A Pakistani woman who won refugee status in Canada by saying her male relatives wanted her dead has lost that status, after the Federal Court found nothing wrong with a ruling that she showed no fear of that family when she travelled home three times and posted about it.

Seher Asghar was accepted as a Convention refugee on June 4, 2012. She had told the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) that she fled Pakistan fearing persecution or an honour killing by male relatives for refusing to marry the man they had chosen for her.

Go Ad Free

Then she applied for a new Pakistani passport and went back, in 2015, 2016 and 2017, for 40, 65 and 23 days. She said the trips were to reconcile with her father, introduce her newborn to her mother-in-law and seek non-medical treatment for her autistic child. Her own social media showed her openly in Lahore, the city where the alleged threats arose, visiting her father and one of her brothers, both named among her alleged persecutors, as well as a mosque and a museum.

In August 2021 the Minister of Public Safety applied to cease her refugee protection. The IRB's Refugee Protection Division (RPD) granted the application in February 2023. Under the law, a cessation finding strips refugee status and permanent residence, and the person is to be removed from Canada "as soon as possible."

Asghar argued the board should have done more to draw out her story that family duty and a controlling husband and mother-in-law forced her to go. Justice Darren Thorne was not moved. He noted the 2015 trip "had nothing to do with her husband or his mother," and that she filed no transcript of the hearing and no evidence that the board acted unfairly. "The Applicant and their counsel bear the onus of supporting such claims with evidence, and this has simply not been done."

The judge also accepted the board's reading of her conduct: "returning, openly posting on social media as to her activities during the visits, travelling to Lahore, sightseeing and spending time with two of the family members whom she had previously identified as agents of harm" showed no subjective fear. She testified that an assistant at her refugee lawyer's office told her she could go to Pakistan and "just hide herself." The court observed she "evidently did not heed the advice," travelling openly and posting about it. The application was dismissed, with no question certified for appeal.

Thorne was appointed to the Federal Court on March 7, 2025, announced by Liberal justice minister Arif Virani. Before that he sat on the IRB's own Refugee Appeal Division.