2. Find out when you can apply for a PRRA and get your evidence

When you can apply for a Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (PRRA), and the type of evidence you can include with your PRRA, depend on:

• if you have made a refugee claim or a previous PRRA,
• if you were found not eligible to make a claim in Canada, and
• how long it has been since the most recent rejection of your refugee claim, refugee appeal, or application for judicial review at the Federal Court.

You never made a refugee claim

If you've never made a refugee claim or PRRA, you will become eligible for a PRRA as soon as there is an enforceable removal order against you. The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officer will give you the application form when they are ready to remove you.

This application form is not available online. The CBSA officer must give it to you.

You can only provide “new” evidence to explain why you're afraid to return to your country. All evidence that you include in your PRRA is considered new evidence if you've never made a refugee claim or PRRA before.

You must provide strong evidence to support your PRRA. You can provide written documents of any kind that help to explain why you're afraid, including:

• your own affidavit
• human rights reports, magazine or newspaper articles
• legal documents
• police documents
• medical documents
• personal letters or affidavits from friends or others who can help explain your fear

You already made a refugee claim

If you've already made a refugee claim or PRRA, you won't be eligible for a PRRA until one year has passed since your refugee claim or previous PRRA was rejected, abandoned, or withdrawn.

If you made an appeal to the Refugee Appeal Division (RAD) that was rejected, you won't be eligible for a PRRA until one year has passed since the RAD's decision.

If you made an application for judicial review to the Federal Court to review your RPD or RAD decision and the Court rejected your application, you won't be eligible for a PRRA until one year has passed since the Court's decision.

In these situations, when you become eligible to apply for a PRRA, you can only provide “new” evidence to explain why you're afraid.

The date of a document doesn't always mean that the evidence is new. Evidence is new if it describes:

• relevant events that happened after the previous refugee claim or PRRA application was decided,
• information that was only discovered after the previous refugee claim or PRRA application was decided, or
• information that existed when the previous refugee claim or PRRA application was decided, but that you could not provide at that time. You will need to have a good reason why the information was not provided earlier.