The last review before removal (PRRA)

The Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (PRRA) is a written application that asks one question: would you face persecution, torture, a risk to your life, or cruel treatment if you were removed from Canada? It is usually offered by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) shortly before a removal. The deadlines are counted in days.

Who can apply

Most people facing an enforceable removal order are offered a PRRA. But there is an important restriction: if your refugee claim or a previous PRRA was refused, you generally cannot apply again within 12 months (to be verified — IRPA s. 112(2)) of that decision, unless your country is on an exemption list. Some people — for example, certain serious criminality cases — receive a restricted form of the assessment.

The deadlines

When the CBSA gives you the PRRA notice, two clocks start. You have 15 days (to be verified — IRPA regulations) to apply, and then 15 days (to be verified — IRPA regulations) more to file your written submissions and evidence. If you apply within the first window, your removal is paused while the PRRA is decided. If you apply late, the application may still be examined — but the removal is not paused.

The new-evidence rule

If your refugee claim was already decided, the PRRA is not a second refugee hearing. The officer will only consider new evidence: evidence that arose after your hearing, or that was not reasonably available to you at the time. This is the rule that decides most PRRA files. The work is to show what has changed — in your country, or in your situation — since the last decision, with documents.

If you never made a refugee claim

For a person who never had a refugee hearing in Canada, the PRRA works differently: it is effectively the first — and only — assessment of the risk you face, without the new-evidence restriction. In that situation the application has to do everything a refugee claim would have done, on paper: establish who you are, what you fear, and why your country cannot protect you. It deserves the same depth of preparation as a hearing.

How it is decided

A PRRA is decided on paper by an officer of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). Hearings are rare, and happen mainly when your credibility is directly in question. That is why the written submissions carry everything: your story, the country evidence, and the legal argument connecting them. An application that simply repeats the refugee claim, without new material, gives the officer nothing to decide differently.

What a decision means

A positive PRRA generally gives you protected person status, which opens the door to applying for permanent residence — see the page on what comes after a positive decision. A negative PRRA means the removal can proceed. The refusal can be challenged at the Federal Court by judicial review, within 15 days (to be verified — IRPA s. 72(2)), sometimes together with a motion to stay the removal.

What I do

I assess honestly whether a PRRA is the right tool for your file — sometimes it is, and sometimes another recourse comes first. If it is, I build the record: the new evidence, the country documentation, and the written argument. If the PRRA is refused and a removal follows, I prepare the Federal Court application and the stay motion. I am a lawyer, a member of the Barreau du Québec, and I represent clients anywhere in Canada, in English, French or Spanish.

If you have received a PRRA notice, both clocks have started. Let's talk about it.