I have sat across from a lot of parents. Some of them cry before they even finish their first sentence. Others hold it together right up until they mention their child’s name and then something in their voice breaks.

That’s what this work is, really. It isn’t just paperwork and case law. It’s a five-year-old who has never lived anywhere but Canada, asking why they might have to leave the only home they remember. It’s a mother trying to explain in a language her son barely speaks, why they might have to move to a country he’s never seen.

Section 25 of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act gives officers at IRCC the discretion to grant permanent residence or an exemption from certain requirements on humanitarian and compassionate (H&C) grounds. And when a child is involved, the law requires something specific: the officer must consider what is in that child’s best interests. Not as an afterthought. As a central part of the decision.

I want to walk you through the kinds of situations I see most often because if any of them sound familiar, I want you to know there may be a path forward.

But this is the only home she’s ever known

Some children are born in Canada. Others arrive as infants or toddlers and grow up here entirely first steps, first words, first day of kindergarten, first best friend, all of it happening on Canadian soil. By the time a removal order threatens the family that child may not have a single memory of anywhere else.

Officers are asked to weigh how deeply rooted a child is in their school, their friendships, their sense of community against what it would mean to uproot all of that. This isn’t technical. It’s recognizing that a child’s life isn’t a line on a form. It’s a whole small universe they’ve built, one birthday party and one report card at a time.

He has a doctor here who understands his condition

I’ve worked with families where a child has a serious medical condition something being actively managed by a specialist team in Canada, with a treatment plan years in the making. For these families, go home and continue treatment there isn’t a reasonable option. Sometimes that specific care simply doesn’t exist where they would be returning to. Sometimes it exists, but is inaccessible or unaffordable.

When ongoing, specialized medical care is genuinely unavailable in the home country, that’s not a small detail in an H&C application it can be one of the most powerful facts in the entire case.

Their father is here. If we’re removed, they lose him.

One of the hardest conversations I have is with a single parent who is facing removal while their child’s other parent who has status in Canada stays behind. This isn’t about immigration status anymore. It’s about whether a child gets to keep both parents in their life.

IRCC is required to think about what family separation would actually mean for that child, day to day. Not in the abstract. In real terms, missed school pickups, missed bedtimes, a relationship reduced to video calls, if that.

She doesn’t even speak the language.

I’ve met children who were born here, raised here, educated here and who, if sent to their parents’ country of origin, would be functionally starting over in a language they don’t speak, in a culture they don’t know, among people they’ve never met. For a young child, that isn’t an adjustment. It’s a kind of erasure of everything familiar, all at once.

This lack of connection to the home country is a real and recognized factor. A child’s ties should be assessed as they actually exist not based on where their parents happen to have been born.

He needs the therapy program he’s in right now.

For children with special needs, disruption is not a small thing. A child who has spent years building skills through a particular therapy program, a particular school placement, a particular support team that continuity matters enormously to their development. Interrupting it isn’t just inconvenient. It can undo real, hard-won progress.

When a child’s specialized education or therapeutic support exists here and isn’t guaranteed or possible elsewhere, that’s something an officer is expected to take seriously.

What I want families to understand

None of these situations guarantee an approval. H&C decisions are discretionary and every case is judged on its own facts. But I have seen, again and again, that when a child’s story is told fully and clearly not just hardship in the abstract but who this specific child is, what their life actually looks like, what they stand to lose it changes how a case reads.

If your family is in one of these situations, please don’t assume there’s no path forward. There may be. And you don’t have to figure it out on your own.

Deepti Gupta advises families on immigration matters, including humanitarian and compassionate applications. This post is intended for general information and does not constitute legal advice. Every case is different, if you’re facing a removal order or exploring an H&C application, please reach out for a consultation to discuss your specific circumstances.