Palestinian families are suing the Canadian government after a temporary scheme that grants visas to Palestinians from Gaza with family ties to the country has been beset by delays.

The scheme has come under fire for its complexity and ineffectiveness in issuing visas, Middle East Eye reported.

Marku and Lee, an immigration and refugee law firm in Toronto, filed a case on February 6 on behalf of 53 Palestinian families who are currently in the Gaza Strip to ask the Federal Court of Canada to process the applications without delay.

The firm says half their clients are children, the youngest of whom is seven months old. They expressed concern that the Canadian government had let the applications “sit in limbo” while conditions in Gaza had progressively worsened and the enclave had become uninhabitable since the scheme was launched more than a year ago.

They said their clients’ Canadian family members had petitioned on behalf of their relatives within a month of the application, and their applications had not yet proceeded to the next stage. The Canadian families petitioning on behalf of their relatives remain concerned for their family members’ lives.