What can make a refugee claim ineligible to even be referred to a hearing?

A number of specific circumstances can stop a claim from ever reaching the Refugee Protection Division for a hearing. These include already having been recognized as a refugee in another country where you could safely return, having had a prior refugee claim in Canada already finally decided, rejected, withdrawn, or abandoned, being found inadmissible on certain serious grounds such as security or serious criminality, or the claim being barred under an agreement like the Safe Third Country Agreement because you arrived from a country where you could have sought protection first.

These bars are about eligibility, not about whether your underlying fear is genuine — a claim can be entirely credible and still never be referred to a hearing if one of these bars applies. Some ineligibility findings can still leave other routes open, such as a Pre-Removal Risk Assessment before removal, though those routes are narrower and don't offer the same process as a full refugee hearing.

Because an ineligibility finding is a legal determination based on specific facts about your history and how you arrived, anyone concerned this might apply to their situation should get advice before or immediately after the eligibility interview, since the underlying facts, not the strength of the story, are what decide the outcome.