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How to Appeal a Permanent Residency Refusal

If your Permanent Residency application is turned down you can appeal. Here we explain how to go about that process.

Joanna boxall
By Joanna Boxall
Last updated 09 January, 2024

If your PR is turned down the first thing you have to do is decide whether you are going to appeal the decision or not. If you choose to appeal then the next step is to serve a formal Notice of Appeal on the Secretary of the Immigration Appeals Tribunal (IAT) – located in the Government Administration Building.

Your Notice of Appeal ought to be received by the IAT within 28 days of your application being refused. At this point all you need to include in the letter are

  1. the grounds under which you are filing the appeal (i.e. that the refusal was (i) erroneous in law (ii) unreasonable (iii) contrary to the principals of natural justice (iv) at variance with the Immigration Regulations)
  2. the decision against which the appeal is made
  3. a copy of your original application and the refusal letter (if that latter document is available) and
  4. a bank draft for CI$1,000 made payable to the CI Government, which is non-refundable.

Once the IAT receive your appeals paperwork you will be issued with a receipt and the IAT will request from the Department of WORC an ‘Appeals Statement’ which will include the reasons for the decision to turn down your PR. It will also include their scoring of your PR application plus all the paperwork which went with your original PR application. The IAT will then forward all of this to you. You are then required to file detailed grounds of your appeal with the IAT and serve a copy to on WORC within 28 days of receipt of the Appeals Statement. In your appeal you must provide written arguments as to why you disagree with the points given in each section, raise any relevant other factors, and provide any supporting evidence/documents.

The IAT will review all the documents and decide whether the appellant’s case has merit. If the IAT decides in favour of the appellant, this will be communicated. The successful appellant will then be given an opportunity to submit updates and/or provide fresh evidence for consideration, and any changes in circumstances as it relates to the application. The IAT will then reconsider your application, and assess you afresh against the points system. Once the Tribunal have made their decision the IAT Secretariat will inform you of the decision.

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