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Indigenous U.S. woman with criminal past wins Canadian immigration appeal
An American woman denied permanent residency in Canada due to convictions for impaired driving and drug possession has won another shot at staying here because the immigration officer who made the decision ignored “the best interests of her children and her experience as an Indigenous person.”
The immigration officer found Kiley Gem Williams was “criminally inadmissible,” and refused her spousal sponsorship application for permanent residency. The 37-year-old member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma applied to Federal Court for a judicial review of the officer’s decision refusing to grant an exception to her inadmissibility based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
“The officer recognized that the applicant previously struggled with substance use and lacked strong family support,” Justice Shirzad Ahmed wrote in a recent decision out of Ottawa.
“The officer acknowledged the corroborative evidence showing a link between the challenges with mental health in Indigenous communities and intergenerational trauma from colonialization. However, the officer does not grapple with the specific implications of these systemic challenges in the particular context of the applicant, such as the applicant’s experience in foster care throughout her childhood, or her parents’ substance abuse issues and their eventual passing.”
Williams met her current spouse, a Canadian citizen, in 2016. She kept living in the U.S. and they married two years later. But they separated in 2019 “due in part to the long-distance nature of their relationship,” Ahmed said in his June 16 decision.
Williams was charged in 2019 and 2020 “with two offences in the United States: possession of a controlled substance and driving under the influence.”
She was convicted of both charges in 2022. Williams got 12 months of probation for possession, which was later revoked and amended to 30 days of unsupervised probation, said the decision. “For the conviction of driving under the influence, the applicant received a sentence including probation for six months.”
Williams reconciled with her Canadian partner in 2020. She and her son “eventually began living with her spouse in Texas and then in Georgia in the United States,” said the decision. “In 2021, the applicant’s spouse became a joint legal guardian for her son.”
The couple renewed their vows in March 2022. Williams and her son began living with her spouse in Canada the following year with temporary resident permits.
Williams gave birth to a daughter in January 2024 in the U.S., “but soon after returned to Canada in February 2024,” said the decision.
She applied for permanent residency that spring, “with a request for an exception to her criminal inadmissibility based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.”
Williams argued “the humanitarian and compassionate factors” in her case outweighed her criminal convictions.
But the immigration officer turned her down in March 2025, determining “that the severity” of her criminal convictions “outweighed the humanitarian and compassionate considerations.”
The immigration officer’s internal notes acknowledge her “family will be negatively affected if she is subject to removal,” said the decision. “The officer accepts that the applicant and her children are established in Canada and that her spouse’s children have embraced her as a stepmother along with her son and the couple’s new-born daughter. Despite these acknowledged factors, the officer notes that the applicant was able to establish herself in both Canada and the United States and continues to own, along with her spouse, multiple properties in both countries.”
The officer analyzed her criminal convictions, noting that Williams “struggled with substance use and the strain from being a single mother without any family support. The officer further acknowledges the fact that she is Indigenous and there is a history of systemic abuse against her community. Nevertheless, the officer finds that the applicant’s education and employment history, including being a cheerleading member in college, show that she was capable of making mature decisions. Consequently, the officer gives little weight to the applicant’s submission that her actions stemmed from intergenerational trauma inflicted upon her Indigenous community.”
The officer didn’t give any weight to her “submissions that, if she had committed her offences in Canada, she would have benefited from the principles relating to the sentencing of Indigenous offenders, which may have reduced her sentence,” said the decision. “The officer finds that this possibility was too uncertain to weigh against other factors.”
The officer emphasized the “severity” of her convictions, “noting the number of deaths caused by crashes linked to drugs or alcohol in Toronto in 2024.”
Lawyers for Immigration Minister Lena Diab argued the officer “was entitled to attribute significant weight” to her criminal offences.
The judge disagreed.
“The officer did not merely attribute significant weight to (her) two criminal offences from events occurring in 2019 and 2020, the officer treated these convictions as the determinative factor. The officer’s unyielding stance towards the applicant’s criminal offences led them to emphasize its importance despite the applicant’s clean record since these offences, despite her counselling, and despite her completion of courses regarding substance abuse and victim impact panels. This type of analysis does not reflect the serious holistic and empathetic exploration of the totality of the evidence that” Canada’s immigration law requires, Ahmed said.
The officer “failed to grapple” with Williams’ “key submissions that may have altered this uncompromising position,” said the judge.
Williams submitted articles to the officer “showing the history of colonialism and the ongoing challenges faced by the Choctaw Nation and other Indigenous peoples within the United States. Her lawyer added “that her childhood and the systemic abuse of Indigenous peoples in the United States impacted her mental and physical well-being at the time of her offences.”
She also told the officer that if she had been “convicted in Canada, she would have benefited from a different sentencing structure, including considerations for her challenging upbringing, involving foster care and the substance abuse of her parents along with laws, practices, customs and legal traditions of the Choctaw Nation.”
Diab’s lawyers argued “that there is no case law supporting that an officer must consider the principles relating to the sentencing of Indigenous offenders within a humanitarian and compassionate analysis.”
The judge agreed with Williams that the officer “was obliged to — and failed to — reasonably grapple with the systemic factors” she faces as an Indigenous person.
The immigration officer’s “failure to engage with the principles of reconciliation … siloes reconciliation to only certain administrative decisions, instead of understanding reconciliation as an effort undertaken by the whole of government,” said the judge.
According to Ahmed, the officer’s “reasoning regarding the best interests of the children provides only a generalized and generic overview of the family’s situation without actually accounting for” the best interest of the kids.
“It is well established that officers must do more than regurgitate applicants’ submissions regarding the best interests of the children, rather they must actually identify, define, and account for the children’s best interests with a great deal of attention,” said the judge.
“In this case, even though the officer notes that the applicant’s children are established in Canada, they provide no details as to their lives in Canada or whether their best interests favour staying in Canada or the United States. The officer does not identify the children’s ages or their emotional needs or interests.”
Ahmed allowed Williams’ application for judicial review and sent her case “back for redetermination by a different officer” within 60 days.
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