The Federal Court dismissed Neribet Hernandez Hernandez’s application for judicial review of a Refugee Appeal Division decision finding that Mérida, Yucatán, was a viable internal flight alternative (IFA) in Mexico. In Hernandez v. Canada, 2026 FC 1212, released October 1, 2026, Justice Negar Azmudeh found the RAD’s reasoning reasonable.
Refugee claim and RAD decision under review
The applicant, a Mexican citizen, feared the Gente Nueva cartel after an alleged attempt to extort money from her on March 28, 2023, in El Campamiento, in the municipality of Atzalan, Veracruz. She said she tried to report the incident to police but did not return the following day because cartel members were watching her. She left Mexico on April 27, 2023.
The Refugee Protection Division rejected her refugee claim, and the Refugee Appeal Division upheld that result. Both divisions found that Mérida, Yucatán, was a viable IFA. The applicant sought judicial review of the RAD decision.
Court applied reasonableness review
The parties agreed, and the Court accepted, that the applicable standard of review was reasonableness.
The Court described the two-part IFA test as requiring an assessment of whether the claimant would be safe in the proposed location and whether it would be objectively unreasonable, in all the circumstances, to require relocation there. It noted that the burden under the second branch is high and requires real and concrete evidence of conditions that would jeopardize a claimant’s life or safety during travel or temporary resettlement in the safe area.
RAD reasonably refused proposed new evidence
Before the RAD, the applicant sought to file two online public documents published after the Refugee Protection Division decision. She argued that the documents showed Mérida’s cost of living was significantly higher than Veracruz and that relocating there would exceed her financial means.
The RAD found that the evidence did not meet the limits for new evidence on appeal under subsection 110(4) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Although the documents had been uploaded after the earlier decision, the RAD found no indication that the information had not been available before or that Mérida’s cost of living had significantly increased since that decision.
Justice Azmudeh held that this conclusion was reasonable. The cost of living in Mérida had been raised at the Refugee Protection Division hearing, and the applicant had not shown that the issue was a new risk or a new fact arising after that decision. The Court also noted that the RAD’s role is not to provide an opportunity to complete an inadequate record before the Refugee Protection Division.
Evidence supported the Mérida IFA finding
The Court found that the RAD reasonably concluded the cartel had the means to locate the applicant but lacked the motivation to pursue her in Mérida. The RAD relied on the absence of problems for the applicant in the weeks after the cartel visit and after her attempt to report the matter to police. It also noted that her family members had not been targeted or harassed.
The applicant’s belief that the cartel was watching her former residence in Atzalan did not, without further evidence, establish that it intended to find her in Mérida. The Court found that her submissions effectively asked it to reweigh the evidence.
The RAD had also reasonably found that the applicant would not face a prospective risk in Mérida because she was a woman and single mother. It considered objective country-condition evidence, including evidence that single mothers in Mexico generally support their households and have access to government programs. The RAD also found that the evidence on gender-based violence did not establish a risk in the proposed IFA because the applicant did not fear an intimate partner or family member.
Financial hardship did not make relocation unreasonable
The Court found that the RAD gave clear reasons on the second branch of the IFA analysis. The RAD considered the applicant’s circumstances as a woman and single mother of three children, as well as her work history and country-condition evidence.
While the RAD recognized that Mérida had a higher cost of living, it also considered evidence that average income there was higher. The Court stated that financial difficulties, a high cost of living and a lack of affordable housing do not, by themselves, amount to conditions that jeopardize a claimant’s life or safety.
The RAD also considered the applicant’s submissions about criminal activity in Mérida and concluded that the rate of that activity did not make the IFA unreasonable. The Court held that the RAD’s reasoning was clear and rationally grounded in the relevant evidence.
Judicial review dismissed
Justice Azmudeh concluded that the applicant had not established that the RAD’s IFA finding was unreasonable under either section 96 or section 97 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
The application for judicial review was dismissed. No question was certified.
Source: Federal Court Decisions