Montreal, Canada – Palestinian families are suing the Canadian government over delays in the issuance of visas meant to allow them to escape Israel’s deadly war in Gaza and receive temporary protection in Canada.
Filed in the Federal Court of Canada this month, on behalf of 53 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip with family members in Canada, the lawsuit alleges that the country’s special visa programme has been plagued by inefficiencies.
Hana Marku, a Toronto lawyer representing the families, said all of her clients submitted a form expressing interest in the visas within the first month of the scheme’s launch in January 2024.
However, none have received the unique reference codes needed to move to the next stage of the process, which is the submission of their relatives’ Canadian visa applications.
The prolonged delay has left their Gaza-based relatives open to “life-threatening and inhumane conditions” in the Palestinian territory, where Israel has bombarded cities, neighbourhoods and refugee camps for 15 months, the lawsuit states.
“There’s no rhyme or reason to how the codes are being rolled out, and the fact that there’s no transparency here is — it’s emotional torture, frankly,” Marku told Al Jazeera.
“It’s emotional torture for the Canadian family members who put in a financial undertaking in the belief that this would create the chance of getting their loved ones out of Gaza.”
Canada launched the special Gaza visa programme on January 9, 2024, a few months into Israel’s attacks on the coastal Palestinian enclave.
The scheme allowed Canadian citizens and permanent residents to apply to bring extended family members from Gaza to the country amid the war. If approved, successful applicants would receive temporary residency for up to three years.
But from the start, families and immigration lawyers said the process was confusing and included invasive questions that went beyond what is typically required, including inquiries about any scars or injuries that required medical attention.
They also said Canada did not explain why some Palestinian families received codes to submit their applications while others did not.
A spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) — the federal immigration department — told Al Jazeera that it was reviewing a “large volume” of first-stage submissions and that processing times vary according to each case.
As of January 28, the government had accepted 4,873 Gaza visa applications into processing, the department said.
By that same date, 1,093 people who exited Gaza without any help from the Canadian authorities were approved to come to Canada. Of that, 645 people have arrived in the country.
The programme will close once 5,000 applications have reached the processing stage or upon a final cutoff date of April 22.
“Movement out of Gaza remains extremely challenging due to factors outside of Canada’s control. This continues to be the primary issue in how quickly we can process applications from Gazans,” the IRCC spokesperson said.
But Marku, the Toronto lawyer, said her clients are not asking for assistance in leaving Gaza or for a positive decision on their relatives’ visa requests; they just want the chance to be allowed to submit the applications.
“They can’t continue to the next step in this process — they can’t even fill out the application forms — without being given unique reference codes,” she said.
“We’re just asking for an order from the Federal Court to compel the federal government to give these people unique reference codes. This is what we’ve had to litigate.”
Asked about the lawsuit, IRCC told Al Jazeera that the government could not comment on specific cases due to privacy concerns.
One of the Canada-based plaintiffs in the lawsuit, who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity due to a fear of retribution, said the visa scheme appears to have been “designed to fail and not to evacuate people” from Gaza.
“They’re not serious about the process,” the person said of the Canadian government. “They don’t have a structured system. It’s just a bad system. You have to figure out things on your own, it doesn’t make any sense.”
The relatives the plaintiff was hoping to bring to Canada remain in Gaza, which has been decimated.
A total of 48,319 Palestinians have been confirmed dead, though the Government Media Office in Gaza has said the total may be as high as 61,709, given the bodies yet to be found under the rubble.
A shaky ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, implemented last month, has provided a brief reprieve from widespread bombings, but the enclave is in ruins, and Palestinians face a dire humanitarian crisis, with shortages of food and other basic supplies.
The plaintiff said watching the destruction from afar while struggling to access the Canadian visas has taken a mental toll. “I never … in my entire life [had] to experience such a thing, the pressure like this,” they added.
Meanwhile, Marku said the lawyers are “working against the clock” to try to receive the application codes before the programme closes in April.
The Canadian government has 30 days from when the lawsuit was filed on February 6 to submit its response, and Marku said her team is hoping the Federal Court will then agree to their arguments on an expedited basis.
“Leaving people in limbo, I think, is almost worse than flat-out refusing them,” Marku told Al Jazeera. “In this situation, it’s just cruel to do this to people.”
