Up to 700 international students, mostly from India, are facing deportation from Canada, having entered the country on false admission letters provided to them by bogus agent four or five years ago.
According to the Toronto Star, the fraud came to light when the students, who had previously been enrolled in vocational colleges in Canada, applied for permanent residence. According to the Indian press the students had all applied to enter study through an ‘agent’ based in the Punjab which has since closed. They were given letters of acceptance from well-known Canadian colleges with which they entered the country. Shortly afterwards, they were told the college could no longer take them and they were switched to other institutions.
When they came to apply for permanent residence, the students were told that the admissions letters were fraudulent and that, since the file of documents received by immigration when they applied for a visa had not been signed by the agent, the students were deemed to have filed for their own applications and were thus responsible for the fake documents.
Immigration Minister Sean Fraser told a community Radio programme: “Every once in a while, you do see bad actors, particularly from other parts of the world, who are difficult to police from Canada, who seek to take advantage of international students. It’s disgusting to see the behaviour of some of the promoters around the world.”
“With respect to the reports we’ve seen, we have some work to do to understand precisely what’s going on before we can understand what the appropriate solution may be,” he added.
