Humber College student Gursimran Kaur said she was really shocked when she first heard about a scandal involving fake immigration documents that allowed students to get visas to Canada.
“It is revolting. Our community is suffering so much,” said the first-year Business Management student who is from the Indian state of Punjab.
Dozens of international students from India have reportedly had their visas suspended and have been asked to leave Canada because of fraudulent documents that were used in their immigration processes to come into the country.
Students say they were misled by an immigration agent who used false acceptance letters from different colleges all over the country. So far, that one agent has not replied to requests from these students asking for answers.
“These students had been living in Canada for around five years. Then one day they were told they would have to leave. The agent disappeared,” Kaur said.
“Now, I really think the government should listen to them. They deserve one more chance. The documents were accepted at a first glance, and checking them just now and denying them the next step in their lives in the country is just not fair.”
Kaur wonders why the government didn’t check the students’ documents earlier.
“They entered in the airport with this letter when they arrived, they got their visas approved.”
Humber has said it is aware of the issue.
Andrew Leopold, Head of Communications at Humber, released the following statement on the case:
“Last week, Humber became aware of media coverage about Canada deporting 700 Indian citizens whose admission letters and visa documents were found to be fake. The media coverage is the first information we have seen on this matter,” the statement said.
“Humber has no knowledge, nor have we worked with the agency and agent mentioned in the media articles. Further, Humber has not received any inquiries from students about the situation, nor has any student asked for admission to Humber without our knowledge. As part of our work with Canada Border Services, the agency has copies of our authentic letters of admission to verify against any students coming into the country. Any suspicious documentation that we may find out about is immediately reported to Canada Border Services.”
Another Business Management Humber student from India, Mehakpreet Kaur, says these scams can ruins lives.
“That’s really sad, really heartbreaking and immigration agents involved should be held accountable for their actions,” Kaur said.
“The government should support the students, cause they were victims here,” she said.
“It is really sad to be asked to leave at this point, after spending so much money, time and effort,” she said.
This kind of scam can happen easily because young people can be naive, she said.
“They just get happy to be approved to come to the country so they don’t check for themselves,” Kaur said.
She said she had a cousin falling for a similar scam, in which an agent has told him his visa got refused and made he reapply. In this process, the applicant has to inform the government that he had been refused once.
However, since his refusal letter was false, he then got banned for five years from the country.
“He is living in Australia now. He is still banned, and he will be for two more years. He is willing to come here after this time, but now his image was affected so he might not make it,” Kaur said.
With files from Karl Lewis