ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — Time is running out for Canadians hoping a federal visa program will provide an escape route for Palestinian family members trapped in Gaza, leaving some still grappling with the complex application process and worried their loved ones won't get out.
Damey Lee is part of a group of immigration lawyers who launched a Federal Court lawsuit representing 53 family members of Palestinian Canadians still stuck at the first stage of the application process. The suit filed earlier this month asks the court to order the Canadian immigration minister to process their initial paperwork and allow them to file their visa applications before the limited program ends in April.
"There has been no justification for the delay," Lee said in a recent interview. "There is no admissibility stage, there is nothing that would take time."
She said the policy has been a disappointment to the Palestinian Canadian community.
"I don't think they will ever forget this moment in time where the Canadian government has failed them," she said.
The special temporary visa program opened on Jan. 9, 2024, and its multi-step application has drawn criticism from some immigration lawyers for being overly complicated. The program closes on April 22, and a maximum of 5,000 visas will be handed out.
To apply, Palestinian Canadians first file a statutory declaration form identifying family members in Gaza who might be eligible for a visa. They submit the form, as well as identification information for their family, through a Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada website.
If the paperwork is in order, the department sends each of those family members a unique code they must use to begin their visa applications. If the paperwork is incomplete, the department's website promised that applicants would receive an email explaining the issue, according to the lawsuit.
Lee said her clients have not received a code, nor any feedback about why they didn't get one. They all submitted their web forms and identity documents within the first month of the program opening, and they've been waiting for more than a year, she said.
In that time, they've spent countless hours contacting the department themselves, as well as lawyers and their local members of Parliament, all to no avail, Lee added.
She said the preliminary step to get to the actual visa application is "unusual," and there is no reason her clients should have waited so long for a response: people aren't screened for admissibility to Canada until they get beyond that step and file their visa applications.
Space is also running out in the program. Only 5,000 visa applications will be accepted for processing, and 4,873 were already in the system as of Jan. 28, the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said in an email. Of those, 1,093 have been granted visas, and 645 people had made it to Canada, the email said.
In response to questions about the delays alleged in the court case, the Immigration Department said in a statement that it could not comment on individual cases of the plaintiffs.
"We have received a large volume of web form submissions," the unsigned email said. "We are currently reviewing them for completeness. Processing times will vary based on the details of each application and available spaces under these measures."
The lawsuit said the delays have left family members of Palestinian Canadians stranded in Gaza, where local health officials say more than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed since war broke out after Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people in Israel and took about 250 people hostage on Oct. 7, 2023.
The suit includes descriptions from the Palestinian Canadian applicants about their family members fleeing bombings and airstrikes, and living among rubble and human remains as they wait for word from the Canadian government.
"The applicants ... were in their daughter’s home when it was hit by an airstrike. Their grandson was injured by the airstrike and had to have his leg amputated," said one description.
Another said their family was living in a tent on the rubble of their destroyed home. "Applicant … was shot in the foot while out getting food — the bullet is still in his foot," it said.
Two children aged five and seven "witnessed the killing of a relative by shrapnel while sitting in their living room," said another.
The names of the applicants are withheld in the documents under a confidentiality order.
One family member in Canada, who asked to remain anonymous to avoid identifying family members covered by the confidentiality order, said his sister and her young son have been waiting for more than a year for a code. They're still in Gaza, where they are scared, starving and in danger, he said.
"It's really hard to get any food right now," he said in an interview. "Even if you're lucky and they get some food aid into Gaza, there are huge lines. She has a child with her, she can't survive on her own like this."
Other family members, including his mother, made it to Canada last year through different immigration programs, he said.
Lee said the department has to submit its arguments in Federal Court by March 10. In the meantime, she and her co-counsels have applied to have the case proceed more quickly, as their clients have less than two months to apply for a dwindling number of visas.
"Time is really of the essence here," Lee said. "I think what's really been a shame with this pathway is this competition that they've created among the Palestinian Canadian community to fight for these spots."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 28, 2025.
— With files from The Associated Press
Sarah Smellie, The Canadian Press
