By: Staff Writer
February 20, 2026
Canada’s immigration policy is disproportionately targeting men of Afro-descent a new report finds as men from Africa, the Caribbean and Central America are particularly targeted.
The report, “Race and Racism in Canada’s Immigration Detention System,” said that: “. Interview data, as well as the limited available public data, indicates that immigration detention is predominantly imposed on racialized people, and disproportionately on Black men. Across Canada, research participants consistently reported that immigration detention facilities are overwhelmingly populated by racialized individuals, and particularly Black men from countries in Africa and the Caribbean. This data provides strong empirical evidence showing clear patterned outcomes of racial disparity.
“Canada’s immigration detention system is rooted in a long history of explicit race based exclusion and discriminatory distinctions. While the explicit racial language of past laws and policies has been removed, the same underlying racial logic is evident in the contemporary operation and enforcement of Canadian immigration detention.
“Racial stereotypes and racial thinking continue to shape determinations of detained people’s credibility and demeanour, as well as the framing and analysis of evidence and key legal assessments like those involving ‘risk,’ ‘danger,’ and ‘non-cooperation’.”
Canada does not collect race-disaggregated data on detention. This makes it challenging to identify and address patterns of racial harm. This study is the first to comprehensively analyse race and racism in Canada’s immigration detention system. In addition to analysing limited public data, researchers conducted 50 interviews with experts and people with lived-experience in detention, and found that Canada’s immigration detention system:
- systematically produces racially adverse outcomes that disproportionately impact racialized people, and Black men in particular;
- contains no meaningful safeguards to prevent racism, race-based stereotypes, and other forms of racial bias from shaping detention decisions; and
- lacks effective avenues to identify and challenge racism and racial bias
These findings raise serious concerns that Canada’s immigration detention system creates and perpetuates racial inequality.
The report also said: “Canada’s immigration detention system is interconnected with other state systems that are shaped by structural racism and entrenched racial inequalities. Immigration detention does not function as an isolated system. Rather, it sits at the intersection of multiple systems, structures, and practices that are shaped by systemic racism.
Policing, the criminal legal system, the child welfare system, and other state systems function as pathways into immigration detention and shape who becomes subject to immigration enforcement.
“These systems produce the conditions that render racialized people more visible to immigration enforcement, including: heavy policing of Black and other racialized communities, disproportionate traffic stops of racialized people, disproportionate criminalization, overuse of wellness checks on racialized people, and police responses to poverty or mental health disproportionately impacting racialized people.”