The Indian students, mostly from Punjab, face deportation from Canada after the authorities here found their “admission offer letters” to educational institutions fake.
Toronto: A Canadian parliamentary committee has voted unanimously to urge the border services agency to stop the deportation of nearly 700 Indian students who were duped by unscrupulous education consultants in India to enter the country with “fraudulent college admission letters.”
The Indian students, mostly from Punjab, face deportation from Canada after the authorities here found their “admission offer letters” to educational institutions fake. The matter came to light in March when these students applied for permanent residency in Canada.
In a symbolic move, the all-party immigration committee voted unanimously on Wednesday to call on the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to waive the inadmissibility of the affected students, The Toronto Star newspaper reported.
The committee also asked the CBSA to provide the students, as many as 700 from India, with an alternative pathway to permanent residence on humanitarian grounds or through a “regularisation” programme, the report said.
Calling the students victims of fraud, Jenny Kwan, a lawmaker who tabled the motion said, “So as a first step, this is absolutely essential and necessary. The students are victims of fraud and should not be penalised.”
“These students, I’ve met with many of them, now are just in such a terrible state. They’ve lost money, and they are stuck in a terrible situation. And some of them have deportation orders. Others have pending meetings with CBSA,” the newspaper quoted Kwan as saying.
“We need to have empathy for those students, and we should not exploit the situation and play politics on this issue of those innocent students,” Liberal MP Shafqat Ali said.
The MP for Brampton Centre, where many affected students now reside, added that the students have “gone through and are going through a lot”.
Taking to Twitter on Wednesday, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Sean Fraser said, “We are actively pursuing a solution for intl students who are facing uncertainty due to having been admitted to Canada with fraudulent college admission letters.”
“Those who have taken advantage of people genuinely hoping to study here will face consequences for their actions,” he said in a separate tweet, adding that innocent victims would be given every opportunity to have their cases considered fairly.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that India has taken up the issue with Canadian authorities.