Last Updated On 24 June 2023, 9:31 AM EDT (Toronto Time)
Several international students in Canada are facing removal orders from the Canadian immigration department.
It is an unfortunate situation because most of these international students are actually victims of fraudulent agents.
These agents, who without their knowledge, submitted forged documents including fake offer letters or GICs.
Moreover, they are trapped by the outdated Canadian system since the immigration department is sending them removal order letters after 2-3 years of completion of their studies in Canada.
The removal order letters are being sent since 2021 offering these students to appeal the removal orders.
Some of these students are receiving letters now. According to one of the sources, the number of international students facing removal orders is in the multiple of 100s.
Recently, in a similar case of Karamjeet Kaur, the federal court upheld the decision by Immigration Division (ID) ordering her to leave Canada.
She now only has humanitarian and compassionate consideration of her case left.
Ironically, she came to Canada on a study permit in 2018 and her agent in India used the fake letter to get her file processed, which she was unaware of.
Karamjeet got a removal order in 2022 when she applied for her permanent residency (PR), 4 years after her entry to Canada.
However, in February 2023 Federal court ruled that it was her responsibility to call the college and confirm whether the offer letter was genuine or not.
Gaps In The Canadian Immigration System
International students have been protesting against these removal orders and pointing out gaps in the Canadian immigration system.
Offer letters or GICs or documents are not usually verified by students as they trust their consultants or agents back in India.
As per students, if the offer letter or GIC or any document was fake in their study permit application, the immigration department should have pointed out it at the time of issuing a visa to Canada.
IRCC offices in India, who are trained and experienced at catching forged documents in an applications were also deceived by the same fake documents.
If such officials are unable detect fake documents, then how a teenager or naive young student would have caught such a scam?
Rather, they themselves were victims of this fraud.
Moreover, when they landed at a Canadian airport and an immigration check was done, no official were able to point out the forged documents.
As in Karamjeet Kaur’s case, the agent told her after she landed in Canada, that he had some dispute with the college authorities, so she would have to change her college.
Being new at such a young age in Canada, in such a situation, no one reaches out to college and confirms whether their offer letter is fake or original.
Now that these scams are made public, definitely new students will be cautiously confirming all the documents are original or not. But at that time, nobody knew about these frauds.
After completing their studies in Canada, international students apply to the immigration department for a post-graduation work permit (PGWP).
Even at that point, the immigration department didn’t point out any inconsistencies and issued them work permit to legally work in Canada.
Most of these students are receiving removal orders after 3-4 years of coming to Canada at the time they applied for permanent residency (PR) under one or another program.
What is a removal order in these cases?
The common word used by most people is “deportation.” Deportation is the permanent ban from returning to Canada and people cannot return unless they apply for an Authorization to Return to Canada (ARC).
However, most of these international students are facing an “exclusion order” because of “misrepresentation.” This means that they are removed from Canada for 5 years.
Misrepresentation is defined as intentional or unintentional misrepresentation or withholding substantial information on a relevant topic that causes or may cause an error in decision making.
International students now have the option to appeal their removal orders and the court will decide their fate.
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