Imagine you had the dream for many years to study in Canada as an international student and eventually migrate. You have worked hard for many years and saved up as much as you could. Now the time has come to make the first step, and because you don't want to make any mistake and make sure you will get your LOA and a study permit, you choose to use an agent to handle the process. Everything works out well, you get your LOA and study permit and get to Canada. Your agent tells you there was an issue with the college and you have to sign up to a different school. But no problem, they assist you with everything and you find a new school and program. After studying you get your Post Graduation Work Permit and are happy that you are half way there. Now it finally comes to getting your PR and as your application is being processed you receive a letter from IRCC saying that you are facing deportation from Canada. This is what just happened to 700 international students from India.
What happened?
Recently, more than 700 Indian students are facing deportation from Canada after authorities discovered that their admission offer letters to educational institutions were fake. These students had applied for study visas via Education Migration Services, a company based in Jalandhar, India, and had paid more than CAD $25000 per student for all expenses, including admission fees to a premier institute, Humber College, but excluding air tickets and security deposits.
One of the biggest frauds
This education fraud is unprecedented in Canada and has exposed a major loophole in the visa application process. Experts say that such a big fraud was a result of a large number of applicants to Canada. The fraud came to light when these students applied for permanent residency (PR) in Canada, for which their admission offer letters came under scrutiny. The Canada Border Security Agency examined the documents based on which the visas were issued to the students and found the admission offer letters to be fake.
Students who have been affected by the fraud have revealed that multiple factors were involved, from obtaining forged offer letters of colleges to providing forged fee payment receipts to students for seeking visas.
Who is at fault?
According to an established consultant from Kapurthala, most of the students were provided with offer letters for colleges where they did not end up studying after landing in Canada. They were either shifted to other colleges or asked to wait for the next semester. He added that there is a huge rush of Indian students to Canada and such desperation is being capitalized by some fraudulent agents by conniving with a Canada-based private college.
The role of the colleges which had issued the admission offer letters must also be scrutinized, to determine whether the colleges had actually issued them or if they were forged by the agent. The involvement of such colleges cannot be ruled out as students are mostly unaware of such things.
In this case, the agent did not sign any application, but got everything signed by the students, making them self-applicants. As a result, it is difficult to prove his involvement in this fraud. At the same time, it is also difficult to prove the students’ innocence. However, the fact remains that all the students are innocent, a student said.
What do we learn from this?
Even though you are using an agency, you still have to be somewhat familiar with the process. We don't know exactly what happened but it seems like the students have only dealt with the agent and never communicated with the school directly. At least the tuition payment should go directly to the school and not just to the agent and the students should have been in direct communication with Humber College and not only through the agent.
Always do your own research and get your information from the official websites such as IRCC.
Do you plan on studying in Canada?
Make sure you start the process early so that you have plenty of time to gather all the required documents. And if you have any questions about program options and locations, don't hesitate to reach out to us for guidance.
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