Can I lose my refugee protection?

If the (IRB) accepts your refugee claim, you become a and can apply for permanent residence.

You remain a protected person even after becoming a . This means that you can hold two kinds of status at once.

You can lose both your protected person status and your permanent resident status if your actions show that you might not need Canada's protection anymore. This is called cessation.

Cessation

You can lose your protected person status if you do something that suggests that you no longer need protection. For example:

you travel to your home country for any reason, even for a short time
you apply for a new passport from your home country
you use a passport from your home country to travel to other countries, even if you got the passport before becoming a refugee
you relocate to your home country, buy a home, or run a business there
you become a citizen of a new country other than Canada

Losing your protection this way is called cessation.

When you lose your protected person status because of cessation, you usually also lose your permanent resident status, if you had it, and become .

It does not matter if you have lived in Canada for many years. If you lose all status, you usually need to leave Canada.

Permanent residents who came to Canada through overseas refugee resettlement can also lose their status through cessation.

The government can also apply to cease your refugee protection if your home country becomes safe. But in those cases only, after you lose your protected person status, you keep your permanent resident status if you had it.

Other ways you can lose your status

You can also lose both your protected person status and your permanent resident status if:

The government believes that you gave false information in your refugee claim, or left out important information. This is called vacation.
The Minister appeals the decision that gave you protected person status, and the sets the decision aside. Read Step 5 of The Minister is involved in my refugee claim. What do I do?

Canada can also deport a protected person if that person becomes a danger to the public or to Canada's security because of serious crimes done in Canada or outside Canada.

Canadian citizenship

Once you have Canadian citizenship, you can only lose your citizenship if the government discovers that you gave false information, or left out important information in your past applications. So, most people should apply for citizenship as soon as they’re eligible. But for some people, there are reasons to wait or to not apply at all.

Get legal help

It is very important to get legal help right away if:

there's a cessation case against you
you did something that could start a cessation case
you are thinking about doing something that could start a cessation case