E-Paper
Ex-students from India facing removal from Canada to get temporary residence permits
This is being done also ensure that well-intentioned students and graduates will not be subject to a five-year entry ban.
Former students from India facing legal proceedings that could potentially lead to their deportation from Canada as the study permits they used to arrive in the country were based on fake documents will receive temporary residence permits until a task force considers each case on its merits.
“...if the facts of an individual case are clear that an international student came to Canada with a genuine intent to study, and without knowledge of the use of fraudulent documentation, I have provided instructions for officers to issue a Temporary Resident Permit to that individual,” Canada’s immigration, refugees, and citizenship minister Sean Fraser said on Wednesday. “...international students who are not found to be involved in fraud will not face deportation.”
This is being done also ensure that well-intentioned students and graduates will not be subject to a five-year entry ban. Fraser said he took this action as many of those impacted came sincerely to Canada to pursue their studies. But he warned those who did not do so would not be exonerated. He said some among individuals with no intention of pursuing higher education have been involved in organised crime.
“I understand that this situation is distressing for those affected by unscrupulous actors, and I want to assure them that their well-being is of paramount importance,” Fraser said.
The Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) will refer to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada the cases of ex-students who came on forged paperwork for investigation.
Toronto-based lawyer Sumit Sen, who is working with several ex-students, called the announcement positive and added “everybody has woken up that deportations have to cease.” He said that genuine students will not be penalised while those complicit in defrauding Canada’s immigration system will face the consequences. Sen added court proceedings in progress will continue and that the new policy will matter if the individual faces a removal order.
At least 30 students, all from Punjab, are facing removal proceedings. Another 130 or so cases are being investigated. These students arrived in Canada between 2017 and 2020. They started receiving notices from the CBSA in 2021 and 2022 as the agency concluded the letters of offer of admission to Canadian higher education institutions, which formed the basis of their study permits, were fake.
Agents in India allegedly used fraudulent documentation to procure study permits for them and they started receiving notices from immigration authorities once these were detected.
Several of the ex-students have been staging an indefinite protest in the Greater Toronto Area next to a CBSA office. They remain concerned over the continued expense of the legal process.
