In November 2016, the Immigration Appeal Division (IAD) launched an email initiative in its Western Region to enable the use of email as a means of sending and receiving appeal documents. After receiving positive feedback from appellants and counsel, a decision was taken to extend this initiative indefinitely, until such time as the IAD is able to provide a permanent solution for exchanging documents electronically.
The objective of this initiative is to phase in a more efficient way of communicating with the IAD and parties. Before this initiative, the IAD only received and sent paper documents using regular mail. The use of email as the preferred method of communicating with the IAD and between parties in the initiative does not preclude parties or the IAD from continuing to use regular mail or other methods of delivery allowed by the IAD Rules. The initiative is premised on voluntary participation by the parties.
Participating is easy. Appellants can simply fill out a consent form. There is a separate form for counsel, which will remain on file and can be used for all participating appellants they represent. Appellants will receive this consent form by mail when they receive a letter from the IAD acknowledging receipt of their appeal.
For more information regarding this initiative, please consult the
Questions and Answers.