Canada Under Fire for Immigration Detention Practices
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities took direct aim at Canada in March 2025, publicly criticizing how the country handles immigration detention—especially when it comes to people with disabilities. The committee didn’t mince words: systemic violations are happening. Their spotlight fell on how asylum seekers and migrants with disabilities end up stuck in detention centers, often in regular correctional facilities meant for people charged with crimes. It’s not rare for these detainees to wind up in solitary confinement during a mental health crisis, even though the evidence is clear—such isolation makes things worse, not better.
What really grabbed attention was the issue of substitute decision-making. Imagine being placed in a cell far from home, with a stranger making critical decisions about your healthcare or future without your clear consent. That strips away basic autonomy. The committee flagged this process as fundamentally flawed, leaving vulnerable newcomers at the mercy of systems that offer little transparency or oversight. Appointed representatives may act for detainees, but critics say their decisions often don’t reflect the wishes or best interests of the people they represent.
Push for Community-Based Alternatives, Not Jails
So what does the committee want? A full-on transformation. They urged Canada to ditch immigration detention altogether for people with disabilities and move toward community-based solutions. Housing support, robust mental health services, and real independent legal advocacy topped their list of preferred options. These aren’t just best practices—they’re a direct alternative to putting vulnerable migrants in cells. The call echoes what the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and human rights organizations have been saying for years: lockups aren’t the answer.
Canada has made some efforts at the provincial level, promising to phase out the use of provincial jails for immigration holds by 2024. But at the national level, gaps remain. The federal government’s approach hasn’t fully shifted away from institutional detention, so people with disabilities are still exposed to harm in custody. The UN’s alarm bells are ringing about more than just how detainees are treated—they’re warning about deep-rooted systemic failures.
The critique isn’t unique to disability rights, either. UN experts connected these problems to larger patterns of over-policing and high incarceration rates among Indigenous Peoples and other marginalized communities. These aren’t isolated issues—they’re built into the system, tied historically to colonial attitudes and current social inequality. If you zoom out, the pattern is clear: those already marginalized face additional hurdles when navigating immigration or criminal justice processes, with harsher effects for people with disabilities.
Human rights groups aren’t letting up. They point to community supervision or electronic monitoring as ways to ensure compliance without locking people away, pushing for models that respect both individual dignity and legal requirements. Canada, often seen as progressive on the world stage, is being called to prove it by doing away with practices that harm those least equipped to fight back—instead of defaulting to detention, build real support systems. It’s not just policy—it’s about basic human rights.