Canada to deport 700 Indian students as visa documents found to be fake

Chandigarh, India (IANS/indianarrative.com): The Canadian Border Security Agency (CBSA) has issued deportation notices to over 700 Indian students whose admission offer letters to educational institutions were found to be fake.

Talking to indianarrative.com on phone from Toronto, Chaman Singh Batth said that after passing +2, about 700 students applied for a study visa through Education Migration Services, Jalandhar, Punjab, headed by one Brijesh Mishra. These visa applications were filed in 2018 onwards till 2022.

Mishra charged each student between Rs.1.6 million and Rs.2 million [the current exchange rate is about Rs.60 for a Canadian dollar] for all expenses including admission fees to a premier institute Humber college. Air tickets and security deposits were not included in the payment to the agent.

Batth said after he and other students landed in Toronto and were heading to Humber college, a telephone call was received from Mishra telling them that all seats in the courses offered to them were full. He added that they would now have to wait six months till the start of the next semester or they could get admission to some other college and save time. He, however, returned their Humber college fee which further made students believe his genuineness.

Unsuspecting students, as advised by Mishra, contacted another less known college and took admission to available two-year diploma courses. After completion of the courses, the students got work permits. On becoming eligible for permanent resident status in Canada, the students, as per the rules, submitted relevant documents to the immigration department.

Batth says: “All trouble started when CBSA scrutinized the documents on the basis of which a visa was granted to the students and found admission offer letters to be fake. Deportation notices were issued to all the students after granting them an opportunity for a hearing.”

To a question, Batth alleged that the agent very cleverly did not himself sign their visa application files, but made each student sign to show that the student did not hire the services of any agent. This was deliberately done by Mishra as he had faked the documents, he alleged.

The CBSA officials were now not accepting the claims of innocence of the “victims” as there was no evidence to prove that agent Mishra prepared and arranged all documents.

The CBSA was also not accepting the failure of the Canadian visa and airport authorities that issued visas and allowed them entry by checking the authenticity of all documents.

The only remedy left for the students is to challenge the deportation notices in court where proceedings may continue for three to four years. It is common knowledge that hiring the services of Canadian lawyers is a very costly proposition.

When the parents of the students who had been scammed repeatedly tried to contact the agent in Jalandhar, his office was found locked.