Mallika Dureja
A group of affected students have claimed they were the victims of fraud and are now at risk of being deported from Canada because their study permits were allegedly founded on phoney paperwork created by an agent in India.
Though the precise number of affected students is unknown, at least 70 of them have banded together in an online forum to address their issue as a group. They are subject to a Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) exclusion order, which could result in their deportation from the nation and a five-year ban on reentering it.
In some rare cases, the students landed in Canada in 2020. The arrivals took place between 2017 and 2019. Beginning in 2021, the CBSA began notifying them of hearing dates after determining that the letter of offer of admission to a Canadian higher education school that served as the foundation for their study permits was “fake.”
Agent Brijesh Mishra of the Jalandhar-based counselling company EMSA Education and Migration Services Australia represented the bulk of the impacted students.
One of the students, Inder Singh, 27, a resident of Brampton and a native of Amritsar, revealed to the Hindustan Times that the cost of obtaining his student ticket to Canada was close to 14 lakh rupees.
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As New Delhi has expressed concern over their situation, three of the affected students also conferred with representatives at the Indian Consulate in Toronto. The issue was being pursued with Canadian authorities, according to a senior official with the Indian High Commission in Ottawa.
The pupils claimed they were being victimised despite having done nothing wrong. “We are desperate for justice; we are victims of fraud; we have no criminal record; and we are legitimate students who completed our programmes at the university or college level but facing a removal order,” they wrote in an open letter published under the banner of Victim Students.
Some of us successfully obtained study permit extensions or post-graduate employment permits after completing our programmes at private or public colleges, the letter stated.
The mandate of enforcement officers is to support CBSA operations and law enforcement organisations in Canada and abroad by gathering, analyzing, collating, and disseminating information on activities suspected of breaking Canadian laws, particularly when they pose threats to the health and safety of Canadians and the Canadian economy, according to a CBSA spokesperson in response to questions from the Hindustan Times.
For security, health, or financial reasons, foreign citizens may not be admitted. All foreign citizens and permanent residents who are barred from entering Canada by the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) and who are the subject of an active removal order must be removed by the Agency in accordance with the law.
Many of the students have retained attorneys in order to attend meetings or challenge potential deportation.
The Indian High Commission had raised the problem of agent fraud and how it might negatively affect Indian students travelling to Canada in December. It also shared a link to institutions that are approved by the Canadian Government.
However, for the group of students who face deportation, the impact of the alleged fraud on their ability to remain in Canada is already a fact. The statement claimed that some people experience “hellish feelings” and “suicidal thoughts” during this time. They must now pay expensive legal costs in order to challenge the deportation proceedings.
“We are not suspects; we are all true pupils who were defrauded. Nobody could possibly comprehend our agony when we discovered for the first time through CBSA that the offer was a fraud, and we have been perishing and suffering ever since,” it said.
