Canada: Ex-Indian students may be deported in case related to fake documentation
As many former international students from India face possible deportation from Canada in a case related to fake documentation, Canadian authorities have issued their first removal order in this regard.
Karamjeet Kaur, based in the city of Edmonton in the province of Alberta, received the removal order from the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) on April 24, after exhausting her legal options in challenging potential deportation.
Kaur, originally from Faridkot in Punjab, was sent an air ticket for New Delhi, via Toronto, for May 29. Kaur, who arrived in Canada in 2018, described the official action as “unfair” and said that she was “not a criminal”.
Kaur is among a group of several such former students. There are at least 30 other such students facing removal proceedings, though that hasn’t escalated to the final order being passed, as yet. Another 130 or so cases are being investigated.
These students arrived in Canada between 2017 and 2019, and in rare instances, in 2020. They started receiving notices from the CBSA in 2021 and last year, for a hearing as the agency concluded the letter of offer of admission to a Canadian higher education institution, which formed the basis of their study permits, was “fake”.
The majority of affected students were represented by the agent Brijesh Mishra of the Jalandhar-based counselling firm EMSA Education and Migration Services Australia.
The ex-students said they were being victimised for no fault of theirs. In an open letter under the banner of Victim Students released in March, they said, “We are desperate for justice; we are victims of fraud; we have no criminal level but facing a removal order.”
“No one can understand our anguish when we learned for the first time through CBSA that the offer was fake and we have been dying and struggling ever since,” it added.
The letter to Kaur stated the removal order had now become “enforceable” and “the foreign national against whom it was made must leave Canada immediately”.
Some of the impacted students have joined together and staged protests to bring attention to their plight, seeking some leniency from the Government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. They are planning another such demonstration in Toronto this week.
