Last Updated On 27 May 2023, 11:11 AM EDT (Toronto Time)
Today, immigration minister Sean Fraser said IRCC is actively looking into the recent reports of fraudulent offer letter becoming basis of deportation for international students.
INC – Immigration News Canada posted in March 2023, “Victim Of Fraud; International Students In Canada Facing Removal Orders”
Finally today Sean Fraser inclined and acknowledged that their focus is not on penalizing “victims” rather they are working on identifying culprits.
He via his official Twitter handle said as we quote, “Victims of fraud will have an opportunity to demonstrate their situation & present evidence to support their case.”
This is quite a positive commentary by the Canadian immigration minister and seems to be in favour of international students facing misrepresentation charges.
“We recognize the immense contributions international students bring to our country & remain committed to supporting victims of fraud as we evaluate each case.” he tweeted.
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What are these cases all about?
This matter opened everyone’s eyes after Karamjeet Kaur Canada Immigration Case was made public. She lost her appeal with scheduled removal date of May 29, 2023.
Affected international students have been protesting for quite a some time now in opposition to removal order issued by Canadian immigration for allegedly using fraudulent/fake offer letter to enter Canada.
Some of the consultants in India, without the knowledge of their clients, used fake/fraudulent offer letters and get study permit for them.
These forged documents were so perfect that not even Canadian immigration department in India were able to detect them. As a result, they issued study visa to these international students based on the fake documents.
These students came to Canada and passed immigration check at airport, and not even CBSA officers were able to detect the fake documents. As a result, they issued them study permit.
The consultants proactively lied to them as soon as students landed in Canada, stating that college has cancelled their admission due to consultant’s disagreement with the college.
They further advised the international student to take admission in any other college since they have study permit.
During this whole process, students claim that they didn’t know that their offer letter was fake and based on consultants’ advise they took admission in other colleges of Canada.
After completing their 1-2 year of study, they got post graduation work permit (PGWP) of 1-3 years.
Furthermore, they applied for Canadian permanent residency after gaining valuable Canadian experience of 1-3 years on PGWP.
At this stage after 2-3 years of completing their study, the immigration department sent them removal order citing that they misrepresented by using fake/fraudulent documents.
International students facing removal order claims that if immigration officers who are trained and skilled in detecting falsified papers in an application were not able to catch the fake documents, then how would they have identified these.
They were, in fact, the victims of this fraudulent scheme themselves all along.
Now that these scams came into light, new students will unquestionably verify the authenticity of all documents. However, nobody knew about these forgeries at that time.
The vast majority of these students are being issued removal orders after having been in Canada for 3-4 years at the time that they submitted their applications for permanent residence (PR).
What is the latest development in these cases?
International students facing the allegations of misrepresentation are now appealing the removal orders and presenting side of the story.
In a similar case of Amritraj Singh Batth, Canada allowed to summon his fraudulent consultant to testify.
However, Batth’s lawyer in May 25 hearing stated that despite enlisting the assistance of the police and a detective agency in India, he was unable to serve a summons on Mishra, the education agent. This was despite the fact that he attempted to do so many times.
Many of other students facing the removal order were also Mishra’s clients.
“The applicant is responsible for the content of an application for which they sign. It is too easy to later claim innocence and blame a third party. The jurisprudence on this is quite clear. The intent is not a requirement under the legislation.” Nathan Reid, lawyer for Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) said in May 25 hearing.
Today’s positive comments from immigration minister Sean Fraser has definitely provided some relief and a ray of hope of these international students fighting removal orders.
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