The Federal Court dismissed a Mexican mother’s application for judicial review after finding it was reasonable for the Refugee Appeal Division to uphold Merida, Yucatan, as a viable internal flight alternative (IFA) for her and her five daughters. The decision, released October 8, 2026, left the refusal of their refugee protection claims in place.
Case details and decision under review
In Maza v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2026 FC 1250, Mr. Justice Joyal reviewed an October 1, 2024 decision of the Refugee Appeal Division (RAD). The RAD had upheld the Refugee Protection Division’s refusal of the applicants’ refugee claims on the basis that they could relocate safely and reasonably to Merida, Yucatan.
The principal applicant and her five minor daughters are citizens of Mexico. The Refugee Protection Division had found viable IFAs in Merida and Cabo San Lucas. On appeal, the RAD considered only Merida after finding that the RPD had incorrectly assumed the principal applicant’s former husband would return to Mexico with the family.
Applicants challenged safety and reasonableness of Merida
The principal applicant alleged that she was abducted, robbed, sexually assaulted and threatened by criminals connected to events at her backpack manufacturing business in Tlaxcala. She said the perpetrators threatened to kidnap her daughters if she did not pay a ransom.
Before the Federal Court, the applicants accepted that the RAD had reasonably found the local criminal group lacked motivation to pursue them outside their hometown. However, they argued that the RAD unreasonably assessed the risk of gender-based violence in Mexico and failed to properly account for their circumstances as a female-headed household with five minor daughters.
The sole issue before the Court was whether it was unreasonable for the RAD to uphold the finding that the family had a viable IFA in Merida.
Court applied reasonableness review
Justice Joyal applied the reasonableness standard to the RAD’s decision, including its assessment of the evidence and circumstances relevant to the proposed IFA. The Court considered whether the RAD’s reasons showed a coherent and rational analysis justified by the facts and law.
The judgment restated the two parts of the IFA test. First, there must be no serious possibility of persecution, torture, risk to life, or cruel and unusual treatment or punishment in the proposed location. Second, it must not be objectively unreasonable, in all the claimant’s circumstances, to seek refuge there.
The Court noted that a viable IFA is dispositive of a refugee protection claim. Under the second part of the test, the assessment asks whether relocation would be unduly harsh, rather than whether a claimant would prefer to live elsewhere.
RAD’s findings on gender-based risk were reasonable
The Court found it was reasonably open to the RAD to conclude that the applicants had not shown a serious possibility of gender-based persecution in Merida. The RAD had acknowledged that gender-related arguments required serious consideration and had reviewed country-condition evidence describing gender-based violence in Mexico as extreme and alarming.
The applicants argued that the RAD’s reference to a personalized risk improperly required them to show they would be singled out under section 96 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Justice Joyal held that, read in context, the RAD had applied the serious-possibility test and was assessing whether the evidence established a sufficiently serious risk in this case.
The Court said the RAD’s wording could have been better, but its reasons did not conflate the tests under sections 96 and 97 of the Act. The applicants’ prior experience was connected to the original agents of persecution, whose lack of motivation to pursue the family outside their hometown was no longer contested.
Relocation was not found objectively unreasonable
The Court also upheld the RAD’s assessment of whether it would be objectively unreasonable for the family to relocate to Merida. The RAD considered the principal applicant’s current position as a single mother, but weighed it against evidence of her secondary education, her experience co-owning and managing a business with about 10 employees, her work as a housekeeper in Mexico City, and her construction employment in Canada.
The RAD had also found no history of poverty, housing precarity or dependence on the former husband. It relied on evidence that Yucatan was described as Mexico’s most peaceful state, that Merida had a 98.7% employment rate, and that there were job banks for women and social welfare support for women who are victims of violence.
Justice Joyal found that the RAD had not relied on possible support from extended family when reaching its conclusion on the second part of the IFA test. The Court added that the absence of relatives in a proposed IFA location does not, on its own, make relocation unreasonable under the high threshold set by the case law.
Application dismissed
The Federal Court concluded that the applicants had not established a reviewable error in the RAD’s decision. The application for judicial review was dismissed, leaving the RAD’s conclusion that Merida was a viable IFA in place.
Neither party proposed a question for certification, and the Court agreed that none arose.
Practical significance
This decision concerns the reasonableness of the RAD’s assessment on the evidence before it. It illustrates that IFA findings may turn on both the absence of a serious risk in the proposed location and the claimant’s particular circumstances, including demonstrated capacity for self-sufficiency and objective conditions in that location.
As a single Federal Court decision, the ruling does not itself change the general legal test for internal flight alternatives.
Source: Federal Court Decisions