How artificial intelligence is transforming Canadian immigration processing and how to safely navigate the risks and opportunities AI creates for immigration practitioners and their clients.
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Andrew Koltun and Zeynab Ziaie Moayyed
November 25, 2026 at 12:00pm EST
$90
3 hours
Attend Live Online and On-Demand Recording
Artificial intelligence is no longer a future issue—it is already reshaping Canadian immigration practice. Following IRCC’s first official AI Strategy, immigration lawyers and RCICs must understand how automated decision-support tools, generative AI, fraud detection systems, and evolving government policies affect visa processing and client representation. This course examines IRCC’s AI Strategy, Chinook, triage systems, generative AI, Federal Court developments, security screening technologies, and the legal and ethical implications of AI in immigration practice. Participants will also learn practical strategies for protecting clients from AI-related risks, developing responsible AI policies within their practice, and ensuring compliance with professional obligations in an increasingly AI-aware immigration system.
● Five Years of Change at IRCC
o How interacting with IRCC looks nothing like it did five years ago
o The pressures driving this: application volumes, processing targets, and a tight immigration policy environment
o Where this creates opportunity and where it creates risk for applicants and their counsel
● IRCC’s AI Strategy: The New Baseline
o Released in February 2026, IRCC’s first public AI Strategy
o How it fits within the federal government’s broader AI Strategy for the Public Service (2025 to 2027)
o The department’s risk based framework: everyday, program, and experimental uses of AI
o What the Strategy actually promises: human officers keep final decision making authority, and why that promise matters more than it might first appear
o Setting the stage: everything else in this course sits downstream of this document
● The Tools Already at Work
o A current inventory of IRCC’s technology stack
o How IRCC has signaled it plans to expand these tools
● How the Pieces Fit Together: Chinook, ITAT, and Triage
o Triage: where it operates and how it shapes a file from the moment it lands
o ITAT: what has been disclosed publicly, and what remains a black box
• Chinook, Under the Microscope
o The origin story
o Where and how it is deployed today
o What its use has actually meant for applicants and outcomes
• When Chinook Ends Up in Court
o The case law so far
o Why judicial review has real limits as a tool for scrutinizing this technology
• Not the Same Thing: Generative AI vs. Automated Decision Support
o Why Chinook and genAI are fundamentally different tools
• What IRCC Says It Is (and Isn’t) Doing
o IRCC’s public commitment that it does not use generative AI to decide client applications
o Where the department is experimenting: research synthesis and policy development, not adjudication
• Behind the Curtain: IRCC’s Internal Guide on Generative AI
o Overview of the internal guidelines
o How it connects to the AI Strategy and the Directive on Automated Decision Making
o Gaps in governance
• Where This Actually Bites: Generative AI and Express Entry Files
o EE decisions with GenAI assistance in drafting reasons
o Patterns of decision making conducive to GenAI analysis and decision writing
• Where This Actually Bites: Generative AI and Misrepresentation Findings
o IRCC’s fraud detection and content screening tools, and their growing ability to flag AI generated or templated writing in letters of explanation and supporting narratives
o The uncomfortable gap between “IRCC doesn’t decide with AI” and “IRCC is increasingly built to catch AI in what clients submit”
o Misrepresentation exposure under IRPA when AI generated content is wrong, dated, or inconsistent, even without any intent to mislead
o What this means, practically, for how you help clients draft their own materials
● Administrative Law Meets AI
o Paul Daly’s Three Analytical Frameworks (Administrative Law, Administrative Justice, and Accountability)
o How an AI decision may be challenged in Federal Court utilizing Administrative Law Principles
o How to provide accountable governance for AI?
o Shifting to an ex ante framework for regulation
o Should there be a right to a human decision?
● Security: The Issue Nobody Is Talking About Enough
o CBSA’s Security Screening Automation
o CBSA’s use of Facial Recognition Technology
o FRT case law in the Federal Court
o Mandamus and the use of automation tools by self-represented applicants
● Building Smarter Files in an AI Aware System
o Preparing clients for a system that is watching more closely than it used to
o Adjusting how you build submissions
o Tools worth putting in your own kit and your clients’
● Where This Goes Wrong: A Field Guide to the Pitfalls
o Unchecked use of AI by representatives
o When clients bring their own AI use to the table
● Building your own safeguards
o Verification protocols before anything AI touched leaves your office
o Firm level AI use policies, and supervision of staff and students
o Useful guide: The Law Society’s technological competence expectations and available guidance
o Choosing professional grade legal research tools over consumer AI tools, and verifying them anyway
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Immigration Lawyer
My Visa Law
Zeynab has been assisting businesses and individuals with their immigration needs for over a decade. With a practice that merges business and immigration law, she advises clients in a wide range of immigration issues and provides strategic advice for short-term visa planning and long-term immigration purposes.
Zeynab advises multinational corporations, small and medium sized businesses and individuals with regards visa requirements for setting up business operations in Canada, planning for talent mobility and related immigration compliance obligations. Her practices involves assisting business owners and employees obtain work permits and authorizations such as intra-company transfers and Labour Market Impact Assessments (including under the Global Talent Stream). Zeynab is involved in Toronto’s tech community and regularly represents Canadian start-ups in bringing foreign talent to Canada as well as assisting start-up companies to come to Canada either through the start-up visa program.
Zeynab regularly represents clients before the Immigration Appeal Division and the Federal Court of Canada representing clients in residency obligation, sponsorship or removal appeals and applications for judicial review as well as other types of enforcement matters. She is an ardent advocate for use of using technology to better deliver legal services and increase access to justice. She regularly speaks and writes on the topic of immigration and citizenship law developments and policy.
Immigration, Refugee & Civil Litigation Lawyer
Principal Lawyer/Founder, Koltun Law PC
Andrew Koltun is an immigration, refugee, and civil litigation lawyer at Koltun Law PC, serving clients across St. Catharines, Niagara, Hamilton, and throughout Ontario. His practice focuses on litigating issues at the intersection of immigration law, government accountability, and the use of artificial intelligence in immigration decision-making.
Andrew represents clients in complex immigration litigation, including challenges to IRCC’s use of automated decision-making tools, allegations of public office misconduct, negligent investigations, fabrication of evidence, Charter violations, and judicial review proceedings. He also assists victims of human trafficking in pursuing civil claims against traffickers, recruiters, and employers, and represents individuals seeking compensation for professional negligence and fraudulent misrepresentation by immigration consultants and other advisors.
In his access to information practice, Andrew represents journalists, academics, and researchers challenging the government’s handling of ATIP requests and information redactions. He is also a Director of the Artificial Intelligence Monitor for Immigration in Canada and Internationally (AIMICI), a non-profit organization dedicated to monitoring, analyzing, and promoting the fair, transparent, and accountable use of artificial intelligence in immigration systems.
Andrew was awarded the Canadian Bar Association Immigration Law Section Founders’ Award in 2026 in recognition of his contributions to immigration law. He holds a Juris Doctor from the University of Ottawa and a Master of Arts in Global Governance from the University of Waterloo.
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