Nearly 13K international students applied for asylum this year, data shows

Nearly 13,000 international students have applied for asylum in Canada in the first eight months of the year, data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada shows.

Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31, a total of 119,835 refugee claims were made in Canada. Of these, 12,915 were claimants who were on either study permits (11,605) or study permit extensions (1,310), the department data said.

Global News asked the department for a breakdown of how that compares with applications from claimants on study permits dating back to 2015-16 but officials said they needed more time to provide that data.

“This can take up to 10 working days to obtain,” the spokesperson said.

According to a report from the Globe & Mail in April, that number stood at 1,515 applicants in 2018, which appears to show an increase of 600 per cent.

The highest number of asylum claims from students this year came in August, with 1,785 claimants on student visas or study permit extensions applying for refugee status in Canada.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday said Canada had a moral obligation to offer asylum to those fleeing violence and persecution, but also needed to ensure the system wasn’t being misused.

“Our capacity to do that means we need to properly be able to identify who needs most help, who is there as a true asylum seeker and other people using the asylum path as a shortcut to gain Canadian permanent residency or citizenship is something that we need to continue to push back against,” Trudeau told reporters at the United Nations.

This comes after Immigration Minister Marc Miller said in an interview with Global News that a “growing number” of international students are claiming asylum in order to stay in Canada after being allowed in on student