The board, which adjudicates claims, says the changes will in fact mean more resources for asylum claim processing. 

Updated April 17, 2026 By Nicholas Keung Senior Immigration Reporter

The Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada is cutting 53 jobs as part of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s push to reduce government spending, said the union representing the largest independent tribunal in the country.

The board, responsible for adjudicating asylum claims, finalized 79,462 such claims last year, and it currently has 295,522 outstanding cases in the system awaiting a decision. At this rate, it would take more than three and a half years just to clear the backlog.

These cuts — part of the federal “realignment and reallocation plan” — are happening despite significant delays in refugee and asylum claim processing times, and are going to make a bad situation worse, warned the Canada Employment and Immigration Union.

“These are not abstract delays,” its national president, Rubina Boucher, said in a Friday news release. “These are real people waiting in limbo for safety, stability and justice. 

“You cannot fix a system in crisis by removing the people who keep it running.”

The Immigration and Refugee Board said it is not reducing its overall workforce but putting more resources toward asylum claim processing. Employees who got the notices this week have received or will receive, “wherever possible,” an offer of a different job at a similar level within the organization.

“This will ensure that the IRB has the needed talent in the right places to support our priority of more timely refugee claim finalizations and contributing to our ability to issue more timely decisions,” it said in an email.

“Through this exercise, the IRB will also be increasing the number of decision-makers and other staff directly supporting asylum claim processing in order to meet this priority.”

With offices in Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal, the refugee board has a budget of $345.4 million and 2,450 full-time employees as of June 2025.

The number of new refugee claims Canada receives yearly has surged in the last decade to 190,000 in 2024, though it dropped significantly to 107,800 last year as a result of the new visa requirement for Mexican travellers, tightened border enforcement against irregular migrants and heightened scrutiny of visa applications.

The job cuts at the refugee board came in the wake of a new law that took effect on March 27 to restrict eligibility for asylum in Canada and just two weeks before Ottawa starts requiring sponsored refugees and asylum seekers to co-pay for their health-care coverage on May 1.

Under the Strengthening Canada’s Immigration System and Borders Act, which applies to all refugee claims made on or after June 3, 2025, refugee claims must be made within a year of a claimant’s first arrival in Canada. Anyone who first arrived after June 24, 2020, is subject to the changes, regardless of whether they left the country and returned. 

Irregular migrants who enter Canada from the U.S. between official land ports of entry since June 3, 2025, are denied the right to asylum. 

An estimated 30,000 of the 300,000 existing claimants are being notified they may now be ineligible, according to the Immigration Department.

The union said these and other government cuts are going to undermine due process, increase delays and put vulnerable people at greater risk.

More to come.