliant files the first time, reducing the risk of a summary refusal and the costly delays that follow.
Lawyers argue that thinner human review leads to more errors, forcing applicants to seek judicial review. Ottawa immigration lawyer Jacqueline Bonisteel notes that refusal letters have shrunk to “canned lines” with no evidence of officer engagement, leaving the court as the only avenue for fact-based scrutiny. IRCC rejects the criticism. Press secretary Taous Ait insists AI is used solely to sort files and generate officer summaries: “All refusals are made by trained officers after full human review.” The department attributes litigation growth to record application volumes under the 2026-2028 Immigration Levels Plan. Retired chief justice Paul Crampton offers a third explanation: the Federal Court has just 44 judges, a number he says is dramatically out of step with the migration caseload. Regardless of cause, the backlog is already reshaping mobility planning. Judicial reviews that once took under a year are now stretching to 18 months, delaying work-permit renewals, study-permit start dates and permanent-residence confirmations. Employers relying on Labour-Market-Impact-Assessment exemptions for key talent risk project overruns if rejected staff cannot get timely redress. Lawyers are urging companies to budget for possible litigation and to submit the strongest documentary evidence up-front, anticipating that an initial refusal may be more difficult to unwind later. Some are calling on Parliament to double the number of Federal Court judges and to create a specialist immigration division—reforms that would echo the UK’s Upper Tribunal and Australia’s AAT. Until then, mobility stakeholders should track refusal trends carefully and build contingency time into Canadian assignment timelines.
Applicants who want to avoid winding up in that ballooning litigation queue can turn to experienced facilitators such as VisaHQ, which provides step-by-step visa and eTA services, real-time document checklists and personalized application reviews for Canada; their platform (https://www.visahq.com/canada/) helps travellers submit complete, policy-compliant files the first time, reducing the risk of a summary refusal and the costly delays that follow.
Lawyers argue that thinner human review leads to more errors, forcing applicants to seek judicial review. Ottawa immigration lawyer Jacqueline Bonisteel notes that refusal letters have shrunk to “canned lines” with no evidence of officer engagement, leaving the court as the only avenue for fact-based scrutiny. IRCC rejects the criticism. Press secretary Taous Ait insists AI is used solely to sort files and generate officer summaries: “All refusals are made by trained officers after full human review.” The department attributes litigation growth to record application volumes under the 2026-2028 Immigration Levels Plan. Retired chief justice Paul Crampton offers a third explanation: the Federal Court has just 44 judges, a number he says is dramatically out of step with the migration caseload. Regardless of cause, the backlog is already reshaping mobility planning. Judicial reviews that once took under a year are now stretching to 18 months, delaying work-permit renewals, study-permit start dates and permanent-residence confirmations. Employers relying on Labour-Market-Impact-Assessment exemptions for key talent risk project overruns if rejected staff cannot get timely redress. Lawyers are urging companies to budget for possible litigation and to submit the strongest documentary evidence up-front, anticipating that an initial refusal may be more difficult to unwind later. Some are calling on Parliament to double the number of Federal Court judges and to create a specialist immigration division—reforms that would echo the UK’s Upper Tribunal and Australia’s AAT. Until then, mobility stakeholders should track refusal trends carefully and build contingency time into Canadian assignment timelines.
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