In 2025, Canadian federal courts and the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) rejected dozens of refugee claims from Punjabi migrants who allege persecution in India for supporting the Khalistan movement, with judges repeatedly describing the applications as opportunistic or lacking credibility.
One emblematic case highlighted in a July 2025 investigation by the National Post involved 22-year-old Gagandeep Singh from Haryana, who initially claimed he fled India after being framed for murder but later amended his story to include pro-Khalistan activism in Canada. The Refugee Appeal Division (RAD) overturned an initial grant of protection, calling it “yet another fraudulent refugee claim” because Singh’s narrative was “strikingly similar” to nearly 200 others prepared by the same Brampton-based consultant, Deepak Pawar. Federal Court Justice Guy Régimbald subsequently criticized the RAD for focusing too heavily on “form over substance,” noting in his ruling that “asylum narratives are not exercises in creative writing,” and sent the file back for redetermination, according to the National Post.
Similar outcomes have become routine. In August 2025, Justice Benoit M. Duchesne upheld the rejection of Amandeep Singh and Kanwaldeep Kaur, a couple who arrived on visitor visas in 2018 and, facing removal, suddenly declared themselves Khalistan supporters complete with Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) voter cards and protest photos, a case recorded in Federal Court file IMM-4214-24. The RAD had already ruled their political conversion “disingenuous and lacking good faith.”
Official IRB statistics underscore the scale of the phenomenon, with Indian nationals—predominantly from Punjab—filing 9,947 refugee claims in the first six months of 2025 alone, representing 18% of all claims processed by the Board, according to IRB data on “Claims by Country of Alleged Persecution – 2025.” CBC News, which cited IRB figures, reported that Indian claims soared from just 225 in 2013 to more than 13,000 in the first eight months of 2024, with rejection and abandonment rates double the global average, in an update published in September 2025.
At least 30 Federal Court judicial reviews of Khalistan-linked claims were dismissed in 2025, with only four sent back for rehearing, according to an analysis of CanLII dockets, and judges have consistently given “minimal weight” to last-minute social-media posts, SFJ referendum cards and templated affidavits from Punjab.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller said in a March 2025 interview with Global News that the government is intensifying audits of consultants and accelerating inadmissibility screenings in response to what some officials privately call abuse of the “Khalistan card.”
Refugee advocates caution against blanket skepticism, and York University professor Sean Rehaag told CBC that acceptance rates for Indian claims reached approximately 50% by 2022, reflecting documented human-rights concerns in some cases. Nevertheless, the courts’ message is clear: participation in Canadian Khalistan rallies or possession of an SFJ voter card, without evidence of pre-flight risk, is no longer enough to win protection.
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As winter removal flights resume, thousands of Punjabi claimants whose work or study permits have expired now face a stark choice: prove genuine, individualized persecution or return home.
