Canada

Asylum capacity-building: Since 2015, Canada has participated in asylum capacity building activities in the Americas, focusing on Mexico. Canada is continuing asylum capacity building projects in Mexico and will explore expanding this work to other countries identified by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Specifically, Canada has worked with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services and the UNHCR to support the Government of Mexico in processing a growing number of asylum claims. This work includes training, sharing of best practices, fact-finding missions to third countries to support Country of Origin Information (COI) research as well as project funding to, for example, create a web-based translation and interpretation service to support refugee adjudication. Canada has also provided project funding to support asylum systems in Panama and Belize through the development of COI materials and targeted training. Since 2017, Canada has provided assistance to refugee judges in the Administrative Migration Tribunal (TAM) in Costa Rica. For example, in the summer of 2018, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the TAM and the IRB establishing a protocol for the exchange of information and best practices related to the refugee appeal process as well as an exchange program that aims to strengthen refugee status determination.