Canada’s immigration enforcement is under a harsh spotlight as new briefing notes suggest the Carney government is still struggling to remove thousands of people who are not supposed to be in the country. The numbers are unsettling, the backlog is real, and officials are openly admitting the system is carrying far more cases than it can comfortably handle. At the center of it all is a basic question that keeps getting louder: if someone is inadmissible, why are they still here?
Internal documents from the Privy Council Office say the Canada Border Services Agency removed about 18,000 inadmissible people last year, which was the best result in years. Even so, that figure still falls well short of the larger pool of foreign nationals who remain in the country, including people with criminal histories and active warrants. Border officials had already warned lawmakers that around 33,000 foreign nationals were still at large, and that number has become hard to ignore.
The federal government says it wants 20,000 removals a year, and the border agency has been given more funding to push removals faster over the next two fiscal years. On paper, that sounds like a serious effort. In practice, the same briefing notes show that adding staff has not been enough to make a meaningful dent in the problem.
That gap matters because the issue is not just about paperwork or administrative delays. CBSA officials told MPs that a small but real slice of the 33,000 has direct links to criminal activity, while others may have committed offenses overseas or inside Canada. Those are not the kinds of cases that invite calm political spin, and they are exactly why the public expects a tougher response.
One CBSA official compared the enforcement workload to a bathtub that keeps filling up faster than it can be drained. It is a blunt image, but it captures the problem pretty well. If more people keep entering the system than can be removed, then every new target becomes a promise that runs into the same wall.
The pressure did not appear overnight. Canada spent years admitting huge numbers of temporary foreign workers, international students, and asylum seekers, and many of those permits eventually expired. When those deadlines passed, enforcement did not suddenly become easier, and the country ended up with a growing list of people who were supposed to leave but did not.
That has landed alongside broader frustration about immigration policy and labor competition. Many Canadians have watched wages, job access, and housing get squeezed while federal leaders kept talking up diversity and growth. The result is a public mood that is far less patient than it used to be, especially when people hear that even those with warrants are still in the country.
There is also a deeper trust problem underneath all of this. A former CBSA vice-president has already said fully removing the thousands of inadmissible people is not “achievable,” which is not exactly the kind of confidence boost citizens were hoping for. When the people running the system sound unsure it can work, the whole process starts to look like a revolving door.
The bigger immigration picture only makes that feel worse. An internal report from a former Immigration policy director said Canada allowed roughly 25,000 asylum seekers in over nearly a decade without proper vetting, and that kind of revelation fuels the sense that the system has been too loose for too long. Carney has embraced the country’s multicultural branding, but critics say the government keeps ignoring the foundations that made Canada stable in the first place.
At the street level, the frustration is easy to understand. People want basic order, fair rules, and a system that actually removes those who break the law or overstay their welcome. Instead, they keep hearing about targets, staffing increases, and internal memos while the same backlog sits there, growing old and very much unresolved.
